TROPICAL OUTDOORS LANDSCAPE & MAINTENANCE, INC.

I caution anyone contracting with this company to get everything in writing, hold the company to the written quote/contract, and don?t expect much in the way of communication. 
Re Cost: The original agreed-upon quote was for $10,000. During the installation, Jerry verbally told me on one occasion, we needed a new sprinkler timer which would cost ?a couple hundred dollars?; and on another that the sprinkler guy was charging ?a couple hundred dollars? more than anticipated. I foolishly okayed these expenses over the phone. When the final bill came, I expected an over-run of about $500, based on two ?couple hundred dollar quotes?. It was $1,500 over !! [Also note, unknown to me for well over a month, the sprinklers were incorrectly running in the back yard and watering just stones. When I discovered it, there was no way to fix it but to cap off those sprinkler heads, as this was an extension of needed front sprinklers.]
Re Contract: We were given an estimate, including what plants were included in the quote. Azaleas were not on the list. When the plantings were finally installed, there was an entire row of azaleas. I hate azaleas. As this happened prior to all the other unpleasant issues, and in the interest of ?getting along?, I accepted the azaleas. Big mistake. They were planted in a full sun exposure, and 3 years later, had still not taken and are scraggly and sad. Get everything in writing, and hold them to it! 
Re Deadlines: The single condition we had with the timing of the job was that it be completed by Thanksgiving, November 24, 2011. Remember, we came to an agreement in September. There were several delays, but we were promised the completion date would be met. In 2009, we had a new front screen porch installed by another company. In laying the pavers for the new walkway, Tropical Outdoors destroyed our front porch beyond our capabilities to repair. Jerry told us not to worry, he would have his screen guy fix it. As of December 22, 2011, (one month past the promised completion date) the screen door had been sitting in the front yard for two months. Numerous attempts to contact Jerry went unanswered. I finally filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
Overall: As mentioned, the final bill was $1,500 over the original quote. Since the screen door had not been repaired when the bill was presented, I held back $500 as an incentive. Tropical Outdoors continuously ignored my pleas to have it fixed. In response to my filing with the BBB, they threatened to file a lien on my home for the unpaid balance ? which was only held back for them to complete the promised work!  Everything was finally resolved in January 2012. But did Tropical Outdoors forgive the $500 in the interest of customer service and as payment for broken promises? No. I cannot in good conscience recommend this company. [You may ask why I've waited so long to submit this review -- the honest answer was I was in fear of reprisal, but have now sold my house.]

They are con artists and try to rip me off. and I fired them because of it. They tried to overcharge me. I used them for a tree trim and then they tried to charge me $7000 for a flower bed with a few bushes so I got rid of them. I found bushes for $65 at three different places. He wanted $200 for them and then came back and said he wanted $300 for them and said it is because he warranties them. I would not recommend them to anyone. He was more concerned about having his sign in our yard then doing a proper job.

Update 12/5/2013 - I just received a call from one of the vendors that supplied a Notice to Owner that Larry told me he would take care of. The vendor told me that Larry told them that I would be taking care of the vendor which I ABSOLUTELY NEVER SAID. He is now lying to his vendors and trying to pass the buck onto me. I had to fire Larry because he never finished my project. This is the worst experience i have ever had with a subcontractor. The only other time was a flooring guy who really messed up my floors but at least he refunded my money. This behavior is absolutely inexcusable. My review is now an F for overall satisfaction and professionalism.

Update 5/23/2013 - Larry contacted us and explained what happened that caused the communication problems we had. Just met with him today and walked him through the property. He is very knowledgeable and is putting together a proposal for us right now. I am changing the review to a B due to the fact that we just met. I will further update the review upon our decision on which landscaper we will choose.

Update 10/16/2013 - After meeting with Larry and receiving his bid, he offered us the best deal for the money so we decided to go with his company. We were very excited and his team was able to get started within a week of agreeing to perform the work (approximately early July 2013). The demo was done after a couple of days and then that is when all the trouble started. Larry had told us the project would take 5 days. My wife and I were both surprised because of the magnitude of the project but we also are not professional landscapers. A week after the demo was completed the SOD arrived and then a few days later the plants arrived so we thought everything was on schedule. The crew got to work laying the sod and replanting the flower beds with the newly arrived plants. However we noticed it was not all of the plants. Additionally, Larry's crew was supposed to fix my sprinkler system because it was inefficient for new design. They did not do this before the SOD was laid and i had to make some tweaks myself and had to shut off several zones where there were busted heads. I was very upset about this b/c i didn?t want the new sod or new plants to die. Larry and his crew did come out a few days later and rectify the issue but then that
is when things got really bad. The proposal included a thin paver patio for the back yard and the pavers had not arrived. Larry gave us this story that the paver company he used was bought and then changed product lines and there was going to be a delay in receiving the pavers. Almost a month later (now into mid to late august) the pavers finally arrived and Larry was able to start working on the patio. We wanted to have a curved end of the patio to surround a fire pit and Larry changed the plan without telling us and made a straight wall. When questioned about the change he said that he thought it would give us more room and that a curved wall of that length would be "impossible." It was definitely not impossible as there are plenty of these designs  shown on his website, he just didn?t want to do it. He finished the project near the end of August; however, we gave him a few items for a punch out list. To this day he has not completed the punch out list and we have since terminated his contract with us.

