WHOLE EARTH LANDSCAPE & DESIGN INC

For lawn and yard work I have Whole Earth Landscape & Design. They do a good job. Mark has done very well. I like that that he minimizes the amount of petroleum fertilizers he uses. He really works to make sure that the soil is in good condition rather than just throwing food on it every few months and have that washed down the river behind my house.

Mark Saydah actually answered his phone on the first call (unlike several others who didn't even call back) and made a prompt visit. His quoted prices were comparable to work we've had done before, and IMO worth every penny. The final price was about 40% more than the original quote, but that was purely due to our additions once we saw how well his crew was executing the original plan. He and his crew worked through two heat waves with no complaint. They were uniformly competent, careful, and cooperative. Our back yard is now the envy of the condo complex and just what we'd envisioned. We will definitely call Whole Earth first for any future work of this nature.

Work was extremely unsatisfactory and over priced. More than 20% of the plants provided by Whole Earth died within 6 to 12 months of their installation. Most landscape contractors charge 2.0X the cost of planting for their services. Whole Earth charges 2.5X because they say they guarantee the plantings. Even with the guarantee, they charge you for labor to install the replaced plants, hence they actually have an incentive for plants to die. Nonetheless, Whole Earth has not stood behind its guarantee and will not even respond to emails or voice mails. They have been provided pictures of the dead plants and have failed to respond. The grading work that was done was poor. We identified certain drainage problem areas in advance of the work and the regrading effort was designed to correct the drainage issues. The work addressed the drainage issue minimally and we have had to have extensive work done to correct the problems that remained after Whole Earth left the site. Mark Sayday was unresponsive when issues were brought up during the course of the work, when concerns as to whether what he had done would be effective. When concerns were raised, he dismissed them and said the work that had been done would be effective. It was not. There have also been problems with the hardscape work they provide, however they sub out this work and do not perform it themselves where the landscape work is done with their crew. All in all, I would highly recommend that people steer clear of this contractor.

These guys do excellent quality work, however I've been unhappy with the way they do business. Specifically, I've given them budgets and they've ignored them, plus they don't generally deal with issues without charging you. If you want a great landscaper and don't care what you pay, then these guys are highly recommended. From a work perspective, they provide the full spectrum of landscaping services from design through implementation and all of the different skills (brick, asphalt, stone work, planting, planting materials, grading, etc). are top notch. The first project they did for me had a negotiated price, but they came at the end with a large set of additional charges (thousands) of dollars of which I was expecting only one aspect of (I had approved the cost of having a rock engraved with our house number). The rest was a surprise. The second project, they disrespected the budget we gave them and came with a bid almost twice the budget. I can understand if my budget is unreaslistic for the work, but I'd expect them to explain that to me ahead of time and perhaps say "with that budget, I'd do A, B, and C but defer D". Instead they gave me no warning and showed up with a proposal at twice the price. We eventually did business with them somewhere in between the two numbers and I did the deal as a "not to exceed" but had to remind them numerous times that this was the case, and ultimately felt that I got less then I contracted for. Again, I want to say that the work was excellent and I'm happy with the result. If they had dealt with the business aspect better I'd have given them straight As.