Passionate About Landscaping

Marty, the owner, is a great person with whom to work. We had a tree removed and it was done professionally and efficiently. We are grateful for the timeliness in which the work was completed. I am not sure of the exact time the work was completed, but it was either January or February of 2018. I definitely would recommend this company to anyone who needs any outside work done, such as tree removal and other tree services, lawn mowing, etc. We are never disappointed with the work that is performed.

The work was performed in a very professional manner on a weekly basis. Our lawn looked fantastic after each cut. The cost was reasonable at $45.00 per cut, but not as inexpensive as the previous lawn service which was $40.00 per cut.

Very good service, timliness, and finished job looked great

When I met with the owner Marty and his foreman Lino, I explained to them exactly what I was looking to achieve.  I wanted pavers installed three high in a running pattern.  I let them know that the reason for this was to allow water to drain through them. And to avoid grass getting into the flower beds.
I meet with them twice, because they wanted to make sure they understood what I wanted.  I asked Marty if he would be on the job or at least supervising the work. I distinctly told them that they needed to follow the different heights of the property and that what I wanted was just a border three pavers high.  Not to be concerned with leveling the pavers.  Guaranteed that he would be supervising.  
He scheduled the date, I did not.   I distinctly took off from work to be home on the start date to make sure that all was understood.
Because of one ran day it seemed to totally throw off their schedule. Which I could have understood.  So they sent Pedro to start the job.  
Problem number one - Pedro speaks absolutely no English.  Problem number two - Marty was on vacation so was not available to supervisor the job, Lino his foreman discussed the job with Pedro instead, then left him alone.  Pedro dug out the ground to be level.  Then laid down the pavers. First he forgot to lay down the modified stone.  He also was not told that I did not expect the pavers to be leveled, but to follow the contour of the property.  Again this was just a garden border.  So areas that were dug out now needed to be five high and not the three I wanted.  So he had to remove what he did and lay the modified stone down. Couldn't do anything about digging down too deep.  Called Lino to discuss this with Pedro. He stopped over, talked to Pedro, then left.
Day two.  Only Pedro again, and again a problem with direction.  Again call Lino, again remove the pavers laid down incorrectly.
Day three - Only Pedro again, and again a problem with trying to do a running pattern. Was laying the stone with ends all in a vertical row.  Marty is now back from vacation, but he forgot it was the Jewish holiday.  Both him and his foreman Lino were unable to meet with me. So had to have Pedro stop the job.
Day four - Not able to meet with Marty and Lino until after 5:30.  Was not about to take any more time off of work because of their schedule.
Day five - Finally the work is completed by Pedro.
Come home from work to see that he still did not get the running pattern correct.  Also that he ran out of stone, even though I purchased 200 more that expected. Because of all the errors. He laid a semi cut piece in an area that is noticeably.  Of course I will now have to plant something there to hid it.  Doable, but should not have been necessary.
I do not blame Pedro at all.  He worked harder than he really needed to.  But because Marty did not supervisor as he specified and that Lino was too busy to stay around, or at least have someone with Pedro that understood fully what I wanted. The problem with communication was actually a joke.  
Would never recommend this company to anyone.  Could have been great, but  really bad on getting things done correctly.

Service went very well. They brought their truck along with a vacuum duct for sucking up leaves and did a great job.

Great job, nice group of men.

Marty and his team installed a beautiful flagstone patio, custom cedar privacy fencing, and a hand-built arbor, plus upcycled my old deck into steps, attached benches and platforms. They were extremely responsive to and enthusiastic about my ideas; they were courteous, obtained the necessary building permit from my township, and graciously took me around to a variety of places to help me choose materials. It was a huge job and came out gorgeous. The following spring Marty accompanied me to local nurseries to help me pick plants appropriate to the sunlight on the patio and offered planting expertise. I highly, highly recommend them. The only difficulty was in accurately estimating the cost, which came out to be significantly higher than I anticipated; however, I was partly at fault because my ideas - which PAL brought to fruition with positivity and expertise, but not with enough of a financial heads-up - grew and changed as the project advanced.