Now, during this whole process we received 2 "Notice To Owner" documents stating that Larry had not paid two of the vendors for materials in conjunction with our project. A Notice to Owner is apparently an industry standard that gives a vendor of your contractor the right to lien your property if their bills are not paid for items associated to your project. The notice to Owners were received almost immediately after the materials were delivered and installed on our property in July. To this day he has not  settled those debts and i have not received any "release of lien" from either company. Additionally, secondary notices from each company were delivered and noted that Larry had bounced checks in conjunction with these bills and that the debts were still owed. This is when we saw how much he paid for the items compared to how much he charged us for the items. Now Larry's costs "include" installation, but the difference in prices was extreme and I would have rather seen a separate line item for labor rather than the ?inclusive? price he gave us.

During the project Larry said it would be 50% down and then the balance once the project was completed. However, Larry asked us for several advances on the project for "performance." We gave him the money because things were coming along but now we regret that decision. While the project is about 98% done it was one of the worst experiences dealing with Larry for this project. He continually did not promptly return calls or text messages and was extremely difficult to get a hold of, especially when all the Notice to Owners came in.

Here is the bottom line. Larry?s crew was very nice and considerate during the project. They even made some ?artistic? adjustments that turned out very nice. However, they did not do several things that I wanted them to do. They did not treat the flower beds for weeds or lay down a weed barrier before planting all the new foliage, even though I asked him about it. He said it wasn?t necessary and that all the rocks we put down would prevent the weeds. That is a bunch of BS and I should have made him put a barrier down and now we are dealing with weeds everywhere in the flowerbeds. The grading of the back yard could have been done much better. Granted, it was a gigantic mess and he had to deal with several ground down stumps, however, he is a professional and should have ensured the ground was properly graded. Finally, the paver patio, while it looks good, is not of the quality of a company whose primary function is to lay down hardscape. If I had to do it over again I would not have used Larry to lay down the patio. While my review is very harsh it is not a reflection of the crew Larry used for the project but of Larry himself. He clearly has cash flow issues and I would avoid using his company at all costs until he turns his business around. I do NOT recommend him for any landscaping projects that you might have.

There was no wait to schedule the job, and the work was finished in a very timely manner. Best of all we love the look of the new landscaping and it goes perfectly with the style of our home!

I thought the finished product was unbelievable. It was beautiful. The people that came out were hardworking. I had no questions about them. They did a wonderful job. The price seemed a bit high to me. I just can't tell you how beautiful a job they did.

We called for an estimate and got an answer in a very timley manner.  Larry showed up at the agreed upon time.  He was very patient and understanding with all our questions.  He laid out a very detailed plan of what he could do for us.  His estimate included all the costs of each plant and tree, removal costs and sidewalk cost.  After talking it over we agreed to hire his company.
His crew arrived at the scheduled time to begin work.  I cannot say enough good things about the men he has working for him.  They are very professional, very knowledgeable and extremely hardworking.  They went far above and beyond what we had expected.  They also gave us suggestions about what we could do with some other areas of our yard.  Each day they arrived on time, worked hard all day and cleaned up at the end of each day.  When they were finished we were extremely pleased with the outcome.
The men were so polite each day and pleasant to be around.  They also, were very patient with all our questions.  I cannot say enough good things about the company.  I would highly recommend them to anyone in need of landscaping services

It was a great deal for pressure washing back patio and front driveway along with sidwalk , was easy to schedule and they came out on time and took care of the job. There was a small area that was left not completly clean in the end, but overall very good. Would use them again

The design and quality of the landscaping was excellent.  The crew was professional and hard working.  I required some irrigation re-routing which took a few attempts to get perfect but they listened to my needs and got it all going well.  The large trees were installed over 2 days and done very well.  All of the trees were in good health.  Many other smaller plants were installed to complete a quality landscaping look.  A few unplanned trips were needed for them to help finish installation of some grass but they eventually got all the grass in as well.
My biggest complaint was some removal of some deck pavers that were not theirs.  They were leftover from the pool deck and they moved them so they could do the landscaping but took them away without asking permission.  I repeatedly asked for their return over weeks and was assured they would be.  I eventually gave up since it became clear the return of my property was not important to them.  I would have given them a much higher score if not for this.

