FORGE LANDSCAPES

First, I have put a year between when I have last heard from Mark and now so that I could look at the situation with less emotion and in a more fact based manner. Mark's team and their quality of work was very good. However after learning more and going through this experience, it should be noted that Mark Forge has/had multiple companies (Forge Landscapes, MSF Landscaping, Green Carpet Landscapes, etc...). Mark's team commenced work in the fall of 2011 on pulling out and completing demolition on the backyard including an old railroad tie retaining wall. He brought excavators and bobcats in to complete this and take the excess fill from our house. His team did a very good job and was able to work well into December of 2011 to finish up the retaining wall because of the warm weather. During this time, Mark continued to request payments for work ahead of the schedule and I obliged due to my concern that his team would leave an unfinished retaining wall and a hillside that could collapse into our home over the winter months. My first inkling that something was wrong was when the supplier for the concrete blocks threatened to place a mechanics lien on our home if Mark did not pay for the blocks which I had already written checks for. They stated Mark was delinquent past 60 days in mid-January and that if I did not pay them, a lien would be attached to my home starting in Feb. I shelled out $4900 dollars above the $81,000 that I had already paid Mark at that point. I had asked Mark orally and in multiple emails and text correspondence to provide proof of his payments to the block supplier so that they no longer threatened to place a mechanic?s lien on my house. These communications started in early January and had continued with my attempts to get resolution up through March 3 of 2012. Mark reached back out to me in May to resolve some of the open issues but would not sign an added document outlining exactly what we had paid for and he had completed and those items incomplete yet still paid for. Additionally he wouldn't release me from liability if other suppliers were not paid by him. We put a document together with our attorney and because Mark could not agree to that we felt like we would be in the same position again with him taking more of our money without any accountability on his part. The excuses I received were that Mark was low on cash because of the warm weather and it affected his snow plow business. What I figured was that Mark had taken my money and ran and really there were no consumer protection mechanisms in place for me to address the issue because Landscape companies are not held to licensing standards in Massachusetts the way home improvement and construction contractors are. After discussing options with attorneys, their recommendation was to let the issue go because I would never recover my true losses in Small Claims court nor would the cost of paying for a lawyer and likely having Mark file for bankruptcy work in a civil case. My only hope is that this review and others like it prevent this individual from wrecking other people's lives like he did with me for over a year. Mark has issues with managing a company and the back-office activities. While I would like to think he could be redeemed, the fact is that he stole from me and my family and did not hold up his contractual obligations. My yard was a disaster from January through August and it got under my skin that we wasted 2012 and I could not bring my 1 year old son out to the yard to play with him. The bottom line is that Mark should not be in this business and if you see advertising from him, stay away from him and his company. He has a history of this behavior if you look through comments on the internet regarding him or his company, you will find further feedback similar to mine. I truly hope he turns it around. Him and his team show quality in their craftsmanship but that doesn't overcome his large shortcomings in other areas of running a business. Caveat Emptor.

Some shrubs that we had in the previous landscape were new, so we asked if they could either use them in the new landscape or remove them and set them aside so we could use them in other areas of our yard. They did neither, and those shrubs (several hundred dollars worth) just disappeared. Two of the bushes they planted died within weeks. According to the contract, they were to be replaced at no charge. We called Mark about ten times through the summer of the following year and they never returned to replace them. We finally just wrote it off to experience and replaced them ourselves with Costco bushes.The good news is that the choice of bushes they used, and the workmanship and grading were very good. So the strength of Forge is in the teams they send out to the field. The weakness of Forge is the Sales and Customer Service. If you use them, just hope that everything goes right on the first go-round because they will never return to your property once they're gone.