Delanson Gardens

Delanson Gardens did excellent work edging 7 garden beds around my home in Delmar. Doug and his crew installed new aluminum edging and stone borders as well as pulled up/reused aluminum edging borders that were almost entirely buried in the ground. They spread river stone and/or mulch in all garden beds and built a timber border around my shed. Doug skillfully reused some landscaping rocks/stepping stones that were on my property (but not part of the current landscaping). Doug and his crew were courteous and professional. And they did the work on the originally scheduled dates (no delays).

Wonderful! Husband and I new homeowners. Doug was very patient, answered all of our questions (and we had a lot), was generous with really good advice. Not to mention husband and I forgot to check to see if we needed a permit. One of our neighbors called the building inspector on us - Doug talked to inspector and convinced inspector on the spot no permit needed. Inspector later talked to us and without prompting mentioned how hard Doug's team was working, and was really impressed at Doug's knowledge of code and what he was doing. A bit pricey - but worth every penny.

Great! Reliable and did a fantastic job. Would definitely highly recommend!

Over many years of hiring contractors I have learned that the nature of the initial contact with the contractor is often a good indicator of how the job will go. So we could tell from our initial meeting with Doug that the job would probably go well. Indeed, that's what happened. None of the work was particularly sexy, but there was a lot of it, and Doug and his crew spent most of the day here. They were completely self-sufficient, and the cleanup was impeccable. Before he left we asked for several of his business cards, as we would definitely recommend him to others.

Delanson Gardens did an outstanding job! Doug visited our home and provided excellent guidance in terms of how we can improve our current yard as well as how we can enhance its features. Doug was prompt with providing an estimate and timely in showing up to perform the work. We will definitely use Delanson Gardens again and recommend them to our friends and neighbors.

