Backyard Renovation: Remove grass, cut small tree, trim shrubs, walkway, patio and vegetable garden
I contacted Assiniboine to renovate a section of my 3-tier backyard by removing a small tree, trimming 2 shrubs, removing grass to create a walkway, a large patio and vegetable gardens. The estimator came a week later and I gave him a fixed budget to work with. He came back promptly to suggest a 25' stone walkway, a 15' x 14' patio and 2 vegetable garden areas of 10' x 4' each. He even suggested using the existing paver stones in my yard to use with new bricks for the vegetable garden border to save cost, which I thought was a great idea.
Within a week, the project manager Anka contacted me and discussed about my likes and dislikes, etc. He was able to arrange for his crew to start 3 days before the original scheduled date. On Friday, the day of construction, the crew worked tirelessly ripping up the grass by hand (because my backyard is inaccessible to machineries). Within a day, they were able to prep the area to start laying the bricks the following day. These men worked long hours through the weekend, and during that time we made some minor changes to the design and those guys were very accommodating. In the end, some of the changes resulted in less bricks used and a pallet of bricks was returned to their supplier.
The only unfortunate thing was that this wasn't communicated properly back to their HQ and when the project was completed, I was charged extra for bricks that were not used. However, the company was able to verify this situation quickly with the project manager and the revised charges were then waived without any issue. By Monday, the work was done to my satisfaction.
To be clear, they are not the cheapest landscaper if you shop around. But if you want quality work and a landscaper who sticks to the budget, then Assiniboine is worthy of consideration. Plus, they provide 2 year limited hardscape warranty pertaining to workmanship defects, which I hope I won't have to use!