Beware of Contractors who…
Before I was a landscape designer and contractor I was a staff writer working on television shows, and when I needed a contractor for a home project I researched companies, found a few I liked, narrowed them down then chose the cheapest one. Sound familiar? The problem with that method is that the cheapest one and the best quality can’t coexist. And if it did it was only because I had stumbled upon a hungry young contractor, or more likely a hungry unlicensed young contractor or even worse, a hungry, unlicensed, uninsured young contractor. These eager to please contractors got my business because they underbid the field, more than likely because they weren’t carrying insurance or had inexperienced guys working for pennies or they didn’t have a lot of clients yet and were desperate to make a deal. Some of them may have even offered to do work for free, like I did once upon a time. And that is a recipe for disaster for both of you; because unless the contractor is doing the free work himself, then he is paying a subcontractor to do it and will be losing money. And that will catch up to him — more than likely during your project — and it won’t be long before you get an email with just a whiff of alarm, pleading for a meeting to go over some unanticipated costs. That is the key word, unanticipated. Experienced contractors aren’t in the practice of saying it. Not to say that there won’t be overages during a job, but an experienced contractor will have anticipated their likelihood and made you aware of them because he’s made the mistake of not doing so before and it’s cost him money.
One common overage that should always be anticipated — demolition. Home building in the canyons of Los Angeles was not always the sluggish bureaucratic nightmare it is now. There were periods of tremendous growth, namely after both world wars, when war time building code restrictions were lifted allowing many homes in Los Angeles to have experienced, let’s say, creative and highly engineered rebuilds, many of which were never permitted or worse, done by someone’s uncle, who may or may not have been a carpenter. Or sober. And what sometimes happens is unwanted materials are simply left behind or, most delightfully, purposefully hidden underground where eventually the landscape team discovers them. I have personally found partial brick walkways, treated timbers, koi ponds, rattlesnakes, diapers, concrete, old clay pipes from a neighbor’s sewage lines, children’s toys, and electrical conduit buried 8” deep — code is 18” for pvc and 24” for direct burial.” You get the picture. Demo is like hunting for buried treasure except it’s not treasure, it’s garbage. Heavy, dangerous, hard to get rid of garbage. And the cost to do so will be significantly more than the previously quoted cost of expected materials like soil, stone and plant material. What I’m saying is the old adage is true, you get what you pay for. So don’t go for the cheapie bid — there will likely be more costs down the road.
On the other hand, going with the most experienced contractor may not be all it’s cracked up to be. The old timer contractor who’s seen it all in his forty years on the job and has figured out your project after a ten minute walk through isn’t the bargain you might think he is. Sure, his crews will more than likely do solid work and come in on schedule, but it will feel like the landscape equivalent of the ninth installment of the Fast and the Furious. It won’t be inspired and it won’t necessarily meet your needs. But it’ll meet his needs, because his needs are about keeping the lights on in his offices. So he’ll be dishing out a healthy dose of what he know works well and will give him as few headaches as possible. You’ll get a design that feels eerily familiar because it’ll be based on work you’ve seen in his portfolio and with materials that he can get at a discounted rate because he uses them on virtually every job. And don’t expect those savings to be passed along to you. The old timer has anticipated this and simply increases his markup so that the final cost stays in the ballpark of what you anticipated. If you don’t believe me, take a drive through West Hollywood and count how many grass yards you see with ficus hedges. You think homeowners there are just bananas about ficus? They’re not. But their contractors are—despite the likelihood that after ten years those ficus roots will be wreaking havoc with sidewalks, driveways and sewer lines costing the client tens of thousands of dollars in replacement costs. But the old timer knew he could get them cheap, so he did.