While this job was done 18 months ago, we are only now doing our reviews online. Despite the tardy review, our experience described below all occurred within the first year. We are seniors who needed to hire an experienced tree landscaper. We found Delanson Landscaping online which seemed perfect as we like to support small local business.The owner came here to interview for the job and seemed like a nice enough guy. When we hired him to do this large job, he presented himself as having a lot more knowledge/experience about trees than he actually had. We should have started small with him to see what kind of work he did first, but we took a chance. This was a big job...much bigger than he was capable of. Still, he presented himself as knowledgeable about planting all kinds of trees on all kinds of properties, touting his capabilities on the same level as Schoharie Nursery, or Bobs Nursery....In hindsight, we know now this was not the case. While he was less expensive than the Nursery's, we learned the hard way he did not have the knowledge or guarantees one finds at a professional nursery. We told him with a job like this (21 balsam trees at $125/tree plus labor), we would need the trees/work guaranteed for a year which he agreed to & at our request put it in writing on the contract he drew up. He agreed to replace any trees that died( like reputable Landscapers/Nurserys do). Once they got going, while his crew did not necessarily know how to miter landscape ties, we took it in stride as our primary concern was that they plant the trees properly. After they planted the 21 trees, he told us to water each tree thoroughly for the next few weeks until the cooler Fall temps arrive. We followed his instructions to the letter. He knows that. A short time later, we noticed one by one the balsam trees were dying. After the 5th tree died, we called the owner of Delanson Landscaping regarding the warrantee replacement of those dead trees. There were also 2-3 others at the time that were on life support. The owner was not happy when he dug up one of his trees to find it drowned-Clearly, his expert advice to water was 100% wrong advice. You could see it on his face. He then told us to stop watering, realizing that he should have done a simple soil test Tree Nurseries do to determine what their Tree/Shrub plantings need or don't need. The soil he planted those 21 trees in was CLAY which does not drain water. An experienced Tree/shrub landscaper would know NOT to water these trees as advised by the 'expert' who planted them. His own lack of knowledge was a huge part of the reason why he had to replace 5 dead trees (although he still charged us an additional $395 in labor to plant his warranted replacement trees. We paid it. We just wanted 21 healthy trees). He was clearly irritated that he initially agreed to warrantee his work when he took this job. He stated his regret that he offered this guarantee on his work, stating he would never offer a guarantee again. I'm sure this was a painful hit for us all, but he seemed to forget we lost on this also. Afew weeks after he replaced the initial 5 dead trees(but well within the 1 year warranty), more and more trees kept dying. 3 out of the 5 he replaced died. We started to lose more trees. After another 7 died, we contacted him(again within the 1 year)& we all agreed it would be best if he just sent us reimbursement for the dead trees at $125/each, and we would take care of digging up the dead trees & disposing of them. We understood we would lose all labor costs paid to him for the job, so we accepted his offer to pay us for the remaining dead trees. We didn't want any further conflict with him. Thats when we ran into trouble with his failure to reimburse us. First, one day during his travels he dropped off a check for the wrong amount written out to the wrong person so we couldn't cash it....when we called him, he said he didn't know our name. He did a big job here, took our money and wrote up a contract yet he didn't know our name? He then said he would resend it. Weeks later he mailed us a check which was short. When we told him he still owed us some money he said he thought "we would eat half the damage". I don't know where he got that from, but clearly he had no intention of ever following the contract we agreed to when he took $7,000 of our money for a job he wanted & we trusted him. He walked away leaving us stuck with $1500 loss in dead trees within that first year. His first excuse for the trees dying was "winter kill"-We called Bobs Nursery where he bought the trees & they told us they have had no winter kill complaints that year on their balsam trees. They intimated that the trees were not planted correctly. It makes us sick to know we wasted our hard earned money because we didn't hire a reputable Landscaping Nursery like Schoharie or Bobs Nursery, who charge a little more than this guy but when a tree or shrub dies, they come in and replace it at NO additional cost to customer-no extra labor costs, no extra travel costs & no argument! After watching trees die one after the other, we recently talked to a arborist/tree professional and asked his opinion. He felt the combination of general lack of knowledge & improper soil prep/root ball prep that killed those trees. Regardless, the trees that died the first year were not replaced or reimbursed. The owner should have stood by his work & contract....they did not! 10 more trees died within that first year. To date, we have 11 dead trees with 2 others on life support. He really left us stuck with a financial loss. That is no way to do business. While our review is tardily beyond the 1 year guarantee, the failure was well within that 1 year guarantee. We would NOT recommend Delanson Gardens, particularly for big tree projects. Planting a few iris, fertilizing a lawn and throwing a few loads of mulch over some 4x4 ties is one thing.....taking on a big job planting and guaranteeing mature trees takes knowledge & experience which was sorely lacking here. You'd do best to Pay a little more and hire a professional Nursery who stands behind their product without further cost to you.

Doug and his crew were diligent, professional, hard-working, pleasant, and completed the work in a timely manner. We were very pleased with the outcome and are planning to hire them again for additional projects.

We highly recommend Delanson Gardens! They did a superior job. They were here the day they said they'd be; and the workers were meticulous. One of the best mulching jobs ever.

Doug and his crew did a great job. A neighbor commented that those guys never stopped, but were in constant motion. Doug is very knowledgeable and professional. The result looks great.

He did an amazing job. He was professional, honest and talented. He made my gardens look amazing. I will use him again!

