Green Earth Landscaping LLC

We hired Green Earth Landscaping/VirginiaPonds.com in Sept 2018 to build a backyard fish pond. We are disappointed with how the project turned out, we have had multiple waterfall leaks, they punctured the liner twice & we found that the company had issues with communication, time management, customer satisfaction, including sloppy work & dishonesty at times. The project was planned for 3 days & was not finished the first time until 8 business days later. After leaks & issues it took 4 mos total before it was 'done'; however it still wasn't complete & didn't meet the contract. They punctured the liner in 2 places (& did not disclose 1 patch which gave us problems in March 2019). They had to rebuild part of the waterfall that was leaking & we have just discovered that the waterfall is STILL leaking (April, 2019). To remedy the depth building issues their only solution was to raise the pond liner straight up around the exterior of the pond & leave the liner exposed (~15 feet). My husband spent at least 2 weeks fixing the pond to raise the water level and remove the tripping hazards and repair our yard. We bought at least 100 bags of top soil, bought & spread new grass seed, bought & installed at least $300 of rock to remedy the tripping hazard around the pond & raise the water level. The first time the pond was filled the water was very murky. Owner stated they had washed the rocks & anything remaining would settle & be fine. After weeks of not settling & a few times asking, they finally cleaned the gravel during the pond patch repair. Prior to that I could see the layers of dirt on the rocks and there’s no way they washed it on the first day & left that much muck remaining. DESIGN: We requested & received a 10x20’ pond w/ a waterfall. We wanted a fish pond & were left w/ a water garden. There are two 4'x10' wide shelves on the left & right sides of the pond. The front & back shelves are 2' wide connecting those 4' shelves. Pond was intended for fish & we have 4 fish that are 2’ long. We are left w/ a 4’x8’ second depth of the pond (minus 2' for big rocks) so 2'x6' for fish & plants to winter. • The left side of the pond ranged from almost 8” to ~10” (but 3'x10' of it is 8"). My husband had to move the skimmer door & overflow valve to get it from 7 to 7.75 inches deep (why didn't they notice the lack of depth or move the skimmer?). During construction & after the shelves were built the owner told us the pond would be 12” deep all around. When I complained about the finished depth of 8" he said that Aquascape says it only needs to be 8-10” so this is "done" (even though he promised & thought it would be 12”). The 8-10” (mostly 8") is on a 4' shelf, not a standard 8-12” wide shelf. The 8-10” depth is unacceptable considering the shelf size. Multiple other contractors who saw the pond told us we have an "ornamental pond" not a pond for fish. • The owner also told us the 2' wide shelf they created is required per Aquascape guidelines, which is not accurate. • To get 8” deep on the left side of the pond the owner had to come back multiple times to pull up liner, leaving the liner straight up in the air (exposed). He stated this is a finished product (which is in violation of the contract). Owner told me they would use the gate near the pond & would lay plywood to protect the lawn. This was far from true. The equipment was HUGE & they had to use the far gate, destroying 1/2 of our backyard & a path in the front. We paid extra for excavation (b/c of a hill), but the pond wasn't dug deep enough. We paid extra for dirt removal, but they left at least 1/3 of the dirt to fill the torn-up yard & we still had to buy 100 bags of top soil to fill in all the ruts & unevenness of the yard. I constantly had to reach out for a status. If the owner said they were coming tomorrow, they wouldn't show up & it would be another week or more until someone showed up. This is about half the issues we had over the course of those many months.

We decided to have our small brick paver patio replaced/enlarged and added a fire pit. I got 4-5 bids on the job, and Tom’s bid was right in the middle, and almost identical to another. His pricing is very reasonable and fair. I chose Green Earth mainly because of Tom, the owner. He was personable and professional, and provided a lot of information and options about the entire project. (We had to move and bury several drain pipes under the patio out into the lawn as well.) We could not be happier with our new patio! So many compliments from our friends and neighbors, and I have already referred Green Earth to a friend. There were a couple of adjustments we had to make and Tom and crew were very responsive and completed the job to our complete satisfaction. I even had them come back a year and half later to add the polymer sand. In every instance, Tom was quick to respond and made every effort to make sure I was happy with the result. No complaints! We are enjoying our beautiful new patio and fire pit, and I would not hesitate to have Green Earth come back to do other work for us.

