Valentin Ayon

We had Valentin and his crew demolish old retaining walls then replace them with new block, build a new 10×18 foot redwood deck with block stairway. His estimate was not the cheapest or the most expensive. He was friendly, showed up, and completed the project on time and very close to the original estimate. On the few occasions he went over, it was due to upgrades in the plan. We plan to hire him again for the next phase of our outdoor work. We are so happy with the outcome.
It has been over 2 months since completion, we have had quite a bit of rain. The work Valentin did has proven to be exactly what was needed. We continue to be most satisfied.

Valentin was referred to me by a good friend as a gardener. When Valentin came to my house to give me an estimate to do my gardening he saw the state of disrepair my deck was in and told me that he could also replace it.
After Valentin did my gardening I saw what an excellent job he did so I decided to take a risk and also hire him to rebuild my deck after he gave me a very reasonable estimate. I’d had a number of contractors come to my house to give me an estimate to rebuild my deck but some of them never came through with an estimate so I was eager to get this project started.
Valentin and his co-​worker William did an excellent job on rebuilding my deck and worked 6 days a week for a few weeks to get the project done on my time schedule since I was going to be going out of town for a few months.
As some Unilocalers complained about communication problems, I did not find Valentin hard to communicate with at all as his English was fine.
I am so happy I hired Valentin and look forward to using my deck again now that it’s been beautifully rebuilt. I will also retain him as my gardener too!

Bait and switch! I really just wanted monthly maintenance on my garden. Valentin said he’d be happy to do maintenance after doing a round of more substantial work (e.g. chopping down branches). So I accept the conditions, he does the work, I pay him the $ 500, then I never see him again. Gave up after about 20 phone calls. He may be good for major jobs, but between my experience and Michael T’s I get the sense he just isn’t interested in anything smaller.

Valentin did a fantastic job restoring my lawn and garden which had really gone to seed. His price was fair, he stayed on budget and showed up every day on schedule. His crew was uniformly polite and unassuming. I was actually surprised that he accomplished what he did in such a short time (I figured it would have taken double). We liked him so much we plan to have him do routine maintenance, planting throughout the year.
The communication gap is overstated. I don’t speak Spanish, yet we had no communication issues. And if you’re seriously worried about it, why not use one of the free translation apps available on the web?

My review deals with Valentin’s performance on a simple job, and so it’s not meant as any reflection of his landscaping skills, but I have to echo what other reviewers have commented on here about communication difficulties (?).
I only had Valentin drop off mulch for me to do a job myself in my back yard – a really simple request, right? Maybe that’s the problem – perhaps since I wasn’t asking him to do any «real» work, I got prioritized low on his list. Whatever the case, getting this simple task accomplished proved to be much more complex and frustrating than I would’ve imagined. I went with him because his quote was lower than anyone else’s, and that’s all I thought I needed to be concerned about. Then came a series of semi-​comic fails: late arrivals, no-​shows, mis-​communications about how much mulch I needed so that a second drop-​off became necessary, and through all of this he only ever called me once (to tell me he would be arriving in 45 minutes, though he was already 20 minutes late when he called). The rest of the time I was tracking him down, leaving messages that were sometimes just not returned, and often not getting much of any explanation for the silences and misunderstandings.
In the end I did get the mulch, he only charged me for gas for his truck, he gave me a better price for the second drop-​off (despite my suspicion that he was using a friend’s larger truck the second time), and he was polite and friendly and seems hard-​working, so I don’t give him one star, but be prepared to deal with some issues if you call him.

I found Valentin Ayon based on previous Unilocal reviews and now feel like I won the lottery. He is the absolute best! He came out when he said he would and gave me a very fair quote for clearing, laying a drip system and planting my entire back yard. I showed him pictures of the look I was going for and he went out and chose great plants that are low maintenance and colorful. He did such a wonderful, professional job. It felt like I was watching someone who was taking the kind of care and initiative that he would take in his own yard. I can’t recommend him highly enough.

I cannot recommend Valentin more highly.
We hired him to build a flagstone patio, set up an irrigation and sprinkler system in our backyard and plant several trees.
His price was less than half of other contractors and he stayed true to his estimate. He and his team also finished a bit earlier than expected and did a beautiful job. Photos to follow soon…
I was so happy with his work that I’m now hiring him for monthly lawn and garden maintenance.
Re: Communication. I speak some Spanish which surely helped a bit and I started the job with a professionally drawn landscape design.
Good work!

Wonderful work — Valentin has helped us out a few times — mostly with removing shrubs and bushes, and replanting trees.
Great guy, does good work and is very reasonable.