Professional and prompt

Jerry and his team were great! They were hard working and got the job done quickly. Jerry was able to draw plans for an overall yard which included plantings and pavers, and then re-focus the plans down to paver areas based on our feedback. 
The backyard has been transformed and now we have a scalable lighting system we can work with in the future. The pavers were matched perfectly.
We are now going to work with Jerry and his team on future projects that include re-landscaping at the pace we want them to. It's been great working with Jerry and we appreciate his approach.

Great Job.

When Jerry Franco came to my home, he already had a vision of how the islands should be landscaped.  Being from Virginia, I am not that familiar with the planting varieties in Florida.  I just wanted to be assured that whatever he suggested could handle freezing temperatures so I would not have to replace them later on. He said the islands needed color since the rest of the yard was predominately green and they needed balance in the size of the plants. The idea was not to have plants that would eventually grow so large and wide that they would block the view of the house. I accepted his suggestions without really knowing what type of plants he was to use.  His descriptions were very detailed - he sure knows what he is talking about.  His team started the very next day.  Just cleaning our the islands was a major project!  His crew was awesome! They truly worked as a team and cleaned out the islands in a matter of hours.  They had the right equipment arriving just when they were ready to start the next phase. Jerry explained that the entire project will take two days to complete. When they started planting these beautiful ligustrum trees and oak leaf hollies, I couldn't believe the difference.  Neighbors were coming by admiring the work and the team just started the planting.  Once the large plants were in, then they started on the rest of the design with beautiful and colorful plants.  They also installed LED lighting and re-did the sprinkler heads in each island.  By the end of the second day, the mulch was down and the job was done! Awesome! I love their work - very professional, friendly, willing to please, and just fun to deal with. I have a second phase in mind and there is no question that Jerry Franco and his crew from Tropical Outdoors and Landscaping will be doing the work.  They are first rate, and they deliver great service and high quality plants.  I just love the design!  These people know what they are doing and they will tell it to you straight - what works and what doesn't work.

Everything started off great with his company, his guys came out every week to check on what they did, the landscaping began to die and they blamed it on my pool. I was paying for their guys to come out and attend to my yard and ended up telling them to not come out for the lawn service since everything was just dieing. I tried and tried to get in contact with the owner with emails, calls, and text's, it took months for him to respond to me.

The owner said he would come out and look at the damage that has been done and he has never shown or given me a call back.

Jerry, foreman Linus and crew did an amazing job.  They were very punctual and courteous.  Attention to detail is evident.  I spent a little more than I originally planned but the outcome is fantastic.  The only surprise expense not on the original quote was the $1000 it costs to redo the irrigation.
Highly recommend and will use again.  Also plan on having them do the maintenance.

We would recommend that if you hire Tropical Outdoors that you must be pro-active in staying in close contact with Jerry, a co-owner.  He is extremely busy and is managing several job sites at once in a very large territory so you have to be very specific about the details and oversee the job yourself and you MUST keep in touch with him often.  As they say, "The devil is in the details."

We asked to stay within a $5000 budget and Jerry agreed to do that.  However, the charges added to the bill after work was completed for the irrigation system and another charge which were listed as time and expense but we didn't anticipate they'd be $1000 more from our conversations.

Minor issues we had included the removal of all of our termite stations which had to be replaced by our pest control company.  When we called about them Jerry came out to see if they were just under the mulch but they weren't.  We never heard back from him about them.
 
Also, we noticed at the last minute that a change in the design was not incorporated (dealing with two very large plants in the front yard) and some of the scalloped concrete edging had been overlooked.  These were then addressed in a last-minute, rushed way as the crew was leaving and had equipment and debris loaded and ready to leave.   It appeared that this was because the crew has many jobs and are always pressed to move on. 

We requested a specific type of mulch and the crew installed a different wood.  After several phone calls Jerry agreed to replace it and we waited for him to get back with us to set a time to do that.  When we got a call back several days and calls later he indicated he forgot which mulch we wanted.  He offered to change it but we waited several days and didn't hear back.  We decided we would just leave it.  

In fairness and honesty, Jerry is doing a lot of work at once and this does interfere with some details that can be off-putting to customers who expect a project to be closely supervised and details covered well.  Tropical Outdoors' crew is quick but we recommend someone be on the job site supervising the details.

