Arbor Green Landscapes

About five years ago we had paid a contractor to excavate our back yard, lay a liner, a bed of pea gravel and install colorful irregular flagstone we had picked. The seams between the flagstone were filled with a thin layer of black powder that would cover the pea gravel. We had gotten the idea from some HGTV show and at first it looked great! Unfortunately, the HGTV show we got the idea from was a house in Arizona. This was a stupid idea in DC. Quickly, the black powder was blown out by the rain and the pea gravel was soon getting blown out as well, creating toe-stubbing gaps between the stones. Weeds were also popping through the seams and the yard had gotten ugly and impossible to maintain. (An aside to Angie's List members. I have to admit, the original contractor did what we told him to do. But over time I've come to appreciate contractors who know their stuff, and are willing to tell customers that what you are trying to do might be stupid and investing a little more money the first time will save you money later. We wound up paying for this job twice.) Anyway . . . friends of ours who have a DC townhouse similar to ours had used Arbor Green to create a backyard similar to what we had attempted. But their yard had weathered much better so we called Renee to set ours right. She came over and told us that what was happening in our yard was predictable, given the construction. She recommended we put down a concrete bed this time and we agreed. I didn't deal with her crew at all. They came after I went to work and were gone when I came back. But the work all got done on time and budget. And in the year since they have been here, we have had no problems -- no weeds popping through, the yard has been easy to maintain and the drainage is actually better than before. On her first visit, Renee also sketched out a more comprehensive design for our backyard that included, among other things, a new stone planter box to run about 8' along our fence that would look fantastic and create additional seating in our tiny yard. We couldn't afford to do both at the time but her crew cut the flagstone to accommodate the design and we do plan on bringing Renee back this year (2013) to finish the job. I will either add to this review or write a new one after that work is done.

As I mentioned above, it was a great experience from start to finish with Renee!