Nature Scapes by Kim White

Very mixed performance on both jobs. Job #1 PROS: The owner, Kim White, returned my calls promptly, and made sure to notify me when she would be late. She was very chatty and friendly, especially in the beginning. She showed up with the crew at each job, and supervised them personally till they left. Job #1 CONS: Vastly overpriced for the work, whose quality ranged from excellent to neglectful. On the clearing and hauling job, Kim quoted more than $2000. Very high for just pine needles and leaf litter, but then we had a LOT that needed to be cleared, and she promised exceptional results. Well, it turned out that the team of 4 people (including Kim) took only 4 hours to do what they considered was the job. That works out to $125 per man-hour (!!). Yes, the areas that they blew were done exceptionally well. It was better done than years ago when I paid a different outfit $40/man-hour -- Nature Scapes was worth maybe one-and-a-half, maybe two times more than the other team, but definitely NOT three times more. BUT, the team totally ignored the far edge of the driveway, which I had shown Kim during the estimate, AND they did not haul the stuff from the back yard, instead dumping it into the neighbor's woods without permission. I was paying them a lot to haul away ($125/load (vs. $50/load with the last outfit)), and had to complain before I was offered a discount. Overall, they were not providing the service and quality that they were getting more than top dollar for. I did not really want them to come back for Job #2, but had already paid the deposit. In the end, the stone wall does look nicer, but not $2600 nicer. Kim charged more than quoted for a pallet of supplementary stone, because, she said, the quote was a month old, and well, stone prices had gone up (I checked later with her supplier, and learned that was poop). Additionally, the wall was still about 5 feet too short. There was a whole raft of excuses for that, but by then I was tired of hearing them. Overall Kim and her crew did good work where they paid attention, but they missed a lot, I paid way too richly for what I got, and I had to put up with a whole lot of excuses why. Kim and I discussed several other jobs and even a landscape make-over when we first met. However, from these two "auditions," I would not contract with her again.