Once again we want to stress that the overall work was very good and we enjoy sitting at our breakfast table or in our living room and enjoying the beautiful, peaceful scene in our yard!

We live in another state so needed someone dependable in completely renovating a neglected yard of a house we had just bought.  We read various reviews on Angie's list and received different bids.  Jerry's bid was the best plus we felt that he was very honest.  He did everything that he promised to do.  We were going to use an existing pump for irrigating the lawn using lake water.  He discovered that the pump was burned out and needed to be replaced.  He was very fair in this additional expense.  We were very pleased in the finished product and would definitely use Tropical Landscape again.

Jerry and I had some scheduling challenges, but we remained in contact via text messaging and finally met on Friday, the day before his daughter's wedding.  Jerry quickly assessed the lawn damage and provided a comprehensive plan for bringing the lawn back to a healthy state.  He surveyed the backyard and made suggestions for the future.  He understood that I would be working on the projects in phases due to budgeting and didn't pressure me to accelerate my plans.  Jerry (and his company) assigns the same crew to the lawn maintenance so there is consistent service each week.  Although most of his clients are commercial (i.e. much larger accounts), Jerry treated me respectfully and wasn't condescending when he saw my small lawn.  I am looking forward to working with Jerry and I'll update this report in a few months.

Tropical Outdoors had just replaced my next door neighbor's lawn and did their landscaping.  It looked great, and my neighbor recommended them.  I checked Tropical Outdoors on AngiesList and they were highly rated so I gave them a call.  Jerry came out and measured my lawn and emailed me an estimate.  Their price was the best price I received from a total of three landscaping companies, so I gave them the job.  I wanted the job finished close to my closing date, and Jerry completed the work on time and at the estimated price.  I am very pleased with the results and I would hire Tropical Outdoors again.

Jerry came out and acessed my yard.  Told him what I wanted, but left the design up to him.     

The ground was cleared, 4 zone irrigation system installed, driveway torn up and widened, pavers installed, including walk to front door, plants, trees and grass in place, all in about 3 1/2 days.  My yard is beautiful; the talk of the neighborhood. 

The crew with Linus was outstanding.  They were polite, worked well together, seemed in constant motion.  No one standing around.  The area was cleaned up each day, nothing just laying around.  Even my neighbors commented on how they worked.  

I definitely got my money's worth and couldn't have asked for anything better. 

They were on-time and quick. The owners were great at communicating with us. We were very happy overall. 

From start to finish. Everything went like a professionaly planned exerise. No problems, no excuses . Could not ask them to do anything different.   

They do a good job. I’m happy with them. They did the landscaping and I had a water problem. The way they have designed the flow of the water is great. They come the same day when I call them. They are very professional, especially the lead man. I would use them in the future.

They did great. They were on time and very professional. They did an outstanding job.

