The Hawks Nursery Company

Review: I contracted with [redacted] in October, 2014 to relandscape my entire, small city yard and paid in full $10,157.28 plus $300.00 to extend a lannon stone border. The landscape design, product quality and customer service are all unsatisfactory. The design leaves many spaces untouched or sparsely planted. Several plants chosen were already in the garden in the same place. Others were inappropriately placed, I.e. ferns in the sun. Other plants were installed so closely to existing plants neither will prosper. Quite a number have already died. Overall, the plants were small, poor quality and unimpressive. Their placement, with single bulbs here and there, plus no large plantings is disappointing for the size of my investment. The design is not significantly different or improved over what was here before. The customer service has been completely unsatisfactory: delayed, defensive, and unresponsive to my needs. On May 14, 2015, the president of the firm refused to refund my money but verbally agreed to re-landscape my property. He did not respond to my confirming email. He made one unscheduled visit to my property, but has not followed up on his promise or communicated with me his intentions.Desired Settlement: A refund for the full amount of the job.

Business

Response:

Our employee, Lynn [redacted] was contacted by [redacted]

in October 2014 to re-landscape Ms. [redacted]s yard. Ms. [redacted] met with our

client Ms. [redacted] on several occasions and recommended plantings that would be

suitable for her planting zone and soil conditions. Our client, Ms. [redacted] was

insistent that she have a large perennial garden and was not open to any other

planting style. As an experienced and knowledgeable employee of [redacted] for over

13 years, Ms. [redacted] understood our client’s request to have a large perennial

garden would require an abundant amount of maintenance on Ms. [redacted]’s part.

Ms. [redacted] cautioned her about the huge responsibility a planting of this size

would entail, and Ms. [redacted] was agreeable to the design and installation. The

contract was signed and the job was completed on November 6, 2014. All work was

done as outlined in the contract including supplying and installing all plant

material per the sizes and quantities specified on the contract. When we finished, the customer was pleased.

To our surprise, we were contacted this spring by an unhappy

Ms. [redacted]. Ms. [redacted] made a trip to meet with our client to discuss her

landscape, only to find that little to no maintenance had been occurring on her

property. Ms. [redacted] offered to do some weeding for free, however the client

requested that no chemicals or pre-emergent weed control be used. We had a

weeding crew scheduled on May 12, 2015 to complete Ms. [redacted]’s weeding, however,

Ms. [redacted] called me shortly before the crews came out and said that was

unacceptable. She was very confrontational on the phone and was unhappy with

her landscape.

As president of the company, I took the matter in to my own

hands, and met with Ms. [redacted] on May 15, 2015. It was clear, upon seeing the

landscape myself, that very little maintenance had occurred on Ms. [redacted]’s

property. While the plant material was installed properly, they were suffering

from thirst and weeds had taken over most of the planting beds. The overall

health of the plant material was visibly stressed due to lack of care.

At this time, I again offered to send out a weeding crew and

convinced Ms. [redacted] that chemicals would be necessary to kill the roots of the

weeds, and a pre-emergent was necessary to deter further weed seeds from germinating.

I also informed her that we routinely provide this service to other customers

that are unable to do this maintenance themselves. I said we would be happy to

help if she needed our assistance.

Our maintenance crew came out and did a thorough eradication

of all the weeds on Ms. [redacted]’s property at no charge. Not only did we treat

the areas we installed, we went above and beyond and eradicated other areas of

Ms. [redacted]’s property that were not associated with the portion we were

contracted to plant.

Ms. [redacted] had given me an address of a perennial garden in

her neighborhood that she loved. I visited the garden at that address and found

it to be a very well established, highly maintained perennial garden that was

clearly planted many years ago. Ms. [redacted]’s expectations were that she too

could have the same, mature, well established planting bed.

Two weeks after our crews came out to weed, I stopped to

check on Ms. [redacted]’s residence. At that time, all the plant material was alive

and had grown substantially from my first visit in the spring. 100% of the

plants were thriving and the area was weed-free. I could see that in a few

years, it would replicate much of the same look that the neighborhood garden

had, but would only do so with proper care, maintenance and time.

I encountered Ms. [redacted] briefly on my visit to her property

and she was “all smiles.” Her garden looked fabulous, and I assumed that she

was happy with the results, until I received this correspondence from the

Revdex.com, completely out of the blue.

Our company vision statement is “to consistently provide the

best landscape services and customer experience in southeastern Wisconsin.” Our

policy is that the customer comes first, and we treated Ms. [redacted] the same as

any other customer who has concerns with her landscape – with swift, decisive

action.

Attached is a copy of the original proposal.

Sincerely,

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