DH Landscape Design

This company had it all put to together at first. They were very organized and their crew was respectful and quiet. They made a beautiful landscaping xeriscape plan for me. I was very happy with the design. Then, when the work was approaching completion… the problems begin. Their attention to detail was poor. They put weedblock down on my grass without getting rid of the grass first. Grass was poking out of the weedblock everywhere. It looked really unprofessional. Then, 3 weeks later we had a weed called sedgenut everywhere. The xeriscape area was literally covered 3 weeks later. I called them to come back out and fix the problem and they pulled the sedgenut and sprayed. Then, 3 weeks later… same problem and we were covered in sedgenut and grass started to come out everywhere around the mulch and weedblock. They told me we would have to do a little maintenance to keep up the landscaping. No one has 3 – 4 hours every 3 weeks to do a «little» maintenance. A year later… we have had a nightmare trying to fix their problem that they put in our backyard. We would have been better off leaving everything as it was before. We spent $ 5000 to have a nightmare problem to handle for the rest of our years here. After researching how xeriscapes should be done we have discovered that they took many shortcuts and did not do things like they were supposed to and they have told us that they did what we asked them to do. Well, if I asked to spend $ 5000 for a project that has caused me to put hours upon hours of work in to it because they did not do it the right way to begin with… well, then I got what I asked for. Instead of looking outside at my backyard and enjoying what I see, I have to look outside and decide what I can do now to fix their mistakes. I am looking in to small claims court because that is how unhappy and duped we feel. I asked them for a low maintenance solution that looks nice in the very beginning and we have received the opposite. Do not use this company. The work will look good at first and then you will have a nightmare to work around when the grass and weeds have time to come back in because they take shortcuts and do not prepare your lawn appropriately.

Would I recommend DH? Yes — with reservations. We had major work done and spent some serious dollars in our backyard (way overdue). If I am paying large $$, I expect high quality, and my expectations were mostly met. As far as the price, I seriously doubt DH is the least expensive company out there, but I wouldn’t expect them to be. As far as quality, not perfect but pretty good (probably the best work of 3 companies we have used)
Chad is a great salesman, and spent plenty of time with us pre-​sale. He also spent quite a bit of time on the job supervising his employees (not subs). We had some conflicts, and in my opinion, DH could have handled things better. In my opinion, they became quite defensive in some of their interactions with us.
What did we learn from this (and what should you learn):
1 — Don’t underestimate the importance of the contract. They are very easy going, and will work very well with you. But once the contract was in place, we felt like it was a different relationship. If it was not spelled out in the contract, or part of their original detailed cost estimate (which we never were offered), then you may get a supplement.
2 — We should have hired a landscape architect for the dollars we spent. Though in the end, DH installed a good (not perfect though) design, it was not without the conflict. Having an architect would have eliminated the conflict, and allowed DH to bid off of specs. We also likely would have been encouraged to get competing bids. Additionally, we would have had that perfect design without the cost of rework and un budgeted expense