SOUTHERN PLANTER

We set a date for the landscape designer to come out and develop a plan. At that time, I told Rusty, the owner, that I only had $2,000 or so to spend. A week later, Rusty and the designer came out to my house. Upon arrival, the first thing Rusty said was "that tree needs to come down" I told him no, I'm not taking down healthy trees. The designer spent about an hour coming up with a plan for the front yard (this was in late Jan). When he was finished with the design, the 3 of us went over it. The following week, Rusty brought an estimate for the work. IT WAS $9,000!! I was floored since I had told him I only had about $2,000. He said he would be more than happy to finance the project. (I'm an accountant and you don't finance yard work). I told him I wanted to go over things, but that I was eager to get started and would call him in a few days. And this didn't even address the actual grass in the yard. At that time he indicated that he could start right away. It was important to start fairly quickly, because he wanted to move a small tree and some plants that would be coming up in a month or so, needed to be divided so that they could be used in the plan. A few days later, I called and wanted a breakdown between plants, labor and soil/mulch and that I had been able to come up with another $1,000 and wanted to figure out how to implement as much of the project as I could. I also wanted to substitute some of the plants he suggested. He said to send him and email, which I did on February 11, 2015. I assumed that he would be able to break down the costs in less than an hour (if he had actually costed everything out when preparing my estimate). Mid April, I still had not heard from him (yes, I dropped the ball and didn't follow up, but I shouldn't have had to). I emailed him again and asked what was going on. I got a prompt reply from him telling me that "he was too busy with his contract customers that pay him monthly and have had many demands out of the blue" and "he would get a breakdown as soon as possible but that it might be a while longer. Busy spring but things will calm down when it gets hotter." He also stated that "he had wrecked his vehicle recently and was not mobile". (That was not my problem. In February he had an operational vehicle and what I was asking for didn't even require a vehicle). I promptly emailed back and told him his services were no longer required. My thoughts: (1) why would you even submit a $9,000 proposal when you were told the budget was around $2,000, (2) the lack of a prompt response to the request for a breakdown leads me to believe he put very little thought into preparing the estimate. Otherwise, he would have already had the numbers, (3) which leads me to feel like he didn't return my email because I was questioning him on his costs. I feel like all he was interested in was getting as much money as he could out of me. As a result, I had to handle this on my own. Turns out, it's only going to cost about $3,500 for plants, labor, top soil and mulch and includes $$ for a certified aborist to come out and look at and do some tree work for me. Turns out some of the stuff Rusty talked about doing would actually cause damage to the trees in my yard. I have seen some of the yards Rusty has done and I will give him credit, they do look nice. But his prices are just too high and his customer service was terrible.