Stewart L.
1/5
We hired Nicola and her team to design our dream backyard in November 2020 when we moved into our forever home that same month. We were happy with the design stage of this project over the following months. When we received the plan, Jeremy and Nicola also priced the project and we agreed that we would proceed with a phased approach, with drainage being number as we knew there was an issue with the water not properly draining on the property when we purchased the place.
We were told they would start April 30th and asked for the deposit. We paid. On April 30th, we received a message saying the locates they received didn’t have the right locate information (no locates were actually completed by this date as there was no markings, or flags on the grounds). So the project was delayed. I inquired as to whether the locates would including septic placement information and this was greeted as new information when all along this was known details (multiple site visits by Nicola and discussions about it). We paid for a septic survey to find the lines, which in the end was probably a good investment anyways. Growing skeptical, we asked for a plan for their work and we received an MS Paint plan overtop of their details landscaping plan. While basic in its design, at least it was something.
On May 17th, Jeremy and his team arrived at our house early and when performing a pre-construction walk through, they completely changed the plan. Within 2 days, the drainage lines were flooded, and were flooding a section of our backyard. Jeremy returned on May 25th without telling us and did further work, my neighbour told us. Nicola met us on-site June 15th, and her solution presented was that vegetation would absorb the access water and for us to trust the French drain Jeremy installed. Continuing into the summer we requested them to return to fix the issues in July and were given multiple excuses. Neither of them ever returned.
Since then with the increased rainfall of our fall has a large portion of our backyard completely flooded leading to a tree falling over due to over saturated soil, flooding the weeping tiles of our septic system and backing up our septic tank. Further investment has had to be made into plumbers, another contractor/landscaper to fix their mistake and now further septic issues we just found out today. From a design standpoint, we enjoyed the process but highly frustrated with the execution and the lack of commitment on their end to help fix the problems they created. If I could, I’d give them a -5. Would not recommend their services unless you are only looking for a design.