COUNTY WIDE LANDSCAPING INC

BUYER BEWARE I would DEFINITELY NOT recommend County Wide Landscaping. The owner, Brian Larsen, is so unprofessional and rude. He and I both signed a contract to have County Wide demo my old deck and then put in a new paver patio. Nowhere in the contract did it say they weren’t liable for damage done to my house during deck demo. I brought up the situation to Brian because his workers did do damage to my window and door frames. He did not want to take responsibility for this issue and was in breech of contract at one point because he threatened to not allow his workers to continue at my house. After many emails to Brian and the office staff stating that we both signed a contract for the work to be done, the workers did show up the next day. Brian’s only saving grace for me not cancel the contract was Tom, Miguel and the workers. Tom talked through the issue with me and Miguel and the workers did a beautiful job, but because of how rude and unprofessional the owner is, this review is not to recommend County Wide. Brian needs to learn how to speak professionally and politely to the people paying his salary, the customers.

Initially I liked it. I used them twice but the second time, I don't like it. After two or three years stuff were bad again. It was supposed to last four or five years. It's expensive. We didn't use them again. We used Arrowhead.

It was good. The price is expensive, it's not very competitive either. It's a little bit expensive than the other one. Overall, they did a fine job.

We called a few different landscaping/ hardscaping companies to give us quotes on the layout we were hoping to create.  They were all very good about coming out to talk to us about what we were looking for, budgeting, etc.  But when we first contacted Brian, he was very responsive and sent someone out here immediately to take pictures in order to help us design the perfect layout for our patio.  We then had a conference call with him so he could show us the design he came up with and to talk it through with us to get it to a price we were hoping to pay for this patio and fire pit.  He was very good at reworking the design and adding/removing different plants and trees in order to get us to the exact amount we were looking to spend.  Compared to the other landscape companies, he was more willing than the others to work with us and basically do what we were looking for.  We decided to go with County Wide because of the design, cost, and availability to get it done earlier than the others.  Within a week, he had one of his crews out here and they reconfigured the sprinkler system which took about one and a half days, then on Monday they began work on the patio.  The crew was very polite and prompt.  They were here early in the morning and stayed until about 6:00 each day.  They cleaned up every day and we never experienced any problems while they were here.  The foreman, Tom, was very accommodating and friendly.  He was very quick to respond any time I called him with a question and very informative about what they were doing.  The most astonishing thing about the project was that this crew was so efficient and knowledgeable about what they were doing that they finished the 1000 square foot patio, fire pit and landscaping within 3 1/2 days!  A few weeks later when we had an issue with one of our downspouts that was accidentally covered, they came out that day and corrected the issue.  Approximately two years later, and we have not had any problems with our project.  I waited to do this review until after one full year of having our patio, because I wanted to feel confident in the work that County Wide did, and I have to say that they are top notch!!!   We will definitely use them again if another project comes up.  

Outstanding work!  Brian and his team do a fabulous job of working with you to iterate their designs to meet your needs and never balk (despite the fact that we must have tweaked things 10 times before signing off - not because of their work, because we were gradually understanding what we wanted to do.)  The crew communicated with us throughout the job, checking in with us as they discovered things during the installation process that would improve upon the design as it was done on paper.  The work was a replacement of the original landscaping that was done 13 years ago when the house was built and it is a 10x improvement over the original.  We would use them again without reservation.

This is the second project we have done with County Wide, the first being a "redo" of a very large stone patio (again, done by a different company 13 years ago) and the design and installation of an outdoor kitchen area.

The design was great-- the workmanship was not.  I added on to an existing patio to put in an outdoor kitchen.  One wall started to lean and pull away because the corner was made by cutting the bricks versus dovetailing both sides of the corner together.  I also had to have all the granite redone because of the poor job--  by the way, I wasn't even informed that I had to use granite to get a round table top until the work on the walls was already almost done-- was told then that the round design I had requested could only be done in granite --not in the stone as designed.

When I asked how much that would be, the owner said "oh, it won't be much more."  It turned out that the "not too much" was over $2500.  I had no choice because the walls were already too high for a stone top.    Then original granite work was terrible-- there were ¼ in gaps between the pieces,  cuts in bad places and there were even spaces around the grill because of a bad cut. Getting it fixed was a nightmare.  the owner did not even come out to look until I said that I was going to go to someone else and use the money I still owed him to get the repairs done.  

