Mike's Landscaping

They are so unprofessional and doesn't have good custom service. We have a 3 day project turn into 3 weeks because the guys only work 2 -4 hours a day. And they will fight you on everything and imply that you are wrong when you tell them a certian brick is suppose to be on our project. Now they are refusing to finish the job since they are to lazy to seal my new patio and wont return text phone calls are emails. I had to call and check in the progress everyday because they were gone and didnt give me an update everyday like i was promised soneone would check in every day. Please go somewhere else you will be happier with another company.

I've hired Mike's landscaping to do a spring treatment (fertilizer and pre-emergent) of part of my lawn for the past two years. Having 7 acres, I try to develop/maintain several acres as a "lawn". I'm out in the country, surrounded be fields. When I inquired about repeat services this spring, the price more doubled ($450/acre) since I have no desire to be under an annual contract. Last year I paid $280 for treatment of 2.25 acres. I do my own treatment for annual weeds. So they priced themselves out of a quick job (under an hour) and do not reward customer loyalty.

Sorry for the length of this post! I contracted with Mike’s Landscaping in mid April to complete some landscaping at my house. We agreed if I paid cash he’d give me a discounted price and he gave me an approximate date of the first of May. I let him know then that my husband and I were leaving June 1st and we wanted to make sure it was done by then because we wanted to be there in case there were any problems or questions. On April 25th I received an email that my job was slated to take place approximately 30 days out. I understood as we had had a lot of rain. On May 11, I received an email stating we were approximately 2 weeks out and then on May 17 an email stated my job was one week out. No one showed or contacted me the week in which the 17th fell. I contacted the office on the following Monday May 21st. The receptionist told me the crew would be there the next day May 22. No one showed that day so I called the office that afternoon and was assured they’d be there on the 23rd. No one showed or contacted me that day or the 24th-25th. I called again on Monday May 28th reminding the receptionist that my husband and I were leaving that Friday evening. I was assured the crew would be out and have the job completed before we left. On Thursday May 30th some of Mikes crew arrived with a pick up truck and pulled the 7 shrubs from the front of our house. Our yard was saturated with rain water and the truck left ruts in our yard. When I had first spoken to Mike I asked him if my husband and I could have a friend of ours remove the shrubs with either a truck or tractor and save the cost of removing the shrubs which was $500. Mike advised me I could do that but ran the risk of incurring an additional cost if roots were left and his crew had to perform additional labor. I asked how he would remove the shrubs and he said they would bring a backhoe and he also told me they’d probably remove the shrubs in advance of the day they landscaped. There were approximately 6 weeks from the time I contacted with Mike and the day they arrived to remove the shrubs. There were definitely days that the ground was much drier. The day after removing the shrubs the crew arrived to landscape. I had my invoice in hand and checked container sizes. Mike called as the crew was unloading and asked how things looked and I told him one tree had lots of brown leaves on it and did not look that healthy. He told me that the tree was actually a little larger than the one on my invoice but he’d let me have it at that cost. He then told me that I was receiving a 15 gallon magnolia tree instead of a 10 gallon tree and there would be an additional $50 charge. I told him at that time I had my invoice in hand and that I had already paid for a $15 gallon tree. Mike assured me that his crew would return that week and repair our yard while my husband and I were out of town. When we returned the yard hadn’t been touched and weeds were already protruding from the thin layer of mulch they had put down. I called and left Mike voicemails and or text messages multiple times in the coming weeks often with pictures attached. Often Mike did not return my calls. Occasionally he would leave a text and assure me they’d take care of repairing the yard. I always had the feeling that Mike just didn’t want to take the time to come himself which is what I asked him to do several times. At one point he told me he was busy with a massive job in Columbus which made me feel like my landscaping job was of little concern to him. When I contracted with Mike I stressed to him that I wanted this area to be one that required very little maintenance and I mentioned laying down a fabric under the mulch to prevent weeds from coming through. Mike assured me with the pre-emergent they would apply weeds would not be a problem. I trusted Mike’s expert opinion. For what I was paying Mike a few hundred dollars would have been a price I would have paid to prevent the weeds. A few days later a crew member came out scattered some seed, tamped the ground a little and scattered a little straw. 4 weeks after the landscaping was completed I sent Mike pics of the ruts in our yard and the weeds in the mulch. I asked him would he please come over personally to look at our yard. Mikes business is about 5 miles from our house. He told me he was very busy and he wouldn’t be able to come but he’d try to send a crew member. I was very disappointed in his response. Finally there came a point when Mike and I had a 20 minute conversation with me telling him that I wanted our ruts fixed and I wanted the fabric placed under the mulch. He said he would come and rake the mulch away put down the fabric and rake the mulch back for a few hundred dollars. I told him I was not willing to pay a few hundred more dollars and reluctantly Mike agreed he would do it for $100. The crew arrived and applied the fabric and spent more time than previously on attempting to repair the yard. One crew member told me he’d return in 30 days to sow seed. Someone did return and sow seed but 3 months later our yard looks bad and the grass is coming up sparsely. On July 14 Mike sent an invoice stating I owed him 181.00 which included the $100 we agreed on, $50 for the tree that we spoke about the day of landscaping and then $30 fee for 3 plants that he brought the morning of my landscaping job which were a larger container size than what I had paid for on my invoice. I see it as Mikes responsibly to deliver the size plants I paid for. I sent him an email and told him I would send $130 after the seed had been sowed and reminded him again that I did not owe $50 more dollars for the tree. I was out of the country for about a week and when I returned in early August I received another invoice for $245. I have no idea how the $181 he previously said I owed went to $245. I contacted him and told him I’d be mailing a check for $130 and I’d consider my bill paid in full and if he did not we could settle it in small claims court. My check was cashed. I am attaching pictures of the yard I took today, a picture of our yard prior to Mike’s crew pulling the shrubs out with a truck, and a pic of the one of the trees on the day it was planted.

