Lotus Gardenscapes Inc

The original quote was $1600 which grew to over $5,000. A simple weeding resulted in the removal of stone pathways, destruction of pet burial spot, tons of mulch and no replacement of stones. A tiny rebate was offered but has yet to be delivered. Lack of response to emails or follow up.

It all went great. They've done two design projects for us and two seasons of maintenance. We're very pleased.

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Overall I was disappointed with Lotus Gardenscapes. It did not start out well when our landscape designer was late to our initial meeting regarding her proposed landscape design. I was not impressed with her designed landscape layout, and had to make several changes before I was happy with it. The wait to have them come rip out our existing landscape and install/plant the new landscape was about a month, which was fine, since we were not in a hurry, but they forgot to grind two stumps, which delayed planting a bit. In order to communicate with them, I emailed the designer, since I never could get through on phone. You never actually speak to someone when calling them, you just have to leave a message, and they never called me back after leaving a message. Eventually, I got the phone number of our designer so it was easier to communicate with her, but she never gave it to me, and I got her number by asking the project manager for it when I overheard him talking to her on the phone. When the plants were planted, I was not happy with the placement of many of the plants, and asked them to come back and move several of the plants. When we did reschedule a time for them to come fix it, they were not able to come out the first 3 rescheduled times and finally came on the fourth rescheduled time. One of the times they did not come, the designer emailed me they couldn't make it a half hour into the scheduled time and did not call me, so I ended up waiting for 2 hours for them because I don't check my email every 5 minutes. Now that they have finished fixing things, I am satisfied with how it looks, but it definately could look better and it took a lot longer time than it should have to fix and complete things.

I'm so happy I'm finally getting around to writing this review. I never write reviews, and I have been really lucky with everyone who has ever worked for me in my home, so I feel like I should warn others. My experience was a nightmare. One word to describe our expensive landscaping job is a complete DISASTER. After our first designer left Lotus, we were paired with an arrogant designer/project manager who basically ripped up the planting plan that was drawn up by our original landscape designer. He claimed that it "didn't make sense to him." I should also mention that we paid over $500 for that plan. The new designer sloppily placed the plants where he thought they should go, and now our entire garden aesthetically makes no sense at all. Not just to me. To anyone who looks at it. To make matters worse, we live in a neighborhood with extra heavy clay soil and he never put the time, or effort, into uncovering that before the plants went in the ground. Apparently, every other company hired to do landscaping in our brand new neighborhood knew about the heavy clay, because you can visually see that all of my neighbors beds are raised and trees are planted up high. Not our guy. Not our landscaping. So not only do we have sloppily placed plants (I wish I could add pictures to support this), but most of those sloppily placed plants either died, or are in the process of dying (Except for a couple of trees that were replaced) . He wasn't on-site at all during the project....he would come super early in the morning and on his way home during dinner time to check on it (not all that thoroughly, obviously). The whole install was left with about 1/2 inch of mulch where you could totally see our drip line. He tried to tell me it was "special" mulch...I had to fight for that, too. It was literally one thing after another. Throughout all of this, as if it couldn't get more irritating, the company was then sold to Bloom! Bloom did honor Lotus' warranty. Not all, but some, and then paired me up with a third designer, once I said that I didn't want to work with the arrogant one, who from my understanding, was fired. Basically, each of the two designers I was paired up with, didn't care about my project since they didn't "sell" it and come up with the initial plan. I was ALWAYS an afterthought and being squeezed in. The topping on the cake is that I am also left with an invasive weed called "horsetail" that could only have been introduced by them, since they're the only ones who up until discovering it, had touched our garden. My third landscape designer was nice enough to help me google how to get rid of it (Sense my sarcasm?). It's impossible to get rid of that weed. I feel like everyone, including the new owner, was swamped with their own stuff. Landscape designers with their own projects, and owner with acquiring a new company. My project and my complaints should have been taken more seriously and handled at the top, not pawned off to another designer who had her own projects. Writing a 10k check and having the person you handed it to quit, getting passed off to an arrogant, unprofessional, condescending person, having the initial company sold to another in the process....I mean come on! And that's sparing a lot of other unbelievable details. Could it have just been bad timing in hiring the company, maybe? But INCREDIBLY unhappy customer in the end. And AWFUL looking landscaping job. It's going to cost me thousands of more dollars to have a new plan drawn up with my existing plants and then have them planted properly and rearranged so that the project doesn't look like it was completed by a 8 year old.

