YardFarm

As others have said, YF did a good job when I hired them to put in a garden at my house. Things went downhill when they attempted to install a French drain. I found out well after the job was done that they don’t do this often, something I would have liked to have known when they were selling me on the idea. But the problems I experienced went well beyond poor communication. At one point, I actually felt unsafe.
Initially, I thought I had made it clear why I needed a French drain: my backyard was filling up with every hard, prolonged rain. I even showed them photos and videos to illustrate the problem. One mistake I made was not to insist that their proposal say under what conditions the drain would actually work. In the end, I got a drain that didn’t work at all as I had expected. The main problem was they had buried the exit point. So, during a hard rain, the water had nowhere to go once the pipe filled up. While the drain delayed flooding, my yard would again turn into a lake after about 15 minutes.
The first sign of trouble was not hearing from the company’s owner when I tried to get them to make good on their warrantee. He texted a bit and talked to me once in the beginning but said he was too busy to schedule a visit and then he stopped responding to me completely. Many weeks later, during a hard rain (at which time I had to pull out sandbags to prevent water from entering my house) I called the number on the company’s website. The woman who answered was hardly sympathetic but she agreed to look at my photos and talk to the owner that afternoon when they had a pre-​scheduled meeting. When I didn’t hear anything for 10 days, I wrote a certified letter detailing the problems and reminding them of my consumer rights under Texas law.
The same woman called me soon after I sent the letter. Surprisingly, she said the owner was on his way to my house to make a fix to the drain. What she was describing was a rather superficial fix but, more than that, she was not asking me, she was telling me. In other words, they were going to work on the drain without getting my okay. And I couldn’t be there because I was on my way to pick up my child from school. I left a voicemail for the owner, pleading with him to just talk to me about the drain. He called me back and revealed, to my shock, that he had already been to my house that morning and made another (somewhat superficial) fix to the drain. He had made no attempt to get my permission to do that. He also said that he had gotten my letter but had not read it. I told him I didn’t want him to make the second fix without talking first as it wouldn’t have solved the main problem and involved cutting my downspout. At this point, he blew up at me and screamed a bunch of profanities. I was feeling really nervous about dealing with this person but I also wanted to resolve this. He wanted me to explain just what the problem was, not later, right then. I told him about the buried exit point. I also let him know that my child was texting me asking where I was. He agreed to meet at the house the next morning. Since I was uncomfortable being alone with him, I asked a friend to be there too.
The next day, the owner told us I was to blame for the poorly working drain because I had chosen a low-​cost way to install it and that the drain was not designed to prevent my yard from filling up during a heavy rain. I let him know that was not my understanding and said it would have been good for his proposal to indicate the drain’s limitations. We asked him what he could do to remedy the problem and he said he would not do any more work on my property and instead would give me back nearly all of the money I paid him. I told him I would accept 50%. He shook my hand and said he’d be sending me something to sign. I said that was fine.
Except all was not fine. When the contract arrived a few days later, it included a provision that the owner had not told us about, that the agreement was contingent on YF digging up the drain and returning my property «as close as possible» to the condition it was before the work had been performed. This would have meant severing the connections to my downspouts, digging up yards of stones, and replacing them with dirt and sod. He said his crew could do the work the next day.
I emailed the owner letting him know this was not part of our deal and that given the hostility he and the woman had shown me, I was extremely uncomfortable with his crew working on my property. I let him know that if he or his crew were to come on my property without my permission I would seek to obtain the equivalent of a restraining order. He wrote back saying that he had let me know during our meeting that he would be sending me something to sign and that these were his conditions. I let it go at that point.

YardFarm built me four gorgeous raised bed gardens a few years ago with a drip irrigation timer system, and I continue to be so thrilled with them! Their customer service is excellent, and they have helped me with several things since the original installation. The people who work there are so pleasant and kind. Love them!

From reading the good reviews they all came from 2012, just about the time I started using them. Reading on, the reviews in 2014 have been less stellar, which also is my observation.
Pros: They do have nice plants that they bring.
Cons: They constantly miss appointments. I signed up for the monthly gardener visit and they just stopped coming for months. When they did come, they dropped of plants that I wasn’t going to use. They won’t announce when they were coming and drop off these plants, and I would arrive home to what looked like a new garden with plants I didn’t want. And they charged full price for them.
Look, I get it, you want me to try new veggies, but a suggestion would be a periodic check-​in for request instead of growing a ton of okra which I don’t like. To top it off, they call and hassle you for payment.
Its sad to see a company go from great to good to meh. I would put them in the meh category.

We used YF to remodel our front yard and lay a flagstone patio.
From day one it was an unmanaged disaster. Rental equipment sat idle on my time and money, onsite management was absent, and the crew constantly needed to borrow tools from me to complete the work.
The owner was out of the country for half the project with no leader appointed in his absence. Absolutely terrible management if any at all.
They arrived at 9:30 casually worked till 4 then started what they considered a clean up
I cleaned no less than 3 bags of fast food waste per day they worked.
It has been 3 months since installation and the ornamental plants are dying because of poor installation. The irrigation drip nozzles are no where near the plant roots and there is a obvious lack of compost in the whole, which i was charged for.
This is a company of over priced NON-​Professionals, I strongly do not recommend them.

Zach and his crew did a fantastic job at my house. We have had such an abundance of fresh vegetables since February when we installed three simple cedar 4×8 boxes on our yard. Loads of kale, chard, collard greens, carrots, cilantro, lettuce, radish and now cucumbers, squash, tomatoes and even the winter stuff is still doing really well.
Fantastic job, professional, on time, knowledgeable… this is the one upgrade to my home and my life that I should have done the day we bought a house with a yard.
Thank you Yard Farm!

I used YardFarm to landscape my front yard and I couldn’t be happier. The design process was fun and easy, Zach kept in constant contact, the project was finished pretty much on time and pretty much on budget. The results are amazing! I can’t believe how great my yard looks and I have a veggie patch and herb bed too. The results went beyond my expectations and I’m thrilled with the finished project.

We started using YardFarm a few months ago and we couldn’t be happier! We have used Johnson’s Backyard Garden for a couple of years now and these vegetables are so much better! There is nothing like going out to pick vegetables from your own garden for dinner. They came out and built two incredible stainless steel 4×8 beds. We have now successfully grown swiss chard, four types of lettuce, kale, collard greens, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. We are currently growing three types of tomatoes, okra, eggplant and squash. It has been such a great investment. We love our garden!

I have been an off /​on wanna be gardener for years. Just started juicing and decided it is time to grow some of my own veggies. Luckily, there was a Living Social deal from Yard Farms for a 4×4 raised bed garden. I ordered one and … A great guy showed up and dug out the space, moved the dirt to where I could use it, installed the bed, filled it and planted it with my beginner garden… tomatoes, basal, peppers, and cucumber plants. Then, at my request, he had extra soil and filled two of my earth boxes as well.
They have all kinds of choices for materials etc. It just took the hassle out of getting started!!!

I had two trees planted and an extension put around the patio. There was a lot of communication beforehand to make certain of what I wanted. Zach and his crew did an excellent and punctual job and I am 100% satisfied with the outcome.