Working with the owner during the design of the addition was great--working to get the problems fixed--Not so great.    Would I recommend them? --for the design maybe--but be sure to ask about additional costs before they begin the build!  --for  friendly customer service and the quality of work--NO.  I add one caveat, the office manager was always sympathic and helpful--Wish I could say the same for the owner, Brian.

Why haven't I written this review sooner?--I was/am afraid he wouldn't respond should something else go wrong.

County-Wide (Brian) came back to us with a design and proposal that we could view on-line in 3-D, did not charge for the design (unlike two of the others wanted to do), and provided us good advice to drop the pergola as it would obstruct the view from the house through to the yard. He worked with us to make modifications, didn't flinch when we asked him to remove some items to keep within our budget, and came up with some interesting modifications to the existing patio footprint that added planters, moved steps and added accent stones all of which we accepted. He also called our attention to the fact that the previous landscaper (Alvarado Landscaping - we'll never use them again) had installed all of the Unilock pavers in the original patio upside down and had done a lousy job of laying the foundation to the patio which is why it sunk. We are thrilled with our new patio, outdoor kitchen and appliances (Brian provided great advice as we selected those) and firepit. We would absolutely use County Wide again.

They have the cheapest rates initially and do very good hardscape work. My recommendation is to make sure you define everything in the contract first so all the costs are well known before hand. IT is a good idea to make sure there is nothing assumed. They are quick. Their workers are very good and do a good job with hardscaping.

The price that they charged was extremely expensive. I need to call them back for the hardscaping work since there is some problem with the brick path. I am really hesitating because the owner of the company is horrible. We even had to call the police one day. They did some lighting and they were all broken. They ensured that there was three year guarantee for the plants. After one year some bushes had died. So they replaced some of the plants but not all the ones that I wanted. I paid about $1000 for the plants that they replaced. It was outrageously expensive. Then they all died and they came back and replaced them with the cheaper plants. Then they quoted me $2000 to install the outside lights and the guy who came out didn’t know how to do it. So they had to bring another guy. I had to hire an electrician at the end and they never reimbursed me the money. I called the owner in the afternoon when we had problems with the lights and I mentioned that I paid $2000. I had gravel installed for my landscaping and they quoted me $2000 to remove all the gravel before doing the landscaping work. There was a guy who told me that he was here watching the workers but when I came back they had already planted some plants. I am a gardener and so I know how to plant. I saw how they had planted and it wasn’t completely underground. I started to dig out after they finished since I wanted to include few more things but I paid them for everything. I then realized that they didn’t remove all the gravel and they also didn’t remove the plastic that was used. My plants are not perfect since they never did the right work while planting. I did inform the owner about what had happened. He told me that I should have had them remove all the plants and redo the job but I didn’t have the time for that. The guy who I called to inform that they had to replace all the lights outside since they weren’t working was furious, cursing and very aggressive. I had to call the police since I was scared of him and I don’t have a gate for my house and my husband travels a lot. I even had to put a no trespassing sign outside for him not to come in. I have almost two acres of property. It wasn’t a good experience at all. I have the warranty for the hardscaping work and I am debating as well as calling the guy in order to appoint somebody else. My overall experience was worst. They did a good job with the hardscaping work except for the bricks. I made them redo the other things. I also paid them to bring more stones. They did a good job when I made them redo the work. They didn’t show me the work that they did for their other clients. The quality of work for the hardscaping job was very good. Their responsiveness was okay since they came and responded. Their punctuality was good but their professionalism wasn’t. I won’t use their services in the future and I will not even recommend them. The employees were punctual, respectful, hardworking and good.

The project went great (again). So happy with my new fire pit and look forward to firing it up all summer. The yard looks great as well. Like the new bushes, mulch, etc. No complaints.

The project went very well overall, we were happy with the design idea, the pricing and the quality of the work completed. In addition, it only took 3.5 days to do everything (which I couldn't believe). They showed up with a huge crew and multiple trucks. Pretty impressive operation.

My experience with them has been pretty good. We had a serious problem with the front, but they have made it good. I would recommend them and use them again.

They did great work, great quality. We were very happy with them.