I believe I just called him for an estimate but I never used him.  I believe he quoted me around $300.  I would use him but I found someone to do it dirt cheap.  He's very knowledgeable.  He knew a lot about his profession.

They were very prompt and energetic company but to me, they are just too highly priced. Mike is a pleasant young man. They are a pretty well squared away. All the equipment is clean and their workers are on time. As far as I can tell, they have very nice office spaces but just through the roof on the prices.

We had them do a whole lot of work and we haven’t been unsatisfied with any if the work they’ve done. They are really priced well and they are honest. If they quoted us something at the end of the job they said we didn’t plants these plants so we are just going to take it off your bill. Whoever I talked to always say if there is any problems I should let them know right away.

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Mike and his team were very friendly and good to work with.    The crew was polite and worked hard.    We are very pleased with the results.   The team worked each day for a week and got 95% of the project completed.    The finishing touches were completed about 1 month later.

Cliff Notes:

Purchased $150 Landscape Review and Design Deal through Angie's List.  Mike was several hours late for the appointment.  He then forgot about completing our landscape design for almost a month.  Then a week later provided a minimal landscape design that did not address our needs.  Attempting to still give Mike an opportunity to save face, we outlined and asked him to quote the work we actually needed.  The quote provided was ridiculously overpriced.

The Sad Details:

I purchased a $150 Landscape Review and Design offer through Angie’s List for Mike’s Landscaping.  At the time of purchasing (March 17th), I sent a message suggesting several dates and times.  I didn’t receive a response until 6 days later, which my calendar had filled up with other appointments, so the original dates no longer worked.  So, on May 25th I just called Mike’s Landscaping to schedule an appointment to ensure there would not be a scheduling conflict.  I spoke with Mike directly, he was friendly and easy to speak with.  We scheduled an appointment April 5th at 2PM.  I left work early that day to meet with Mike.  2PM came and went and I believe around 3:30PM I call the office and if I recall correctly they said Mike’s previous appointments were running long, but he would still be coming to our appointment.  About an hour later I get a call from Mike to confirm that I still had time to meet with him for our appointment.  Fortunately I did not have other plans that evening, and I did not want to push my luck with needing to leave work another day for another appointment.  Mike finally arrived just after 5PM, he was apologetic about being late. He was still friendly and easy to speak with in person as well. 

