Buyer Beware is the best advice we can offer when it comes to hiring James. If he is not busy, everything is good and he is easy to work with, but if he gets a larger job everything changes. First, he starts telling you how busy he is now and how he is working on these much bigger jobs in these more prestigious (than yours) neighborhoods. We contracted him to do a job for over $8,000. He did not have any work at the time and promised to delivery on our timeline. We were upfront about other projects (fencing and pool) we had going on and the fact that he would need to be flexible to work around them. He said he was good with that but then started doing things that did not match his words. First, he dumped decomposed granite around our fence and driveway knowing that it could not be installed until after the fence was stained. It ended up sitting there for 3 weeks collecting leaves and debris. The day before James was to install our trees, sod and plants, he came by and dropped off the plants and trees in the driveway. We were home at the time but did not have time to thoroughly look at the trees and plants just then. Later that evening, after having had a chance to review the plants and trees, we contacted James to express concerns with the health of some of the plants and all of the trees. This was a few weeks after the â big freeze and we were concerned that they were showing signs of having been damaged and some were possibly dying. Who wants to have dying plants and trees installed? All he kept saying was that he did not know what we were talking about, and the plants and trees were perfect. Then, he started repeatedly saying, well, maybe I am not the contractor for you.â Ultimately, we told him that we should all think about that point and talk in the morning. When he came out the next morning, we all agreed it was best to stop the work where it was, not install the plants and trees, and just move on. We had already advanced James $2,000 for the installation of the decomposed granite; to build and fill a rock bed behind the pool and to install edging around the pool equipment. So, we agreed that he would complete that work and we would call it even. He did a good job on the rock bed behind the pool but decided to confiscate the extra stone that he did not use (which we felt we had paid for) without discussing it with us at all. He put edging around the pool equipment, but it was not done correctly. He also did not install the decomposed granite correctly. It was spread out and tamped down, but not thoroughly compacted with a machine or tooling. We have hired another landscaper to fix what James did not do correctly and complete the rest of the landscaping work. Every landscaper that we spoke to in the process of finding a new one commented that the decomposed granite was not installed correctly and would need additional work. In the end, the fact that we will end up spending a few more dollars to have the work done right, is not worth losing sleep over. We just do not want anybody else to fall for the bait and switch we feel like we got from James. .