Tom is responsive and very professional. Quite a pleasant fella and very knowledgeable about natural landscaping. I immediately took to his ideas which is why we hired him. But they ran into multiple issues during the project (which understandably can happen) but it created undue stress that our family didn't anticipate. This is all quite unfortunate since we had envisioned the company to do further work for us. Being a business owner myself, I know that customer reviews are at the heart of a company so this is certainly not a "negative" review, just an honest assessment of the company's performance.

I hired Green Earth to install a 24x14' pond with a 20' waterfall Stream. I thought about doing this project myself but after talking with Tom onsite it was clear that the job would entail big equipment. The project turned out great and I love hanging out at night by the pond. I also had them build a retaining wall and patio next to the pond. <br /> <br />

I hired Green Earth to install a 24x14' pond with a 20' waterfall Stream. I thought about doing this project myself but after talking with Tom onsite it was clear that the job would entail big equipment. The project turned out great and I love hanging out at night by the pond. I also had them build a retaining wall and patio next to the pond.

The work is first class. Some delays due to the weather as expected, I would have liked to know where we were on the schedule. I would recommend.

Green Earth Landscaping completed a large drainage project on my property. They worked in some confined areas and did not harm any of my trees and bushes and did not nick any of my neighbors fences, even though they used a front loader and mini-dozer. They were flexible and worked around my early scheduling issues. The only blemish was that I had to call the office each morning to determine when the crew would arrive. Each member of the crew worked hard and listened to any concerns that I had and handled them promptly. I would hire them again.

They were on time, cost very reasonable, finished in one day, and happy to accommodate any requests that I had. I made a good choice selecting them.

From the beginning their project advisor was very courteous and helpful. We scoped out the project and they were very attentive to our budget as well. Completed quickly and very attentive to keeping the project area clean and organized. We had some stones come lose after a year and their after product warranty support was super ! They came out and fixed everything immediately ! We intend to use them again when we expand our backyard projects.

They said the job would be complete three weeks after contract (6/4). Kept pushing date back to end of August. I said, do job now or refund deposit. Started end of July. <br /> <br /> Quality of work was so bad I asked them to stop prior to concrete pouring. Had to hire another company to do the job & pay extra for them to correct Green Earth's work. Asked Green Earth for refund of deposit, they refused! I have pictures if you contact me!

It all went very well. The plants a year later are very healthy and growing.  Their price was reasonable.  The backyard looked great and professionally done. The crew was very polite, worked very hard. The supervisor was on top of every little thing.  We asked for something a little different and he worked it out.  We knew we would use them again.  <br /> And then we screwed up the grass this fall. <br /> We burned out the back yard (too much fertilizer on our part) where we lost a lot all the grass.  We thought we had to re-sod again. They came out and told us we didn't have to.  Could re-seed, etc.  Gave us a price if they did it -which was reasonable.  But they tested the grass and explained thoroughly how we could do it ourselves.  Lots of communication.  We did it ourselves but very much appreciated how they handled it.  No charge for the test and education.  Can't beat that.  And they explained what we should use as fertilizer from here on in! <br />