The deal I purchased through Angie’s List was for a 2 hour review of your landscape and a design drawing.  I was particularly interesting in this as my property has a number of different challenges and I was interested in seeing how a professional would address them.  I spoke with Mike and told him I was looking for a design that I could implement in stages as I was positive I could not afford to do everything at once.  Several times I mentioned to Mike, that if I was asking for too much design work to stop me and we could discuss an additional fee.   I would call myself a very advanced DIY guy that works to achieves professional level results, but with a baby on the way time is no longer on my side.  I told Mike I was looking to hire him to do most if not all of the work from the design, but probably in stages.  I wasn’t necessarily expecting every little detail to be addressed in the design, but I thought maybe about 80% of the major landscape components we discussed would be addressed.  The biggest items I was looking to have addressed is a drainage issue along the back property line, a fence around the backyard, creating some natural privacy off the backside of our pool, and new low maintenance plantings in all of the beds around my house and pool.  Although, after about an hour of discussing what I actually wanted Mike really started hunting for projects that involved pavers and stone work.  One of the things we were considering in the future was to replace our cement walkway to our front porch with pavers.  Although we told Mike the walkway was a low priority, we did agree to discuss that project with Mike as Mike convinced us that the walkway project would not be very expensive.  He also said that if we did the walkway at the same time as the fence and drainage work the walkway would be cheaper since its a smaller project. 

At this point the paver walkway now became Mike’s focus, and what he decided he would do a detailed design drawing along with updating the landscaping around the walkway.  He also said he would do a design of the overall property outlining the fence and other things we discussed.  We finished our conversations at 6:30, and then Mike spent the next 15 minutes doing measurements.  A little short of 2 hours, but I felt like Mike had a good general understanding of my priorities.  Mike asked us to give him a couple of weeks to work on the designs, and since it was still early April we had not issue with that.

Fast forward 3 weeks to Monday, April 25th, I had not heard anything from Mike so I send his office a message just checking in on the progress.  Mike calls me the following day (Tuesday), again apologetic, saying “we slipped between the cracks” (ie – he forgot all about us), but he would send me a design by Wednesday.  I was hopeful that he meant the following day, but the following day came and went with nothing.  Then on Tuesday May 3rd, I received another call from Mike in the evening saying they had completed the design, and I would receive it the next day.  At 2PM in the afternoon on May 4th I received…….. a written design estimate.  The quote was for $9k, which seemed a little high, but within reason for the work outlined.  Although without the design drawing I didn't know exactly what he had planned. Within the hour for receiving the written quote, I responded to the email thanking them for the quote, but asked about the design drawing.

Two more days go by and I hear nothing from Mike’s.  It’s now been over a month since Mike was at my house, so I called and left a voicemail at the office around 10-11AM.  I heard nothing from them from them that afternoon.  So, that evening I looked back through my call history and found Mike’s cell phone number.  I called and left Mike a voicemail saying that I was disappointed, and asked that he give me a call.  Mike and I then played phone tag leaving voicemails for one another that Friday evening.  Mike was out of town for the weekend, but promised in one of the voicemail that he would get me the designs first thing Monday morning.

Monday, May 9th almost 11AM, I finally receive design drawings from a Christian at Mike’s Landscaping.  The design for the paver walkway was nice, but simple, color overhead design layout.  The plantings selected would fill the space well with mixed colors and textures, and meet our low maintenance request.   Although, after reviewing the written quote we received the previous week my wife and I had already decided it was not a good investment at this time.  The second drawing was a very basic overhead view of my property which included a fence line, but it did not take into consideration several key requirements that I had discussed with Mike.  It only included a fence on two side of my property, and tied into existing neighbor fence, which I told Mike when we meet in April that we could not and did not want to do.  This drawing also included 5 oddly placed trees to sever as privacy for the pool, but again did not take into consideration my request to not block the evening sun.  The drawings included nothing else that we discussed.

Even after all of this delay, I still wanted to give Mike an opportunity to earn the business for the fencing and drainage, so that afternoon I called Mike’s office and spoke with Mike and Christian.  I explained I just wanted to simplify the scope of work to just a fence and the drainage.  Mike’s original quote included pressure treated pine fence panels, and I asked that we upgrade them to Cedar.  Although, I could not get a clear answer if the fence panels would be pre-made or built onsite.  When I asked about the types of fasteners the used, they did not know but would look into it!  This is important when using cedar wood as the oils in cedar, and weather conditions can react with certain metals.  This can stain the wood every place a nail is used, and/or the nail can rout out causing you fence to fail quicker.  Mike said they would update the quote and get it to me by Wednesday May 11th.<

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It took a while to get it booked and there were a couple reschedules along the way to handle other projects, but the work got done. Mike was very professional, but there was clearly some disconnect between the folks that took the order and had the plan and the folks that carried out the work. Some specifics of the project were lost along the way.
Overall, generally satisfied. Not sure I would go back again.

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