Garcia Landscape Services

I wish I had read the reviews before I hired Luis. He started out great. His crew showed up every day for a while. We paid in full (mistake) for a job that was never completed and now quite a bit of what they planted is dead. Luis promised several times to complete the job and replace the dead plants but had an excuse every time they didn’t show up. He’s good at making lists but that’s about it. We are hiring an attorney and suing for replacement costs of dead or never planted materials.
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Luis is charming, knowledgable about plants and hardscape, and his English is amazing. If only I could stop this review right here!
I hired him because he was listed as a recommended contractor on our landscape architects website (not anymore) and I trusted her. Although, there was one negative review on Unilocal that really worried me. (And with good reason, I had almost the identical experience. [The review is written by David ?. but it’s listed as an un-​recommended review, probably because it’s David’s only review. Check it out.])
I felt better once I called the list of references he gave me and they all glowed.
Unfortunately, half way through the job (3 to 4 weeks in), his crew stopped showing up and my calls and emails went unanswered.
After three weeks, I contacted an attorney to figure out what our options were and discovered his contractors license had been suspended, he hadn’t renewed his bond and he hadn’t paid his workers comp. Awesome.
I continued to call and email but it wasn’t until I thought to cc the landscape architect, that I got a response. His response included a timeline but not one part of it was fulfilled. He either has no problem lying to his clients or he is the worlds worst scheduler. Neither is ideal for a general contractor.
The delay was five weeks total and it felt like ten because we were walking through dirt everyday and the concrete steps to our back door had been jack hammered.
There were many other problems too, I could go on and on… but pictures speak louder than words.
We have dozens of plants and a tree that are dead. We paid over $ 9,000 on plant material alone and they’re all covered by a warranty from the nursery but Luis bought them and he hasn’t/won’t come back. He’s promised to, three times, over several months, but since I’ve paid in full, I’m sure I’ll never see him again and I’m more than OK with that.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to message me.

Garcia Landscaping is most definitely to be avoided. Luis Garcia, the owner is charming and very knowledgeable regarding plants. He clearly understands how things should look but, that is as far as anything nice that I can say.
Once a contract is signed he is extremely hard to reach and multiple times has disappeared for 2 to 3 weeks at a time. His crew is limited with his son being the foreman.
The sprinkler system he set up was completely wrong and the plants began to die almost immediately. Plants were placed in the soil without any soil preparation, packing the soil around the plant or creating wells around the plant to hold the water.
Whenever these problems surfaced and I tried to contact him, it would frequently take a week or more for him to return my call, even when the problems required immediate attention. The only reason that the landscaped area looks good now, is that I have a great gardener who stepped in and totally re-​did the sprinkling system, considerable replanting, replacement of dead plants (that were theoretically guaranteed), and reset the sprinkler timing system that was set very incorrectly. I feel that Garcia Landscaping has a combination of both lack of ability and lack of caring.
The only thing they seem to be especially good at is billing and adding to their quoted fees. And once you have paid the final amount, they do a vanishing act that even Houdini would envy. All and all, almost any choice would be better.

Promises to show up never kept. I tried this service based on a flyer in our neighborhood. I hired them to clean the yard, prune trees, weed, etc. They did an excellent job, to the point that shortly thereafter my neighbors used them for the same.
BUT even though I had requested yard care every week, they never came back. I called and they would promise to be there, but no show no call. Strike One
I called again, once more promised a date they would be there, no show, STRIKE TWO.
Once again I called and they said they would be there. No show, no call. STRIKE THREE!
Was I smart enough to give up then? No of course not, I called again and asked why never show up, told me oh yeah forgot to call you one time, no reasons for the other, but promised to make it up to me and come early the next week. Guess what? AGAIN no show no call.
I gave these guys more than three strikes and waited all summer for them to come through. NO dice.
If you want dependable service do not call thsese guys, they will let you down

Asked Luis to do some follow up work on our yard and again, he and his crew exceeded expectations in service and professionalism. As a bonus, they very forgiving of MY SCREWUP of forgetting our original appointment day to let them into the yard which delayed the job a day. He very graciously rescheduled without a hassle. If you need work done in your yard, Luis and his crew are the guys to do it.