Our experience with Green Earth Landscaping was OK, but not great. Once we nailed down the contract (which took a long time and many emails, so I thank them for their patience) the communication from the company was pretty poor. We didn't really know when the crew would be showing up. Luckily my husband works from home, so this wasn't a huge problem for us. Still, it would have been nice to hear from them. We had some rain, which caused some delays, too. I had to keep contacting them to see if the crew would be coming. They never initiated contact to let us know what to expect. <br /> Once the job  started, the crew did good work, but we only saw the foreman on the first day. After that, the crew didn't really seem to be able to answer our questions, and we didn't have much luck getting in touch with the owner/designer, so felt like we were in the dark. Luckily, we didn't have many concerns about the work itself, so we let it go. <br /> There was a bad experience involving the removal of a large stump in our front yard. There was a miscommunication about whether it was included in the scope of the work. Once discovered, they quickly agreed to remove it, but tried to dig it out instead of grind it. They were unsuccessful and made a huge mess of the front yard trying to dig it out. The designer warned us via email that the yard was a mess, which was nice, but that was the last we heard from them for a full week. Apparently, they decided they would need to call in a subcontractor to finish the work in the yard, but nobody told us this was the plan. Again, the lack of communication was a big problem. We voiced our displeasure with the situation and, to their credit, they offered to sod the front lawn to make up for it. This was a nice gesture and the sod seems to be doing OK, so I thank them for that. Overall though, we didn't have a good experience and wouldn't use this company again or recommend them to others.

I was disappointed to see the F rating for this company before I began working with them, but I found better reviews for them on another site, and given the great pricing compared to others, decided to go for it. I don't regret it, the yard looks great, but I found communicating with Green Earth to be extremely frustrating. The deal with them is that you pay 1/3 up front, 1/3 on first day or work, and last 1/3 on completion. I thought 2/3 was a but much for an up front payment, but they didn't actually cash the second check until well into the project. After sending the first check, I expected to then be contacted about scheduling. But after a full week of radio silence, I emailed them only to find out they were going to be there the next morning. Some advance warning would have been nice, but fortunately I was ready for them, so no harm done. Fence went up in only 3 days, including removal of the old chain link. Crew was super hard-working, friendly, and professional, and the fence looks great. After that, trying to find out when the rest of the work would be done was like pulling teeth. Calls and emails continually went unanswered for two weeks. Then and email sent by Green Earth at 11:30pm informed me they'd be starting on the rest of the work the next morning. Seriously, this much work to one's yard is a big disruption, and more notice than 10 hours would have been appreciated. I understand that weather effects scheduling with landscaping, but I expected to be kept informed of plans as they developed and was disappointed. <br /> <br /> The second crew was also great, they did the work quickly and well, and the foreman, Guillermo, was really fun to work with. He had lots of suggestions for the yard, and didn't try to up-sell, just really seemed to want to make the yard even better within budget. His suggestions made the yard look even better than we had hoped for. <br /> <br /> We did have one major issue with the second crew. Instead of calling me or my housemate to gain entry to the house when then needed access to solve an electrical issue, they essentially broke in through an unsecured back door. No damage was done, problem was solved, and we were made aware of our bad lock, which is a silver lining, but it's not okay that they entered the house without permission. All it would have taken was a quick phone call, but instead, they lost a lot of my trust that day. <br /> <br /> Project is essentially done as of 3 weeks ago, though we're still waiting to hear back on fixing some minor damage that was done to the driveway and fence gate during the second stage of the project. And we haven't received the final invoice yet. Again, major communication problems.  <br /> <br /> I would and likely will use this company again for smaller projects, but with the awareness that in exchange for quality and price, I'm sacrificing working with a company that communicates any sort of scheduling in advance, which is not a small thing.

In May 2010, I contracted Green Earth Landscaping to replace a driveway and rebuild the front stoop of my house. I authorized the charge to my credit card for the deposit. The front stoop was rebricked in June 2010 and the quality was very poor. The bricks were crooked, the mortar was splattered over the bricks, and there were many gaps in the mortar joints. Additional concrete was poured into the existing core. The owner, Tom Hunt, apologized for the sloppy job and assured me the stoop would be rebricked. The stoop was rebricked for the second time in late July 2010. A thin set concrete was applied to the top of the stoop. However, this top veneer of concrete started peeling up and cracking within a week. Numerous calls to the company and its owner, Tom Hunt, in August 2010 went unanswered. The company fraudulently charged my credit card on 16 August 2010, WITHOUT my consent or authorization. I would strongly advise AGAINST hiring Green Earth Landscaping. The quality of work is less than average, but more disturbing is the billing practice of the company.