Word of advice when you get people to do your garden.
get a picture drawn or sketched and have each area that you need done signed by the landscaper. also make sure you label all work that needs to be done clearly and make sure both of you understand what is going on.
for this guy, i believe the best thing you should do is follow every step above. his guys are really hard working, it’s just the communication problem that would piss you off and get things messed up. my 1 star still stands. job has not been completed
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update May 24, 2008
his answer and response for the 500 dollar labor and material for chicken wire is that he has to use his time to drive to home depot to buy material. the other part is his labor.
I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS GUY FOR HIS COST. IF YOU WERE TO FIND ANOTHER LANDSCAPER YOUR BETTER OFF PAYING MORE WITH A GUY THAT HAD A LICENSE.
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update :May 23
dropping the rating because i feel he’s lying to me. (i hate people that lies)
i did a quick calculation of material and labor. i believe he’s overcharging.
retaining wall made by roughly 125 interlocking retaining wall stones.
sprinkler system with 2 valves and a timer + new sod and grass.
remove 2×20ft small pine trees and roots and bush. trim 2 trees.
cement wall that’s 2 ft high.
a pathway layed by stone slabs.
remove excessive soil.
all in all, with a package price he quoted 6k. we thought, hey 6k that sounds good since the first quote we got from someone else was 13k for relative similar work.
when i did my research for the price of the interlocking retaining wall stones. i was like WOW. they run about 1.52 to 2 bucks. so assuming it’s 2 bucks multiply by 125 = $ 250. how in the world does 2 bucks a piece going to get anywhere to the price of 6k.
These labor must be crazy. the material honestly does not cost that much at all. i think he wants $ 50/​hr for labor since his crew of 2 who works 12 hrs a day. 7 day project due for completion would cost $ 4200 in labor alone. this would be the only conclusion i have for the quote of 6k
the reason i started to check on price was because he notified me this morning in regards to adding chicken wire for my lawn to protect for gophers. it sounded like a good idea, so i asked how much. he said it was 500 bucks. i went online, did some research, found out that 3ftx25ft chicken wire @ homedepot only cost 15.99. i only need like 5 sets which would equal to 80. even if i askd them to do 2 layers of that wire for better protection, it should be only 160. labor dos not cost anywhere near 400 bucks to do this job since all he needs to do is lay the wire while the soil is all flipped because he’s doing the sprinklers.
i’ll talk to him tomorrow to see what’s his point of view and how he would explain his quote. he told me that those chicken wire cost him 450 to purchase.
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Awesome price quote.
the guy was nice. it was a little difficult to communicate but we got everything clear after 2 hrs of discussion.
i will update this review when the complete job is done.
hopefully Unilocalers are correct about his job!
project starts tomorrow and probably ends in 2 weeks
5stars

Valentin is fantastic– I put my flat on the market and needed help getting the small backyard into open house shape. He cleaned up, trimmed back what felt like a jungle, and laid down mulch, as well as took everything (plus some of my old crap) out of the yard and left it looking absolutely beautiful.
He was fast, very friendly and really sweet.
I definitely plan on calling him again!

Valentin did an awesome job on my front and back yards. The work was relatively simple (removing old sod and laying new sod), but I was unable to do it as a result of an injury. Valentin also replaced the sod for two of my neighbors and removed and planted a new tree between my house and one of my neighbors’ houses. His crew was fast, clean and reliable. In fact, while working on our front yards, Valentin was hired by one of those neighbors to also cut down an overgrown tree in their backyard and he was also hired by another neighbor across the street and did a great job there too.
The communication was a little tough, but I would definitely agree with the other Unilocalers that Valentin was a great person to hire for the job. His estimates are *very* reasonable and yes, he does stand by his work and price estimates. I would definitely recommend calling Valentin for any type of landscaping you need done.

I called Valentin based on these reviews and had him come by and take a look at our back yard. Although we had a little bit of a challenge communicating, through simple words and amid much gesticulating, I could see that he immediately grasped my vision and even improved upon it. His quote was definitely far more reasonable than any of the 3 other companies we asked to quote.
My next step was to contact fellow Unilocaler and reviewer of Valentin and get more in depth info regarding the work habits of the crew, ability to communicate etc. (Thanks Penny!) Everything was looking positive, so I figured, «Why not?»
I chose a week when I was working from home so I could check in and out of their progress. This was a good thing as there were a couple of things which required input that was much easier to do being right there.
Even amid some scope creep, and more materials being required than originally thought, Valentin kept true to his quote and endeavored to deliver exactly what I wanted.
We are really happy with the outcome (defined a space in the backyard with a retaining wall, laid flagstone patio, added gravel perimeter around the deck).
–1 star for communication
+1 star for price, effort, and standing behind the original estimate

We called Valentin based on the review in Unilocal and we are so pleased with the results! He was incredibly reasonable (we were quoted three times Valentin’s price by a landscaper from Marin). He cleaned out our dead backyard, and gave us a beautiful new yard based on drawings by a landscape architect. He and his crew did a beautiful job on brick work and installed in-​ground sprinklers and drip irrigation for us. Valentin was very knowledgeable in all of these areas as well as the horticulture side. He is a very personable and trustworthy person that we would happily recommend to anyone who needs landscape work in the city!