HIGHER GROUND LANDSCAPING

I want to be fair to Gary. He is basically a good person.

He obviously knows his business and is very successful at it. Unfortunately in this case we patiently waited for the results to get better but what we ended up getting (for no small sum of money) did not and still does not meet expectations.

This resulted in a less than perfect experience. Gary initially was supportive but as the problem lingered, it became our problem and no longer his.

Unfortunately this kind of attitude has left a bad taste in my mouth. Gary has given me the give the impression that he has forgotten who the customer is or has decided not to care.

I understand that all businesses owners have he prerogative to decide how far they will go to resolve customer issues.

Gary made it obvious that he will only go so far.

Unfortunately, I can no longer use Gary nor recommend his Company.

Did very well friendly and responsive. Did very good work. Will use again next summer for a couple of small projects.

The quailty of the concrete work and grading was excellent, there were some significant delays in getting the fence completed and the final result for the fence was not up to the highest standards. Nonetheless, I would recommend Gary, he is fair and honest, a good communicator and has high quality standards. As with most contractors, especially if yours is a smaller job , make sure you know where you stand in the job queue.

Due to the slope of my yard, water from the downspout on my garage was pooling in my garage and causing masonry erosion. Water from the downspout in my backyard was pooling back onto my patio. Both downspouts are near high traffic areas where it wouldn't be practical or attractive to put long above ground extensions on the bottom of the raingutters to send the water farther onto the lawn. Higherground installed a below ground French drain from both of the downspouts to solve the problem. We have since had two substantial rain storms and there hasn't been a drop of water in the garage or on the patio where there used to be deep puddles. When my puppy got excited about all of the digging and dug up part of the drain the day after installation, Gary promptly came back and reconfigured it to make it less attractive to the dog, filled in a couple of other holes created by the dog elsewhere in the yard, and gave me some great tips that have very successfully prevented her digging.

See my comments from above. I'll use them again for additional work - no question about it.

The HGL owner responded quickly to my request for an estimate, and we scheduled a meeting in the next day or two. He responded with an estimate in a matter of days. I comparied his bid against two others (from Angie's list) and prices were comparable; the only significant difference being cost for site preparation (HGL strongly recommends amending the soil after tear out [others didn't], which added about 2,500 to our bid; I did some research and decided it was worth it). The estimate provided an estimated start date and number of days estimated to complete the job. A deciding factor for us in selecting them is that they work on one job at a time, completing one job before moving to another. Once we provided a signed contract and a 60% deposit, they started as soon as they finished the job before us (a few days later than scheduled due to whether delays on the prior project). All the staff were professional, and worked hard, and the job was well-organized. They cleaned up the job site each day and worked during normal working hours. The only delays were related to weather (lots of those unfortunately) but finished in the number of working days estimated. I made some modifications during the process and they were accomodating. With each modification, Gary submitted a revised estimate. He also emailed every couple of days to let us know status, etc. There were no surprises in the final bill. We are very satisified with the finished product.

Very smooth from start to finish. However, if you plan on hiring Higher Ground Landscaping, please book in advance, they are very busy!

Gary was already measuring and brainstorming when I arrived to meet him for an estimate. Our main concern was cleaning up our overgrown yard before the winter, so he proposed doing that part first and then either putting down a weed barrier, or going ahead and planting in the fall so that the plants had a chance to settle in before the heat of next summer. We were so happy with him we decided to go ahead and plant this fall. We are black thumb types, so offloading as much as possible into Gary's hands was a great relief - his choices for placement and types of plants was excellent. It was fun to watch as things changed over the week. Gary was kind enough to do a walkthrough and an education session for us to decrease our ignorance of plants a bit!