My initial interactions with Delanson Gardens were all extremely positive. Responses were prompt, the estimate went well (though I did find it odd that no measurements were taken), a time was scheduled, the price was reasonable, and they showed up on time. Everything continued to go great up until the day the work was actually performed. That morning, I walked them through the yard to point out problematic areas and to have a refresher on what work was actually to be done. I left them to it, and went to work myself. When I arrived home, to my dismay roughly a little over half of the work that I was expecting to be performed was finished. I called the contractor to ask if they just needed to come back the next day, but was told that the work was finished. This is where things went south. I was treated with extreme hostility on the phone and could barely even get a word in. I told them I would send pictures of the areas that I expected to be completed that were skipped, and from there communication switched to email/text. I took a bunch of pictures from my yard and annotated them, circling in red all of the areas that were missed. The contractor eventually agreed to return the next day to take a look. The next day, the contractor did more work, and again decided to do only roughly half of what was circled on the pictures I sent. After many nasty emails and texts, in the end the contractor refused to finish the rest of the work, so I refused to pay full price. I deducted 10% off of the bill, paid it, and my fiance and I finished the remaining work ourselves. It's been nearly 2 months since this all happened. I wish that I could say that the grass that was planted by Delanson Gardens was coming in beautifully, but unfortunately that's not true. Some of the areas came in beautifully, but others aren't coming in well at all despite being watered the same amount as the areas that are coming in well. I do recognize that I chose to have grass planted at a poor time of year (July), and I'm sure that's part of the problem, but it's frustrating that even after everything, I still am not happy with how my lawn looks and will have to continue working on it myself. If you wish to hire Delanson Gardens, then I think you will have an ok experience provided you make sure that the contract is extremely explicit about what work is to be completed. A large part of my problem stemmed from the fact that the contract was worded in an extremely vague way that supported both my POV and the contractor's depending on how you read it. My mistake was giving them the benefit of the doubt with the contract wording based on how well the initial series of interactions went. As long as you don't make that mistake, then you should never have to deal with the problems that I did, and your experience should be a lot better as a result.

We’re extremely pleased with the beautiful job Delanson Gardens did on my mother’s grounds. She had had past negative experiences with two other local so-called “landscaping” companies, who only wanted to mow and dump weedkiller so they could go on to multiple other jobs the same day, but charged almost as much as Doug. After that, the meticulous and thorough work done by Doug and his four assistants (with NO weedkiller!) was very refreshing. They worked nearly nonstop for 7+ hours, and clearly were an experienced and well-coordinated crew. Did all work quoted, cleaned up all debris completely, and Mom’s place has never looked better! She is already making them a list for “Phase 2" on other parts of her property. We highly recommend Delanson Gardens!

My experience with Delanson Gardens was a nightmare. The owner, Doug Fall, was a nice enough guy, but he is by no means a "professional" painter in any sense of the word and should not be allowed to advertise as such on these sites. Delanson gardens was hired by me to fix some cracks on the walls and remove the popcorn texture on the ceiling and then to repaint the entire kitchen once those things were done. Doug proceeded to text me on the first day of the job to tell me he would be over an hour late. Not a good start to the job. He did a good job of removing the popcorn ceiling, but didn't correct a lot of the smaller gouges on the walls and didn't do any prep work on the walls to remove dust and debris and just started paint over them, leaving countless bumps in the paint that were highly noticeable. He didn't even bother to remove the blinds on the windows and tried to paint around them and got paint all over them and ruined them. The work was absolutely amateurish. I had made the mistake of having Doug and his helper work on the project while I was at work and not oversee what they were doing. When I texted him on why he didn't fix the cracks and such before he started painting, he told me that he was not done with the work. I tried to accommodate him around his schedule to have him come back and fix up what he missed and finish the job. He said he'd get back to me to set up a date. I think he at that point realized how poorly he did the work and that It would take him a lot longer than he anticipated to finish the job. He texts me back a few days later and says he will not come back and he will bill me for the work he has already performed. He makes a completely bogus claim that I created a hostile work environment. I was not even there at any point when he was doing the job! If pointing out the deficiencies in his work is creating a "hostile" work environment, then he shouldn't be doing this line of work. Anyway, he proceeds to send me a bill for essentially total amount of the estimate he had given me before starting the work. I can't speak for his landscaping abilities, but Delanson Gardens and Doug Fall as "professional" painters, are a joke. The professional that I have hired since to complete and correct all the mistakes Delanson Gardens made on the job stated to me "was this guy drunk or was he 20 years old?" I know Doug wasn't drunk but his assistant did look 20 years old. The point was, the work was done so poorly that he made a point of making a joke like that to me. I have attached photos of his work for you all to review.