The home we purchased in 2010 was a short sale and had been vacant for 12-18 months. The yard was overrun with weeds and desperately needed all new sod. None of it could be saved as there was no part of the yard untouched by weeds. I called several companies to get price quotes, and while Tropical Outdoors was not the lowest, they were very close. After talking with Jerry, the representative who came out to give me the quote, I felt that based on their experience and service capabilities that they were the best choice based on what we needed done. Our yard is pretty large compared to other lots in our subdivision (all told we needed 20-21 palettes to do the job) so I knew it would be somewhat pricey. Jerry's original estimate for spraying the current lawn to kill everything, rip it out and lay new sod was about $5,100, which was on the low end of all the estimates we received (the range was a low of $4,800 to just over $10k). Jerry got the lawn sprayed pretty quickly in order to kill all the weeds and what little grass was left in the lawn. He said they'd wait 5-7 days before returning to rip out the dead plant material. It ended up being closer to 10-12 days due to time overruns on other jobs Tropical had going and in problems with availability of sod from their suppliers, but I was ok with the extra time. Any time you have landscaping work being done, you have to expect delays due to weather, product availability, etc. It's just how things go, and to be honest I was glad to have the extra time for the herbicide to do it's thing on the existing lawn as I wanted to have no problem with weeds going forward. Jerry's crew came out about 10-12 days after the yard had been sprayed and started ripping out the dead material. They also checked the existing irrigation system, and made some tweaks to correct some minor issues with it the same day as the dead lawn was removed. I spoke with Jerry about some additional work I wanted done before the new sod was put down. One of our downspouts from the gutters drained right onto our driveway and flowed down it to the street. I wanted the downspout connected to drainage tubing and buried underground to a drain near the bottom of the front lawn. This was not part of the additional estimate, but Jerry gave me a good price ($375) to get the materials, dig the trench for the drainage tube (which also needed to run under a paver sidewalk off the driveway), connect it to the new drain near the bottom of the lawn and to re-install the paver sidewalk once the drainage pipe was in. I was concerned about the sidewalk being seamless again once the pipe was underneath, but the guys did a great job setting the pavers back in, and you can't tell they were ever pulled up or that there is drainage pipe underneath that section of the sidewalk. The sod was delivered and installed a couple days later. There was a minor hitch in that there wasn't quite enough sod in the estimate to do everything in one day, but a new batch was delivered a couple days later to finish off the very small area of bare ground left. Again, it's one of those things that you have to expect.  Some people would nitpick Tropical for missing on the estimate, but I think those people have expectations that are somewhat unreasonable. With the added drainage work on the gutter downspout, the tweaks to the irrigation system and the need for a little extra sod, the total bill came out to $5,800, and it was a price I was happy to pay for all the work Jerry and the guys at Tropical Outdoors did. Jerry even fixed one of the sprinkler rotors that popped off on the day he stopped by to make a final inspection of the lawn. This wasn't anything his guys had done, but was simply an issue of the original installer not using enough adhesive to secure the head to the irrigation hose. If there was one negative about the whole experience, it's that the new sod does have a few weeds in it. Truthfully it's a minor issue. We have retained TruGreen to fertilize, weed and get the lawn off on the right foot. They'll take care of the weed issue, which again, is just a minor problem. I'm just sensitive to it because of the fact that the yard was so overrun with weeds before the new sod went down. It would have been nice if the new sod from their supplier had been a little more pristine and weed free. Bottom line though is the new lawn looks fantastic. Jerry and everyone at Tropical Outdoors did a fantastic job, and I have already recommended them to a friend who also needs new sod. They were real professionals, and a pleasure to work with. We need some work done on our planter beds, and when we're ready to move forward with that, Tropical Outdoors will be the company we choose to do the job.

We called 5 companies to bid on our front yard, this company was the only one to come out and do what they said they would. First, Jerry (landscape designer/architect) came by on the weekend to consult with what we wanted to do, used our survey and developed a schematic of what it would look like. We have medium to large dogs and work a lot so we needed very low maintenance options. Our main goal was to stop the erosion on the front hill and hopefully make it look ok. We asked for steps to be put in so we could get from the top of the house to the bottom driveway. The first drawing was a lot of plants...we have an acre and we are only doing a portion of it  and it overwhelmed us but Jerry helped us trim it back but keep the perspective and scale compared to the yard. His ideas on how to handle the steps were something we had not thought of. He came back out to trim down and talk through what he was thinking. He offered to meet us at the nursery so we could see the type of plants he was recommending and again, on a Sunday, was able to walk us through. He was very open to ideas and options, including when we didn't particularly care for a certain plant or recommendation, he adjusted his recommendations very graciously. He had his hardscape expert come out to look at the hill to see if the ideas would work, which they did in the pouring rain, and then came back out again to explain what the plan was and see if we were ok. This was probably a 3 week process (due to our work schedules) and he never got impatient was excellent about following up. On the final trip, we all felt we knew what the vision was, enough to that as we had the basic idea down, I was fine with Jerry somewhat designing as they went, which turned out to be the best thing we did. They started that Monday. The crew was very professional, and really took pride in their work.  Everything was kept very clean and orderly at the end of the day. They seemed to like the challenge of the hill, which turned out beautiful.  It seemed everyone (at the company) stopped by at some point in the week to offer their input, assistance, etc. My dad (retired) stays with us and they were so nice to him. We got very comfortable with them all. Jerry was there every morning and evening to give updates, let us know what was going on. There were 2 critical points were they needed to make decisions that would impact the original estimate and the budget, they told us what was happening and let us make the decision. I will say when the final bill came, it was a bit of a shock (for those add ons) but we did know in advance, we just didn't fully understand the cost of them. I can say that I don't know if I would have done anything differently if we had known, though my husband would say differently. (Lesson learned, dwarf mondo grass gets very expensive when you need 350 of them:)  Overall, they were fantastic. They got done in record time, they delivered what they promised, they were friendly, kind, efficient and seemed to enjoy the work. We are so happy with the new landscape. It is beyond anything we imagined and it should probably be in a magazine. I have attached pictures to share. We work in the hospitality industry, we get what service means and I am looking at their card, which says "Dedicated to Quality & Service" that was clearly exhibited with us. We have already referred several friends and will continue to do so. As well as have them back for other projects!