RUSSELL'S LANDSCAPING

We engaged Russell to implement a landscape architect's drafted design for our front yard. We were initially very happy with the work (it "looked" great), but came to regret choosing him as a service provider in the following months. Russell was very engaged and active throughout the main project. Accounting for the fact that he's a one-man shop (no crew, it's just him), the work was done at a very reasonable pace. The yard was finished during the fall, and visually looked great, so we paid his final payment without any reservations. However, six months later as the weather changed, we started running into problems. The irrigation system he installed was completely inadequate. It was actually missing significant (and obvious) coverage for part of the lawn, and it offered completely inadequate flow rates at several of the trees. Russell assured us that all of his work carried a 1-year guarantee, and he was initially adamant that he would follow up and fix. But over the course of a few months, we grew tired of numerous promises to visit that he missed, instances of him insisting that some problems were created by us not him, numerous times that he insisted the existing irrigation flows were sufficient (when the trees were obviously dying), as well as his reluctance to replace some of the plants that died as a result of these problems (contrary to his guarantee). It reached a point where we stopped even trying to hold him accountable for the continuing issues -- it wasn't worth the stress of trying to get him to fix them (or even agree/recognize the problem). So we gave up and told him we didn't with to continue working with him. Several plants/trees died in our yard as a result, and we've just "lived with the problems" for a long time now (supplanting the irrigation system with hose watering, etc). I'm writing this 2.5 years later because we're finally getting around to hiring a full-service landscaper to truly fix all the problems he left (replanting the trees that died, completely redoing the lawn that he insisted wouldn't need weekblock, and completely redoing the irrigation from scratch). That exercise has reminded us just how poor his irrigation work was, as well as his considerable unprofessionalism in how he failed to stand by his work. That's motivating me to finally write the review. We would not hire Russell again.