Doug was very timely with coming out for an estimate when we contacted him. He is very professional and is quick to respond via email and text. When Doug and his team came out to complete the job, they were very prompt and friendly. Doug did a walk around with us when the job was finished and was very helpful with suggestions for other parts of our yard. He made sure we were completely satisfied, and we sure are!!! We would definitely hire Delanson Gardens again and recommend Doug and his team for any job you need done!

Work was performed timely and in a professional manner. Doug made recommendations on shrubs and finished product was beautiful. Doug is the best!

We hired Doug to redo our small front yard. His price was good but the results were awful. Although we followed all his directions regarding water etc, three months later, half of the front yard is dead and the other half is full of weeds. He sent somebody to kill the weeds but was very unsuccessful. That was the last time we heard from him. We are very disappointed and feel we wasted the money. Not only the front yard looks bad, we need to reseed it, adding more money to what we already paid, only three months ago.

The quality of work was excellent. Doug was very knowledgable and worked very hard along with his crew. I'm not always in town, so it took a bit longer to completely finish things, mainly because I wasn't here to let them know what I wanted, but Doug went out of his way to work with my schedule during his busy season... It was GREATLY APPRECIATED and he even trimmed out some branches on an old apple tree that seemed to have some kind of moths killing it, this was after his work was done at no charge. He goes above an beyond to make sure customers are completely satisfied. I would hire him again with out hesitation. Hope he'll come back in the fall to do more.

Doug is a very honest and extremely hardworking Landscaper who obviously loves his work and goes out of his way to please his customers. He is a true gentleman and it is an absolute pleasure to do business with him. The work itself is of the highest quality and we are extremely happy with the services he has provided for us. Our property has never looked this good. Thank you Doug

Doug and his crew were wonderful. They worked around our other contractors and the date we had set up for our twins' graduation party. They weeded all of our beds, mulched and trimmed. All dead items were removed and replaced. Flowers were chosen so they would be in full bloom for the party. All hardscapes were pressure washed and patio was resanded. The whole yard looked amazing and we got a ton of compiments! Will use these guys again and again...

Doug and the boys at Delanson did a great job on my driveway and the structure of a small pea gravel patio. Doug answered my initial call immediately. We then met to discuss the projects , set a price and a start date. The outcome was perfect . Clean up left my property almost in better shape than it was found before the project began. Doug’s team were hardworking and very respectful of my property. Doug is not just the boss/owner, but he picks up a shovel and makes material deliveries to keep the project rolling and timely. He used emails for some of his communications, which I found to be succinct and professional. We did a final walk through after completion; life is good. You owe it to yourself and your property to meet Doug. It will be time well spent.

They are, simply put, incredible. Great work. Great price. And Doug is a really good guy and a pleasure to work with.

Very well. Arrived on time and completed requested work.

Delanson Gardens (Doug) was beyond fantastic to work with. Doug provided a timely quote and accurate estimates for when he would start the job and walked us through the logistics from start to finish. Doug and his team worked extra hard to keep the project moving when we hit (literally) a major roadblock and found a boulder where our patio was supposed to be. Doug made a recommendation for a design change that worked and kept the project moving forward. He also went above and beyond and used our extra materials to spruce up some areas of our yard beyond what was in scope. Doug is punctual, communicative and extremely attentive to detail. You will not be disappointed.

I ended up choosing to do it myself. It was to put a French drain in my back yard. It cost me only $700 but if I had them come in it would have cost me like $2500. It was the price that really threw me off. As for their overall outlook they seemed to be a very decent company. It was very good, I had no problems with them. Their price was way above what I expected to pay. I wasn’t happy with the estimate.

Went good, owner performed work and inspected. Will hire again!