It’s important for a contractor to listen, asks lots of questions and involve the client in the design process. But not all do. I have seen contractors ask a client a question, then talk over her answer and steer her away from what she was saying and towards what the contractor knows will not lead to any problems down the road. That isn’t to say that clients don’t need to be talked out of bad ideas, because they do. It is the contractor’s job to bring the financial and material ramifications of a given decision to the client’s attention, it is not the contractor’s job to make that decision. The best designs emphasize function over form, so if a contractor/designer doesn’t know what use you intend for your outdoors spaces then how is he going to know what to design and what materials to use? Also, make sure you and your contractor truly understand each other. Nodding your heads together and tip toeing around the details of a project is not truly understanding. A good contractor will find out exactly what his client does and does not want. He should ask questions over and over until an understanding is reached, even if it makes him appear like a simpleton. Believe me, it is far better to have your clients chuckling at night on their pillows about how their contractor needs it ‘spelled out for him’, than it is to install something that the client isn’t sold on and now refuses to pay for. As a writer, this situation came up a lot. I would meet with studio and network execs, who had notes for my script that they themselves or more likely, their bosses wanted to convey to me. And because they owned the show, it was my duty to listen and address those notes. But because many writers are sensitive about their scripts, these execs would tip toe around the subject. They’d smile and laugh and swear we were all on the same page, while I would leave the meeting with the same vague confusion I entered it with. Here’s how it would go, “Kevin, can you make this character more likeable?” And I would say, “What do you mean by likeable? Do you mean remove stuff he does that is unlikeable which will, y’know… completely change him, or do you mean add scenes where he does something likeable, even if it bogs down the story?” That’s when the exec breaks out the big smile, “Exactly. See I knew he’d get it.” But I didn’t get it. And neither did they. Because the note wasn’t theirs, it was their boss’ and when it was given to them they didn’t understand it either, but they didn’t want to look dumb so they smiled and just passed it along to me, expecting me to understand it. And now you know why I’m not a tv writer anymore.
The point is don’t let this happen to you or your project. Find a contractor who you can understand and who understands you. The contractor you want will speak in language you understand, not builder shorthand, and may even write down notes of your discussion so that he can recall details with specificity when it comes time to okay the work.
Even with that, miscommunication happens. We all lead busy lives but taking extra time to be clear with a client is the first duty of a good contractor. Early on in my career, I had a client, a young Hollywood couple. It was a large project—both hardscape and softscape and after some hemming and hawing they finally decided to add trimming a large hedge to the scope of work. The husband wanted it trimmed significantly so that he didn’t have to pay someone to do it again after a few years. The wife was worried about losing privacy with the neighbors. The hedge was a beast — 80’ long, 18’ high and almost 6’ thick with vines, dead leaves and all sorts of other plants and trees growing inside it. A few days before we were to start, I pulled the husband aside to get confirmation on the height. With a pole I pointed to a height and he replied he was good with that. Then on the day the work was to start, I double checked, just to be safe. Pulled him outside again, confirmed the height. All good, he said. That morning the hedge was trimmed and that afternoon his wife went to Defcon 1— it was too low, I had completely compromised their privacy! I tried to explain — reminding her that twice I went out into the yard with her husband… And that’s when I got it — this is the first time she’s hearing any of this. The husband hadn’t said a word about giving me the okay because he didn’t want his wife’s wrath pointed at him. And because I hadn’t put it in writing, they felt like they weren’t liable. So I learned a valuable and expensive lesson. Sometimes couples don’t agree on the details of the work, so a smart contractor will communicate with all parties and put details in writing.
The importance of your landscape can’t be stated enough. It’s the very first thing people see when they pull up to your home, and it leaves a vivid and lasting impression on guests and buyers, so take the time to do it right. Which means give it a healthy portion of your budget. Don’t dump tens of thousands of dollars into a half bath in a downstairs hallway, if it means you cheap out on your front walkway and the landscape lighting. Landscape installs aren’t cheap — why would an outdoor kitchen be less expensive than an indoor kitchen when wind, rain and sun, and insects demand vastly more resilient materials? The install process requires clear communication between client and contractor. If a know-it-all contractor who doesn’t listen and a guy who works seven days a week for peanuts are your two finalists, keep looking. No contractor has all the answers but the best ones are willing to work with you to find them. They’ll show anticipation and creativity and they will invite collaboration. Don’t settle until you find one with all three.
