Ames Landscaping Co

Did not finish job.

Terrible! Trees and bushes (including three thriving dogwood trees) were removed that should have been left alone. The drainage work requested took two return visits to "fix" and it still looks abysmal. The pruning looked like they had no clue how a plant grows or how to make it pleasing to the eye and the yard is still not level in many areas with roots and rocks sticking up that were not removed and piles of loose soil that made for treacherous footing when dry and turned into mud when it rained. Vines were not removed by hand and ruined our huge holly bushes growing down the driveway. In addition, the holly bushes had numerous varieties of tree/bush(s) growing within the holly. That information should have been brought up by them and they should have asked us how we wanted it handled. The swale in our front yard was originally created by the truck that was carrying trees and debris from the back yard (which is on a hill) and was so overloaded they could not make it up the “driveway” of hardened dirt that was steeper. They drove through the back yard about ten feet from the house and bogged down. This caused the air conditioner drainage pipe to be exposed. Once they got free of that they proceeded around the house into the front yard and got stuck again. That is exactly where Cody decided to put our drainage swale. Pictures Fig 1 thru Fig 5 show our yard’s initial response to rain. The first time they came back they planted a dogwood tree (which is now dead) and two bushes to replace those they cut down. They did some work on the swale for drainage which was unsuccessful as well as reseeding so the yard was torn up again. They cleared out a natural area to the side of the house that was not done even though requested and "pruned" the trees. The second time they came back out, they installed a drainage grate so that the water would not collect at the end of the sidewalk in front of the house. The swale was made deeper and "reseeded and smoothed" the area. The swale now looks like Fig 7 picture. An area of lawn was gutted by them parking their equipment there every day and that was "fixed" by adding a minimum of dirt and spreading the mulch already there around which was not sufficient cover. The space still floods just not as badly as before (Fig 8). Last but certainly not least, they sprayed for weeds and managed to kill the majority of ground cover underneath (Fig 6). I would definitely NOT recommend Ames Landscaping for any landscaping, even basic yard work-(they can’t do basic mowing)-you need to have done.

.

I was very happy with them. We decided to do part of the landscaping this spring and part of it in the fall. So we will have them come back in the fall and do the rest of it. They are doing a wonderful job. We took out plants and put in new ones and changed the layout. So they are doing that work for us. We also had a patio laid and a fire pit put in. They also fixed a drainage issue. It was more than just putting in plants. It was a large comprehensive design.

He is high quality, responsive, and comes when we expect him. The dry creek bed took 9 tons of stone, and workers brought in the stone by wheelbarrow, and dug it with a trencher. The dry creek bed looks very pretty! We had had other estimates and Cody was right in line with the other estimates. Cody brings some artistic sensibility to his work, which we appreciate.

We bought our house a little over a year ago. The house was vacant for some time and as a result the landscaping suffered from neglect. The project seemed overwhelming for us to take on. So we contracted with Ames to help clean up the landscaping and organize it. He pruned groups of Azaleas and thinned out the liriope into groups. He also limbed up numerous trees to raise the canopy in the front yard. Several new plantings were installed and a plant bed was created.
We are extremely pleased with the result. Our front yard looks amazing with the liriope organized in the beds and the azaleas pruned. The front area feels so open now that the trees have been limbed back as well. The new plantings are beautiful and a nice touch in the area where the bed was created.
I would highly recommend Ames. They were a pleasure to deal with and we could not be more pleased with the results.

We had a great experience! I first contacted Cody in March and he came out very quickly to do an estimate. The estimate included some additional services (installing a French drain and having downspouts routed into that), but he presented the estimate in such a way that we could choose to do some projects now and wait on others, which was important for us, since we couldn't afford to do everything right now.
Once we scheduled service to be done, Cody kept up with us to let us know in advance when they planned to come, and when they had to postpone (landscaping being a weather-dependent service!). The job took only one day, as promised, and although they ended up replacing instead of just repairing the pipe, they did not charge us any more than was estimated.
The work has had the desired effect of better draining our yard and driveway, so we no longer have a lake every time it rains. I was very pleased overall, and would recommend Ames Landscaping to anyone who needed drainage fixed, or had other landscaping issues.