John & Joe Gardening Services

There was a knock on our door one morning early April 2013 where two men stood soliciting their gardening services. The main guy in charge is Joel and his partner Juan is completely new to gardening, which I found out much later. Joel mentioned that he had been gardening for over 30 years but had stopped due to health issues. He also mentioned he had done gardening for our whole neighborhood 5 years ago and was hired by our HOA (most likely a lie). We did not live here at that time. Joel checked out our yard and provided a quote. Compared to the other two quotes we received, his was about $ 500-​$ 700 lower. That should have tipped us off. We didn’t think to much about it was that he was just starting off his business and probably offering a pretty good deal. We decided to move forward with hiring these wanna be gardeners. Just to give you a little background on these gentlemen, they do not work on Saturdays as they attend a church which does not allow them to work on Saturdays. Joel’s partner Juan is his church friend & only speaks Spanish.
The job was promised to be completed within a week but took a month. They were to install new grass, flowers, remove unwanted trees and prune existing trees. There were many days that they would leave for a two hour lunch and never return. There were many breaks taken during the work day that would sometimes consist of prayers for over an hour in our yard between the two of them while they were relaxing on OUR patio chairs. Lots of talking and not enough working is basically what took place. They were to arrive here every day (except Saturdays) at around 8:30am. They started to show up at around noon or even later or never show up at all. Even when arriving late, they still took a lunch! They basically had no clue on how to schedule appointments as we were told other appointments were scheduled during the times they were suppose to be here working.
Let me get to the most important part of this review. They purchased sod grass which we paid upfront for and it looked okay when it arrived however it was very hot outside and because they took over a week just to install it, it starting to yellow. Prior to the purchase, I did make sure to tell Joel not to purchase our grass and flowers unless he was planning on installing and planting within a couple of days. He did not listen. The full supply of grass arrived and sat there for almost a week and the same thing happened with the flowers. I felt as if I was never able to leave my house while they were here because they ALWAYS needed direction. Constantly knocking on our back sliding door and front door with questions or excuses. Typically, gardeners come in from the side gate, do their job and leave. There were many things that were promised that never took place and that were part of the quote. Some trees were not pruned as promised and some sections of the yard did not have flowers planted where I specifically told him I wanted prior to even starting the job. Patches of grass were dead, and so were the flowers just after a couple of weeks. He promised to take care of it since there was warranty. That did not happen. At that point, my husband and I decided to tell them both to take a hike. Before that happened, we wanted to make sure they at least took care of mowing the grass and a few other small things (since they were already paid).
Towards the last two weeks which was late April, Joel stopped showing up completely and stopped taking our calls while he would send his partner Juan to mow the yard. When my husband asked him where Joel was, he said he didn’t know and that he was not taking his calls either. My husband did ask Juan if he still saw Joel at church and he said yes but they never discussed the job. Juan also mentioned that all of their other clients were very upset and unsatisfied. Juan was the most honest of the two. At least he showed up and was apologetic even though apologies went in one ear and out the other. In the end, they were both full of it.
There was so much more that went on but I’m sure you can get an idea from our experience. I am going to add photos to show you what we dealt with. I am including photos of the dead patches of grass & dead flowers as well as the double sided (English/​Spanish), misspelled business card they provided. I entered their location as San Fernando even though one lives in Sylmar and the other in Sunland. If you want to hire lazy liars, these are your guys. If you want them to preach to you during work hours about their church and bible, these are your guys. We regret not spending the extra money to avoid the headaches we endured with these two.