DERING'S GARDEN SUPPLY

My wife and I visited there in the hope of replacing our foundation plantings. The price for the plants was good and they were helpful in helping us pick out what we wanted. Chris came out to our home to measure and make recommendations. We told him we would be away the first part of the week they had available, and, without making a commitment, since he is not the scheduler, asked if the Friday after we returned would be good. We said it would. He said we would have the estimate in a few days. Just before we went away, they called because there was some confusion as to what we had ordered. They said that Chris had called a number of time - but we had received no messages indicating that. My wife made another trip there and worked it all out. Chris said to her, "See you next Friday." It took around 2 weeks to get the estimate, since there was confusion as to what we wanted, at least on their part. In our discussions, Chris had recommended a particular type of mulch. We said we would use that. Later however, we had to have another email exchange with the manager in the office about whether or not we wanted the mulch. We wrote that we did. She wrote and asked which one. We wrote back to say that it was the one that Chris recommended and that she should consult with him. (We had not written down the specific product he had recommended.) She came back and said that Chris said we could have any mulch we wanted. And so it went. We finally received a non-itemized estimate. I had to write again to get an itemized list. The price we felt was very fair. Much of this back and forth was done when we were away on vacation. We came back from our vacation and received a message that they could not do it on Friday so they had scheduled it for Saturday. I wrote back saying that Chris had indicated it would be on Friday, which would be much better for us. Here is the response we received from the office manager/scheduler: Chris does not do the scheduling and said he never quoted a date. I have had your file since you where out of town. Your planting can not be done on Friday. Our crews normally do not work weekends we where going to have them just come in just for your planting. Since you need a Friday date I will see the next available Friday and get back to you when I am in the office. Excuse me? I wrote back: I left a message this morning, but you may not have gotten it.Anyway, we would very much like to do Saturday if Friday is notavailable. It was not that we need a Friday date, it's that thisparticular Friday is when we had planned around. I remember when Chriswas out to our home, we mentioned we would be out of town and he askedif the Friday after we returned would be good and we said it would be,figuring that would be the day. Whatever. We would just like toschedule this as soon as possible at a time when both my wife and Ican be there in case there are any questions.Please give me a call or write back so we can make this work. We sent this on our travel day back home. In the meantime, I suppose someone else took that slot, for here was her response: We did not hear back from you right away so we did not schedule a crew for Saturday. I will be in touch with the next available date when I am in the office. I wrote back asking if they could please put it together for Saturday - that we were having guests coming in and that it was very important to us. Of course, all of this back and forth would have been eliminated had we ever actually gotten to speak with someone, but repeated phone calls over all this time simply were not answered. I also left a message at the place to be given to Chris, asking if he would please call back and that it was very important. I never heard back from them again. I suppose I would have been more cautious had I seen another couple website reviews from folks who had - or who had tried - - to work with them before. Reading those, it seemed to me that unprofessionalism in that office was a common theme. I read how one person noted that the office manager said that he had sworn at her; it is easy for me to believe him when he writes that he absolutely did not. (I mention this in case she comes back with some untruth about me.) Too bad.