From The Ground Up

This company is both prompt and attentive. Everything that I wanted to have done was discussed immediately and performed quickly afterwards. For several months the company has been maintaining my lawn and I am very happy with this service.

David and his crew did an excellent job!  They showed up on time and did the work efficiently and carefully.  The tree was situated between my townhouse and my neighbor's townhouse and its roots had started lifting the nearby pavers in the walkway.  The magnolia's branches had risen above and were spreading out over the roofs of both townhouses so the man cutting down the tree carefully cut it into small pieces to prevent damage to the structures.  It was clear that he was very experienced at doing this kind of thing and he made it look easy.  Great job and at a great price!
I also want to say that it is a pleasure dealing with David.   This is the second time that I have used his company's services and both times things went as well as could be hoped.  He is very professional and promptly answers phone calls and e-mail messages.  

We've used them for a long time for our lawn maintenance, and the tree service went beautifully. We called on Sunday and they came on Monday.

Unfortunately, I hate to write a negative review, but I realize that this is the purpose of Angie's List., so I am doing so. I used Angie's List to find a good landscaper from the outset, and my husband and I chose From the Ground Up after considering a landscaping company for about a year. We used From the Ground Up for landscaping for the last 5 months, since September 2015- January 2016.
Our initial contact with David was so great, he was very friendly and quick to respond. He gave us three pricing options-- the lowest price was just regular cutting and pruning, which I think was $100. The second tier was $120, and the most expensive care offered was supposed to be comprehensive, including pesticides and fertilizer, which was $140.00.
Even though its a premium price, we chose to go with the comprehensive care at $140/mo., since we really have little time to devote to our yard currently.
Within the first month, we realized that David's crew was cutting our lawn so close to the root of the grass, that the dirt was taking over. The grass was literally SCALPED. My husband sent David pictures and they discussed potentially installing an irrigation system. David said he thought we had an irrigation system because we have one random spicket head in the middle of our front yard from the previous owners. My husband explained that we do not have irrigation and we aren't putting in an irrigation system at this time. I always wondered why David never checked or thought to ask that in the first place? 
We asked David to please instruct his crew to stop scalping our grass, but it didn't happen. The following week, they were back at it, cutting the grass to nubs. During the time frame, weeds started to take over, more than they already were, and believe me! we have a weed problem, which is why we eventually decided we needed help with a landscape company.
At that point, I think we were about 2 months into the service... I wrote David a lengthy letter to explain how disappointed we were in the way that the grass was looking. I explained that our grass before was long... but at least it was green and a bit more healthy. I also explained that I felt at $140/month we should be having the weeds removed and fertilizers applied to help the grass to grow back from the repetitive scalpings. Furthermore, we have three coconut palms out back and they frequently drop coconuts and frons. I thought that the gardeners should be responsible for clearing this debris from the yard?
After my heartfelt letter, David called right away and left me a very sincere voicemail. He apologized and said he would give our yard the attention we are asking for. The next service date, they changed the blade length and the grass was cut at a better length to give it a chance to come back. My husband and I were very grateful that he did so, and his response was professional.
After another month or so, we realized that the grass didn't seem to be coming back... we have had A LOT of rain recently, and there were many occasions on our Wednesday service that they couldn't cut the grass. Everything has been soggy and saturated. This would be a good thing for the grass to come back, but fertilizers weren't applied and neither was any weed control/pesticide for the weeds. The weeds are literally taking over our yard now. In one of the shadier areas  where the grass was scalped, it has never grown back but weeds have taken over the spot. I think we will have to re-sod it to get it right at this point.
When my husband brought this up to David, he sent someone else out to treat the yard (I am not sure what the treatment was exactly) and he said it was the first of two treatments. We never saw the second treatment. Nothing further was ever applied as far as we know, and again, we are paying the premium rate to try and solve these issues.
Yesterday was supposed to be our first date of service for the month of February (every Wednesday) and it was a beautiful clear, sunny day. No one showed up at our house to do anything, my husband was home all day. 
We hired a landscape company because we want to be able to rely on someone to handle our yard and beautify it, so that in the little time off we have, we can enjoy it. After several phone calls, even more text messages and a letter, we have decided that we no longer wish to work with David and From the Ground Up, it is taking a lot of time and energy for us and it simply isn't worth having to constantly speak with someone about the level of care that we hope to receive from the initial proposal. We have had enough.
David is a very nice guy, we wish him all the best. Hopefully we are the only ones who have had this negative experience. I just felt it was my responsibility to write the true, fair review to Angie's List, since this is the way we found him in the first place.

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That first year went well. The beginning of the second year I had to ask the crew to do things that we agreed to in the monyhly plan. Things like cutting back small birds of paradise that were growing up the windows and side of the pool enclosure, removing the pups that were growing from the Sego Palms, trimming a palm that was laying on the 1st story roof (was to be done as per our agreement). This became a weekly chore for me to direct the crew to do what should have been done automatically. According to David we were to have a Estate Maintainence type program. Started to get contentious so we agreed to part ways.

.The crew did an excellent job!  They showed up on the scheduled day and efficiently cut down both trees and ground the stumps down.  All the debris was hauled away.   
I got four price quotes and David Nereau of From the Ground Up gave me a good price which was comparable to or lower than the prices quoted by the other two services.   I was impressed with Mr. Nereau who took the time to answer all my questions and address my concerns--I had never had any work done like this before and was concerned about  the possibility of damage to the surrounding property.  Before leaving, Mr Nereau checked with me to verify that I was satisfied with the work.  I asked if he could remove an additional section of the root where I planned to plant another tree and he removed it.  The only negative is that he arrived a little late for our appointment to discuss the work that needed to be done.  
Overall, I am extremely happy with the work and feel that I got a great job for a great price.

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