STERLING LANDSCAPING

We first hired Sterling Landscaping in approximately 2004 to do our yard maintenance. We had tried 5 other companies previously and were not at all happy with the service we were getting. We lived in a brand new, high-end neighborhood, and Sterling Landscaping had put in all the landscapes for the homes that were built in the neighborhood. They were also maintaining the model home yards and the common areas of the neighborhood. Since they seemed to be doing a good job, we decided to give them a try. We were admittedly shocked by how much they charge (for our yard, $350/month + tax). However, we were desperate to find a company that would do a good job, so we hired them. They did a fantastic job! We continued to use them for approximately 5 or so years, while we lived in the house. The only real issue I had with them was that they wouldn't bring issues to our attention (for example, they didn't tell us about a bees nest in one of our trees, or alert us that some plants were infected with insects, or notice tent caterpillars in a couple trees), although they were supposed to do this as part of their contract. When I called about the issues, they did come out and immediately take care of them. After we sold our house, we bought a house that we tore down and rebuilt, and we hired Sterling Landscaping to design, install, and maintain our landscape. The design was fantastic, but way out of our budget. We cut out a large number of the plants and brought it down to a price we could (barely) afford. They did a super job on the landscape installation, and people comment all the time about how great our yard looks. But I must say that their customer service has gone down hill since we used them at our last house. We are continuing to use them for our weekly yard maintenance, and are very happy with the crew that comes out to do the maintenance. But I've had numerous issues dealing with their office. I can almost never get a live person on the phone when I call. I seem to always get voicemail. Sometimes I'll call numerous times throughout the day and can never reach a person. When I leave messages to call me back, often no one bothers to call back. I still have the same complaint about them not bringing issues to our attention. With our current house, we have a lot more pest issues, including root weevils. We've lost several plants due to weevil damage. If Sterling had noticed these issues and taken measures to control the pests, we might have saved the plants. Even when I brought it to the attention of the person in charge of our yard, he forgot to tell the crew about it. I've had to bring it up several times. This year they missed several of their visits over the winter months, supposedly because bad weather prevented them from coming out. They never called to let us know when they would make up the visits; I had to call and request that they do this. We paid ahead of time for them to come out and start up our irrigation system and make sure everything is working properly, and they never came out. I called repeatedly to find out what happened. They kept telling me someone would call me to schedule this. No one did. Last time I called they said the person doing the irrigation startup had to take some unexpected time off, and someone would call me the following week to schedule something. Still, no one has called me. Today I called the office to speak to the foreman in charge of our yard. As usual, I got voicemail. I left a message asking that he call me immediately, because I needed him to tell his crew to take care of some items that were getting overlooked in our yard. I knew the crew would be out sometime today. He didn't call me, nor did anyone else from the office. I happened to be home when the crew showed up, so I went out there and instructed them myself. If I knew of another company that would do as good a job on the maintenance, I would stop using Sterling. I'm really conflicted in writing this report, because the crew does do a really good job, but other aspects of the company have really declined over the last year or two.