Austintatious Landscapes

I hired Michael to remove a wide strip of lawn and bring the soil level even with the nearby concrete driveway so that I could put hardscape in. After the grass was removed, he was supposed to cover the open area with heavy duty landscape fabric and add metal edging to divide my yard from my neighbors.
In another area, Michael and I spoke about him installing a Mexican Olive tree but never came to any conclusion about pricing or even if I wanted the tree.
While Michael and his crew did work quickly on removing the lawn, many issues have surfaced.
–he used cheap, thin landscape fabric, fabric is tearing and coming up
–he did not bring the fabric to the edges of the bare areas-​the grass is coming back
–he did not bring the soil level down
–he chopped the heads off two of my neighbor’s sprinklers and fixed them at my expense
About two weeks after the lawn was removed, and frankly happy to get the guy out of my hair, he showed up with a tree. I happened to be in the back yard and when I came back inside the house and looked out my front windows he had dug a hole and was starting to plant this tree!
Unfortunately this particular tree didn’t look too healthy. Michael assured me that they all looked like that and the tree would perk up in a few days. When I kept complaining about how bad the tree looked he said he would guarantee the tree for a year and if it died he would remove and replace at his cost.
Based on his assurance, I let him finish planting the tree.
The tree was dead within a week.
Michael stopped taking my phone calls and now I’m stuck with a dead and difficult to dispose of tree in a prominent spot in my front yard.
I had checked with BBB before hiring Michael and they give him an A+ rating. I’m not sure what else I could do before hiring someone. He was also recommended by the owner of a neighborhood lawn service.
At any rate, if you are reading this at least you’ll have a chance to not get ripped off by this guy.
Oh yeah. He tells a long convoluted story about his ex-​wife and her boyfriend leaving bad reviews for him online. I am not the ex nor the boyfiend. Just a somewhat poorer and hassled homeowner.