In discussing the sewage overflow with Marty Levin, he denied his crew was responsible. Now, no other lawn service has cut my lawn for several years and nothing else could have done the damage to the drain according to the plumbers and our visual inspection. The plumbers indicate this happens a lot as lawn crews work so fast they run over the drains. When the plumber dug up and removed the clean out drain in the early spring, we saw the metal clean out cap had visible damage from a sharp instrument and the main cap was lodged in the drain. At this point, I again asked Marty to take responsibility for his actions, which he did not want to accept, but he agreed to run this issue through his insurance company. Well, it has been several months and emails since this discussion and I have never heard, nor received anything from Passionate About Lanscaping's insurance company, which he indicated would be in contact with me. My choices are limited; 1) hire a lawyer to collect the repair money, 2) solve through my insurance company, although my insurance deductible is $1,000 per incident, 3) try to work this out with Marty. After numerous attempts to resolve this directly with Marty and the company, I have given up and will contact a lawyer to get compensation back for this large expense. I have all our emails, photos and the original drain with destroyed metal cap intact to show the lawyer, so I hope we get some justice in this simple case that should have be solved by Marty before he gets a negative review on Angies List. I even thought he wanted to and quot;barterand quot; with us by providing no charge lawn service to pay back his debt. He invoiced us for early spring lawn cuts at $0 dollars, so we thought this would be the path he wanted to pay us back. However, with his latest invoice he has now decided to charge us for the last several cuts. He is inconsistent and a confusing person to deal with.

I have given Marty an and quot;Fand quot; rating as any reputable firm would accept responsibility when it is so obvoius a result of their lawn service. I feel uncomfortable with companies, or for that matter anyone who does work at my home who cannot accept responsibility for their actions. Integrity and character are everything to me and this company has shown they do not posses these traits. I feel others, who are making choices about Passionate About Landscaping services, should know how this company is operated and what they could expect should they experience a situation like I did. I tried to work this out over many months directly with Marty, but I am now totally frustated and will look towards other means to get some justice. Over $1,000 dollars of damage is something I cannot let go and other consumers of his services need to be aware that if something goes and quot;Southand quot; with Passionate About Landscaping so does this company.

Regretfully,
Greg Jones

Since we started working with Marty there have been significant problems, with the landscaping work and now with the lawn mowing. They promised one thing and delivered another, lesser or incorrect service. Apparently my mistake has been to call him to let him know that work was not done correctly and to ask them to fix it or to do it as promised. Today he told me this is s an annoyance to him. and quot;I have 135 customers and don't need this from youand quot; is what he said to me.
I am shocked and appalled by the lack of professionalism and accountability of Marty Levin in particular. My experience of him is that he would say what he thought I wanted to hear to get the business and then would do whatever he wanted.
There work was poorly planned, poorly supervised and supervised. Clearly to me this is a business that has grown too quickly and quality has slipped. So if the details are not important to you and you are looking for quick, basic work at a good price then maybe you will be happy. Care about the details and expect people you hire to deliver what was promised? These are not your guys.

The work went well. Aside from scheduling issues in the very beginning, once work began it was completed rather quickly. The guys did an excellent job. The price was at the MAX top of my budget, but I believe a good part of it would have been due to the demo and removal of a yard I allowed to become overgrown since I knew I would be embarking upon this project.

They are just very pleasant, hardworking, didn't good off, worked hard, and they were very nice people.

Fair work. Nice workers.

Very good experience especially the services of Pat Burke. I understand that he is no longer with this company so I will not be using this firm in the future as he was the best employee. I wish that I could find out where he was now working and I would use his services again.

Their name says it all! They were great...very professional.
The special was for 8 man-hours...they got a lot done in that time.
I recommend them without reservation.

Language was a huge barrier. Their spoken english was horrendous. Because of the language problem they really couldn't follow instructions at all.
They didn't bring a ladder long enough to do the gutters so I had to dig mine out. My house is a normal 2 story colonial and NOT that high. How can you go to a job and not bring the proper tools?
Very dissatisfied with the experience.

I purchases one of the Angie's List certificates for $249 for $450 of work.
The weed and ivy work was great.
The drains were well cleaned.
Due to a bit of a language barrier with the workers, a part of the work was overlooked..
After one quick phone call, the owner came out with his workers to make sure that I was fully satisfied with the final product.