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I designed the rain garden, but their staff (Jeff) gave suggestions the closer we got to the date of excavation.  I liked his ideas and we worked well together.  They connected drain tile to my downspout, dug a trench (underneath a crushed limestone walkway they had installed the year before), and excavated the rain garden.  They used the soil from the excavation to berm the garden and the other existing rain garden I have.  They rototilled the garden, mediated with compost.  They also removed turf from alongside my driveway, laid material and 4" of crushed limestone.  They seeded or rototilled areas that were disturbed based on the design.
I worked with them last year and may have them back next year for Phase III - I am trying to have an environmentally friendly, low maintenance (native plants) front yard that is nicely designed.  They are a great partner.

the form speaks for itself

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Wade was very pleasant and punctual for his initial free estimate appointment. He explained how their charges work.  If we went through them for the design process, he would come out, take measurements on the lot, go back to the office and make an initial preliminary design, and then we would have a second meeting to go over the preliminary design.  We would discuss the prelim design with him, make any changes, and then he would go back and make the changes and he would then schedule a meeting to give us our final polished computer drafted overhead landscape design.
We had our estimate done in March, snow still on the ground in places, so when we decided to go with him, he said he would come back out to measure once the snow was gone.  We had signed a contract and paid $500 deposit.  The check was cashed right away.  After the snow melted, couple weeks had passed, we hadn't heard from Wade, so I shot him an email. He said he would be coming out that Friday.  We missed him while we were at work, but we could see footprints all over the lot (we have lots of dirt and need landscaping help, hence the design) so we knew he had indeed come out to take his measurements.  Another week passed, and I hadn't heard from him to set up the prelim meeting.  I emailed him, he responded and we set up the meeting.  Wade was pleasant and punctual for the meeting.  We did make changes and he said we would get the final design soon.  A couple days later, he said our plan was finished and we had our final meeting  (again, pleasant and punctual) where he gave us our plan to keep, went over the plants he suggested, and gave us some numbers for estimates on parts of the project.  There were a couple of holes in the plan (estimates for parts we were interested in, fencing pics he meant to include, and he said he would put together an email to get us the stuff that was missing.)  We also owed another $175 as Wade indicated that it took 9 hours to complete our project.  Per our contract, we paid him and thanked him for our time.  Again, the check was cashed that day, but it took a few days to get the follow-up email.
1.  it did kind of rub us the wrong way that the checks were cashed immediately, but the communication was a bit lacking.  I had to email him to get updates.  $75/hour is excessively high (in hindsight and in my opinion) for the design portion of the process.  The least they could do was be more pro-active in keeping in touch, especially as a new company.  I know they were busy opening a new store and having a booth at a local garden show, both necessary parts of opening a new business.  I feel kind of bad that their first angies list review is less than sparkling, but the experience was what it was. It is not our fault that we needed their services at a busy time.  The design took 9 hours total but I believe over four weeks to get done (not sure of the estimate date, just that it was in March.
2.  at our first meeting, looking through the design book, we said we were not fans of the organic, wild looking landscapes.  We didn't really end up liking many of the plants he suggested, some of which were grasses.  (To be fair, we also strongly stated that we want low maintenance, so perhaps they were limited in their plant suggestions.  But after seeking other plant suggestions from nurseries, they have plenty of other suggestions for free if you ask at the desk and can sketch the shape of your flowerbed.)
3. As part of our plan, we need to redo our front porch, as it is a deck right now. Majority of homes in our neighborhood have poured concrete porches with the brick facades.  Bloom does not do poured concrete, so Wade made pavers for the sake of the estimate.  Wade also stated that we might have trouble getting a poured concrete porch, as cement companies don't like to come out for such a small cement project.  For others interested in concrete porches, I was able to find two masons to come out and give me estimates within one week.  It just felt dodgy that because their company doesn't do concrete, they tried to push us towards pavers or decking because they do them, even though we said we wanted concrete and after looking around the neighborhood, everyone has concrete.
4.  The design has a scale on it.  If it was meant to be to scale for the entire lot, it was way off.  The design made our backyard look far larger than it was. A tree next to our patio is prob about 4 feet away from the patio edge.  On the scaled design, it looks to be more like 10 feet.

