Callander Garden Design

I was excited after speaking to Sally on the phone about our garden design. I was promised an email within 3 – 4 days with ideas. That email never arrived. She understood our need to complete our project in a timely fashion. I called her office and spoke to a gentleman on ⁴⁄₂₄ and he said he would get a message to Sally. I never heard back. Very disappointed. Had to move onto another company.

I’ve used Sally and her crew for years based on seeing what she’s done for other friends. She has always been very creative and thorough with new ideas and plans. The estimates and invoices are very detailed so you can completely understand what’s involved. She has also been helpful in finding cost reduction strategies for many projects. People always comment on our landscaping and ask who did it.

Thousands of dollars of damage to our house, a dead tree, and Callander Design taking no responsibility. DO NOT HIRE THESE PEOPLE.
We hired Callander Garden Design to remove a dead tree stump from in front of our house, plant a new pear tree, and to do our spring cleanup for our tiny garden patch in front of our rowhome. The cleanup invoice was itemized and included a line item for ensuring all watering systems were in working order and putting them on a timer. They charged us $ 3,000 for all of this work — I thought that was pretty high, but we went with them anyway because it was already halfway through the summer and we wanted the work done.
Once we agreed on price with them, it took them 6 weeks to finally come to our house and do the work. This meant that we didn’t have our «spring» cleanup done until August. Annoying, but we just figured they were busy. They came, told us the work was done, and left.
Four weeks later, we noticed water coming into our basement from the front wall where the garden is and a ton of mold. We have never had water issues in the basement before. NEVER. Dry as a bone down there. We went to the garden to investigate and quickly realized that the soaker hose buried in the garden was split in half! So not only was the garden not being watered that whole time, but every time the timer went off, 15 minutes worth of flowing water went right down the front wall of our house and seeped into our front wall and basement, destroying the drywall in the basement and the carpet and carpet padding.
We called Callander Design right away and they sent someone out to look at the hose. The guy confirmed that it was an old hose and should have been replaced when they came back in August. So we called Sally to see what she was going to do about it. She said that they didn’t check the soaker hose because they don’t recommend them and hadn’t originally installed ours. I told her that it didn’t matter who installed it — we paid her company to «ensure all watering systems were in working order.» She refused to take any responsibility for it and still claims that the watering system line item didn’t apply to the soaker hose. So I went directly to her insurance company who settled with us for a third of the cost of actually repairing the damage in the basement. We considered small claims court, but didn’t want to put any more time or effort into Sally and her thieving company.
Finally, the pear tree they planted? Dead. Never took root after they planted it. We called and called to try to get an answer from Callander about whether they had any kind of guarantee or warranty on their *very expensive* trees, but no one would give us a straight answer and when we gave them our name and number, they wouldn’t call us back.
These people are thieves. DO NOT HIRE THEM.

Sally and her staff have helped me with my garden for years. Her suggestions for plants, shrubs and trees have been great. Her staff are always cheerful, hard working and leave my garden looking wonderful!

As an interior designer, my client’s complete satisfaction is key. Sally has done beautiful work for several of my clients and they retain her seasonally to maintain their yards and container gardens. She is fun, creative and easy to work with. Even during the busiest seasons (holidays) she bends over backwards to accommodate you. Her fees are very reasonable.

I was surprised to see these low ratings. Sally is amazing – very personable, responsive and flexible when dealing with clients. And, to top it off, she’s very interesting and a lot of fun to work with! Beautiful garden designs… she’s done our home for many years (including with the previous owners), and also does many homes in the Old Town/​Lincoln Park area.

Sally Callander came to give us an estimate for our parkway. The experience started off fine. The initial quote was too high so we requested different materials. She called us from Home Depot with some ideas which was another nice touch. She asked if she should buy these. Since we had not received any estimate yet, we said not yet until we could get materials and labor pricing for the total project. She said OK.
We never heard back from her.
Not a good way to do business. My opinion… skip this one.