Very Poor Workmanship
Company looked good for work I wanted - namely to clear front garden of all plants and bulbs, replace all soil to a depth of 20cm, and then plant a lavender hedge for ease of maintenance. Review sites showed many happy customers. Proposal looked very professional, with a detailed plan so decided to go ahead, and they had a commitment to “deliver high-quality long-lasting work”. Unfortunately, what I received was the opposite.
Work was due to start on 7 April but 3 weeks before they asked for postponement as they'd double booked. On 12 April they turned up late as their van had broken down.
Work then started to remove plants and soil. I thought it strange that they hadn't bought a digger but the 2 lads worked hard by hand removing bushes and soil. I'd worked out they needed about 4m3 of soil removing and replacing so was confused that they only had a relatively small skip and only about 2m3 of replacement soil was delivered but assumed these “professional landscape gardeners” knew what they were doing.
However, it seemed they only removed about 5cm of soil and then dug a deeper trench for the lavender plants.
Then the plants arrived, but unfortunately, they couldn't get enough showing a lack of planning and not ordering in advance of the work - they had had 3 months!
The ones they planted looked excellent - bright green new shoots, however, there were only enough to fill two-thirds of the garden.
They then bought some more that were much smaller and looked totally different. They said they would grow to the same size over time, but it looked wrong and my neighbours commented how poor it looked. After one month the original plants are just about to flower, but the others have hardly grown at all.
Some additional lavender plants that I'd requested for a wider section were planted but as these were away from the trench they had to sit proud of the soil. Weeds are now growing from the soil that they left behind.
Tried to get the company to correct this and confirm whether they had done the work they specified in the proposal, but they now refuse to contact me. They had promised to return to transplant some of the lavender plants this week to mix the large and smaller ones in one hedge, but they never turned up.
It’s now up to me to do the transplanting. In hindsight I should have kept a close eye on what these “professionals” did, and refused to pay until I was fully satisfied with the work. I’ve asked for a partial refund, but to no avail.
I was considering using them to do some more work in the future, but now I would never trust them again, and I recommend potential customers give them a very wide berth.