I live in a ground-floor condo and this summer, after 3+ years with no problems, I had runaway ivy growing under the fence and across the patio. Not a job I wanted to tackle! So I used a Big Deal to have Marty's guys clear away the ivy. Marty returned my call promptly to schedule a day, arrived on time that day, and when I came home that evening, the ivy was gone. I fear it will be back, but I'm relieved to have it gone for now. I would totally use Passionate About Landscaping again.

I called them for one service, and they got me for lawn maintenance. We had a couple of miscommunications, but they straightened that out. I think they had a change of personnel towards the end of the season. The service looks a little different, but I was still satisfied with it. A couple of times we had to schedule, and I had to call them for scheduling, but they came when I called them. The experience with them was fine overall. They were responsive to my call. I think they were fine. They came in and did what they had that we agreed too. They were not aggressive with the billing; I had to call for the bill. That was fine.

I was satisfied with their work.

I was called back promptly when I made my first call to set a day and time. When it rained on the work day I received a a prompt text message early in the morning and we set up for the following morning. They were on time and very neat. Thanks

They come every 7 - 10 days and do a great job.
Three times a year they do a complete lawn and garden clean up.
I am very happy with the work they do.

Our landscaping has been a challenge for several years now, with very aggressive thistle and weeds popping up throughout several beds, dry/sunny soil which takes its toll on plants, and our tendency to let those issues and overall growth get ahead of us. We have made several attempts in the past with various landscapers and at great expense to resolve those issues, only to be disappointed by the end product or resulting continued lack of weed control, inappropriate plants selected, etc.
We had to try one last time this spring, as the weeds had completely taken over several beds and were topping out at greater heights than the plants! Bushes were completely overgrown, and one very large one needed to be removed. It was either find a good landscaper or torch and pave over the entire lawn!! (ok.. a SLIGHT exaggeration there.....)
We had several highly-rated landscapers come out in the spring and offer their vision of what they could do and what the end result would look like, and each seemed quite competent. But we had thought similarly about our prior landscapers as well, so we were still concerned about making the right choice. Price was also a major concern.
In the end, we went with Marty and Russ at and quot;Passionate About Landscapingand quot; for several reasons...... First, I liked their true interest in our yard's problems and potential, as well as our past history. They were also very flexible as far as what directions they could go in resolving the issues and how our yard would eventually look. Second, they were local, and we even had a few common friends and neighbors who could attest to their character and quality of work. We got the sense that, if we had an issue or concern, we would feel comfortable getting back to them, and they would be quick to respond and address the issue. We wouldn't have to chase down someone from outside the immediate area. Third, understanding our budget limitations, they were flexible in offering various options/alternatives, and worked with us to come up with a plan we were comfortable with and could afford. Finally, it was just a gut feeling I had that these were the guys who would finally get it right for us, and do whatever it took to do so.
Marty and Russ make a good team, bouncing ideas off each other and myself each step along the way, as we devised the final plan for our yard. They were (and still are) very accessible as well, whenever questions or something unanticipated arose. Because this spring and summer were extremely hard to plan around, between several weeks of rain and others of extreme heat, Marty and Russ let me know that they would not be able to get to my project immediately. But they and their crew were here as soon as the weather and backlog broke, putting in several long days' work on the project.
Each time their crew came out to do any work, either Marty and/or Russ made sure they were also here to confer with me and make sure their crew chief knew exactly what needed to be done, and special requests/concerns to address. Once under way, their very capable crew worked extremely hard in what was often blistering heat. When they left for the day, they also made sure the yard was completely cleaned-up as well.
Since the original job was completed, a few minor and quot;tweaksand quot; were needed - - as I said, our yard has VERY aggressive weeds! - - each time, Russ and/or Marty was here with his crew first chance they had to look into and resolve them quickly and professionally!
It's a comfortable feeling to know we've finally found the right landscaper... not just for the original project, but for seasonal follow-ups and planned future landscaping and lighting projects as well!
Bottom line: We are VERY satisfied with Marty and Russ personally and professionally, and with the job they did. The end result - - a yard which looks like it hasn't in many years, and a curb appeal which we are once again proud of! Marty, Russ, and their crew really NAILED IT!!
We would DEFINITELY recommend them to our friends and neighbors, although the results speak for themselves!

It went well. They were good.

They were great. Passionate About Landscaping cleaned up my lawn in the spring and came back throughout the summer and fall season(s) to trim my shrubs, clean the lawn and cut the grass. They were also very reasonable, efficient and offer competitive pricing.