My husband and I are renting a house this year and ended up with more yard work than we were able to keep up with. We contacted Pristine Green from a recommendation. Online / via email, I requested weed removal and pruning of a couple oleanders. Brandon requested photos, so I sent him plenty to see the extent of the weeds. Over the phone, he started discussing cutting branches off our citrus trees, asking how many palm trees, etc., and I insisted i wanted no other work done, didn't need the lawn mowed, just weed removal through the gravel areas and in the dirt citrus area, and there were specific oleanders I wanted trimmed. This was then confirmed via text message, for trimming oleanders and weed removal with a rate of 250, down from 300. I didn't know why it would be so expensive, but I figured there are indeed a LOT of weeds and I wanted them to be removed, not only sprayed, and i haven't been able to keep up with pulling them all out, so figured i guess this is what it costs to have weeds removed.
When the crew showed up, I reiterated this. They wanted to trim a giant arbor vitae back to the brown, which I said no way because the tree is terribly unhealthy already and there are already several brown areas that previous landscapers hacked into, and it will not grow back, but said if they lightly wanted to trim it but leave it still green where it's green, go ahead. They said they'd give everything else a trim, and I said it didn't need it, but if they wanted to trim a little, fine.
What I ended up with was everything being totally hacked off. The arbor vitae miraculously survived but everything else was a total chainsaw massacre. I have bushes in the front that I like to be bushy to conceal packages delivered when someone's not home. I trim them myself when needed, but now they are totally sliced to nothing. I didn't want them to be touched AT ALL but it was over before I knew it. Two low palm trees that used to have really pretty leafy fronds have been circumcised into horrendously ugly things. Thank god I said no to trimming the roses once I saw what they were doing - I imagine they would have been chainsawed off completely and not properly dead headed. During one of the palm tree massacres I ran outside literally screaming for it to stop and explained my dismay, but the damage was already done. That's when I realized several other items had already been totally mutilated and the palms were a total wreck. The oleanders were chainsaw-trimmed only. No hand-snipping out branches to keep the surface from getting dense and unhealthy.
When I explained my shock and disgust to Justin, who was in charge, he just kept going on about the health of the plants. If you're so concerned with health, you would NOT propose cutting an arbor vitae to brown. You would not hack bushes off exclusively with power saws as opposed to hand pruning shears. Secondly, this is not at all what I wanted!!! Being told it will grow back may be true for some of these cases, but that is not an excuse to hack plants away that a paying customer wanted to be left alone. Do hairdressers just walk around chopping people's hair off without their permission because it'll be healthy for them? I don't think so. That would probably be considered assault.
At this point, we were two hours in, and weed removal had not even started. Apparently their idea of removing was to spray. Spraying leaves weeds behind and they shrivel and turn brown, but they're not gone, in case anyone wasn't aware. Some of the weeds were trimmed with a weed whacker then sprayed. Creative approach. When they came to the door to leave (and ask for payment) I could still see every weed out front that has bothered me for months. At this point they said they would pull the big ones out. They did that for a bit, and I called the company to explain how horrendously the team followed through with what I had requested. He took $20 off - which is not going to buy me replacement plants for what they butchered. I am hoping the actual homeowners understand when they move back in this summer.
There are still hundreds of weeds that I am looking at, so ... that's awesome. The crew had to leave, so they did not finish removing weeds around the property. Maybe if they haven't wasted 2 hours destroying the property and performing tasks that I DID NOT WANT, they could have done the two things I asked for. I really don't understand the after photos that people have posted here, since mine do not remotely look like that.
In summary: I paid $230 and asked for two things to be done. Only one of those things was completed. Dozens of other things were done that are completely ridiculous and hideous. I cannot describe how upset I am by this. I would love to go get a massage to relax, but I just wasted $230 on something I could have done myself with $10 of Roundup and a borrowed chainsaw.