Favorite Landscapes to Visit
Villa d'Este
1. Villa d’Este, Tivoli, Italy — https://www.visittivoli.it/en/villa-d-este
2. Butchart Gardens, Central Saanich, Victoria — https://www.butchartgardens.com/
3. Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon — https://japanesegarden.org/
4. High Line, New York, NY — https://www.thehighline.org/visit/
5. Mount Major, Alton, New Hampshire — https://www.forestsociety.org/visit-and-explore/mtmajor
6. Maximilianpark, Hummelo, Netherlands — https://oudolf.com/garden/maximilianpark
7. Wire Pass Trail, Utah — https://thenatureseeker.com/how-to-hike-the-wire-pass-trail-step-by-step-guide/
8. Mammoth Lakes, California — https://www.visitmammoth.com/things-to-do/
9. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Borrego Springs, California — https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=638
10. Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico — https://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm
Top Ten Productive Habits
After
1. Learn how to prune shrubs and trees to keep your garden looking great.
Before…
.
After
2. Hire a good gardener. Nothing will ruin a new landscape faster than a careless mow and blow gardener. But if you’re like a lot of folks I talk to and you can’t find a good one, consider hiring a planting and irrigation crew to come to your home two or three times a year to prune, replace dead plants and fix broken irrigation. Ask your landscape contractor for recommendations.
3. Pick up trash. It’s easy to walk past empty cups and debris on the street or sidewalk. Be a force for change. Stop and pick it up wherever you find it.
https://www.doinggoodtogether.org/projects/clean-up-your-neighborhood
4. Clean out items for recycling. That yogurt container doesn’t need to be spotless, just clean enough not to contaminate other items and attract pests.
https://ecomyths.org/myth-you-must-rinse-all-containers-before-recycling-them/
5. Water is a dwindling resource we need to prioritize and conserve. Remove grass and add plants where feasible. The SoCal Water$mart project provides rebates for changing from high water usage items like grass to drought tolerant plants and trees. See the link below:
https://socalwatersmart.com/en/residential/rebates/available-rebates/turf-replacement-program/
6. Consider boulders in your landscape and gabion walls constructed from natural elements like cobble and gravel to save on costs and improve your carbon footprint.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652622034849
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01960-0
7. Don’t bury your plants too deeply.
https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/planting-problems-planting-too-deep/
8. Don’t be afraid to remove dying trees. We all love old trees. They provide shade, beauty and act as ecosystems for many of the native flora and fauna in the area. But healthy ecosystems will have old, young and middle-aged trees and plants. When trees get too old and are left in poor condition they can become hazardous, so talk to an arborist before considering the removal of any large tree. Many species, like Coast Live Oaks, are protected and have strict guidelines around removing and even pruning branches. And if you do remove an old unhealthy tree, plant a new one. The soil will thank you. Young trees and old trees absorb different nutrients from the soil and having a palette of various aged trees is a good way to regenerate your soil.
https://arbordayblog.org/treecare/saying-goodbye-when-its-time-to-remove-your-tree/
9. You know that strip of ugly yellow grass between your sidewalk and the street? Get rid of it. It’s costing you money and hurting the environment. More often than not it is being overwatered by inefficient sprayhead irrigation, which typically leaves water marks on vehicles parked on the street before running off to the sewer and then out into Santa Monica Bay. Consider substituting decomposed granite, beach pebbles, or even planting drought-tolerant plants with drip irrigation; but be mindful to allow room for visitors stepping out of their cars to cross the parkway to the sidewalk. Ask your landscape contractor about creative fixes.
10. Test your soil if you’re going to plant an edible garden or if you have young kids who like to play in the yard. Nutrient deprived and sunbaked clay soils are problematic, but even worse are the general contractors who leave behind construction debris after they’ve remodeled your home. Nothing will spoil the flavor of your citrus like heavy metals and bacterial contaminants, so if you’re in a recently built home or have had significant construction done, test your soil. Below is a laboratory in W. LA that will test your soil and provide helpful guidelines to remediation.