They were punctual, hardworking, and seemed very efficient. They did a beautiful job. They were really good; the thyme had grown over the old sidewalk and they dug out the thyme and replanted it into the new raised bed, which they didn't have to do, but they did and it was really nice. They were very polite and very professional.

Dear friends in Ann Arbor had Lotus Gardenscapes transform their courtyard and highly recommended them.  I contacted Traven @Lotus Gardenscapes to address my front courtyard that was tired, overgrown and worn out.  I have brick home that had an integrated privacy wall across the front of the house.  The bricks were crumbling and in desperate need of repair, the courtyard itself contained a never used hot tub and in short - an urban jungle of despair.   I knew what I wanted that area to look like, I just needed someone to embrace what I wanted to bring it to life.  I had met with previous companies that discouraged my from my ideas stating they were 'too much' for a place like Plymouth and returning designs that neither captured what I wanted or listened my expectations regarding plantings.

Prior to meeting with Traven Pelletier for our initial meeting, we had spoken on the phone and I provided pictures and descriptions of what I wanted to achieve and a budget I wanted to stay within.  When we met, I knew instantly I would enjoy working with Traven and his crew.  He was very detailed in the process that he follows with clients and we discussed options to keep me around my budget.   Traven did not discount my idea for the new privacy wall, on the contrary, had his designer bring it to life!  I had opted to have a 3D model done because the change was going to be nothing short of dramatic, from both the side I view from inside the home and what you see from the street.  I was blown away at the level of detail captured - right down to the details on the lighting that is on the house. My decision to move forward with that design and his company was easy.  He did have to push me a little out of my comfort zone to increase my budget, and in terms of an overage of a construction project, it was minimal.

His crews demolished a brick wall (a little of 7 ft tall and 30 ft in overall length, repaired the tie-in to the house, cleared an urban jungle, moved the hot tub out of the area, installed a stunning patio of Rosetta product.  They designed and built the new privacy structure and designed and are installing the landscaping within my new patio.  This patio is not a patio, it is an outdoor room which is between 180 and 200 sq ft of floor space plus generous panting beds.  I could not be more thrilled with the outcome and the people I worked with!  Each day was a treat to see the progress.  When I arrived home yesterday to see the finished privacy wall, it was a truly an amazing moment; to see my vision become reality. 

This company is professional, prompt, neat and kept me informed.  I was informed when to expect Miss Dig, when they would start and any weather delays that were expected.   I was extremely comfortable leaving access to my home for them, to get to the electrical panel, water line and access to a powder room.

While wood crew was on site, Chris - in charge of the construction was able to fit in a secondary project to repair my wood shed.  I could not have been more thrilled with the ability and flexibility for them to add that in. The stone crew did an amazing job and I was relieved at the care they took to keep the lawn repair requirements down.  A special thank you to Jim for chasing my garbage barrels in the wind storm and getting them back to the garage.  To me, it is the extra care that they took that made this project even more enjoyable for me. 

I look forward to the next project that I will have Lotus Gardenscapes and Elemental Design helping reinvent this lot!

My overall experience was a B. I am undecided on if I would use them again.

Very well, they are extremely thorough.

The work was hampered by the wet weather, but it was done very well. I was consulted about everything, and it was all according to plan. Very pleased with the results--everyone who sees it agrees it is a nice job.

They took a long time to complete the work but the end result was very good. They were very polite and efficient. Their pricing was a bit high but the quality of their work was very good. I was satisfied with their service.