Utah Garden Girls — Local services in Salt Lake City

EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE WITH OWNER PLEASE READ

First of all I’ve read the reviews and somewhat aggressive defenses on here. From my interactions with the owner (Sarah), I think it’s likely she’ll deny the facts and blame the situation on me, so I’m going to give as much detail as I can so you can judge for yourself.

We had a fine experience with our consultation ($200 for an hour and to develop a plan for more landscaping work). We also signed up for 16 hours of spring cleanup.

The cleanup workers sliced a drip line while they were working. I followed up with Sarah to ask for a fix. She said “I have scheduled X to come handle your drip and attend to the hanging planter as well. He will perform a system check and make sure everything is set until we come up with a plan.”

I didn’t ask for, or confirm, this system check. When X came, they changed from night to day watering, and did additional work to drip lines we hadn’t asked or agreed to pay for.

We came back from vacation and our lawn was very wet so I asked Sarah why they made the changes.

Our drip lines to potted plants were very obviously on and working because the planters were lush and full.

She sent him back out and they made quick changes in 10 minutes, reducing lawn watering times by 75%. (no communication from her when they visited or what they did). The next day we left town for 2 weeks.

This is where the problem started — when doing this, they turned off the old drip line schedule (thinking no zones were on it, probably) and moved it to the lawn timer so it only watered 8 minutes every other day, and all of the planters dried up.

Instead of believing us, Sarah now claimed that they had never done the first changes and the drip lines were “already off” even before the 2nd visit (impossible — the hanging plant would have had zero water, while it was lush and full).

She even said I had initiated the request for watering schedule changes (despite it being right there in the email that she suggested the first check) and would be billing us for their service.

I spent two hours going through our cameras to show the proof that 2 changes (first mistake and second mistake) ONLY happened when her technicians were there at the house. The changes and days coordinated exactly, and I sent her all additional details and photos.

The pots very obviously grow right up until the day her technician “consolidated” the schedule.

She again flatly denied that they did anything besides “fixing” the requests she claimed I made and reiterated we’d be getting a bill for the irrigation work (which the email thread shows I didn’t ask for).

In addition, she never completed any plan for our $200 consultation 7 weeks earlier.

She “assured” us this was accurate without any evidence on her side, in spite of mountains of clear evidence on ours. Mistakes are understandable— what doesn’t make sense is her defensiveness and denial of plain facts, and unwillingness to consider her team even might have made mistakes.

[EDIT] Key things Sarah left out or misrepresented below:

she never delivered anything from our $200 consultation or even mentioned it again we paid for 15.4 hrs (based on actual time confirmed on camera), minus only the cost of dead planters and 1/2 the consultation fee her bill included 2 hrs when her staff left site for personal errands we don't have HOA or lawn care: the cameras show changes only the 2 days her crew came (and clearly test sprinklers) she admitted in email they “consolidated” the sprinkler program when I showed her proof, she refused to even consider a mistake was possible no rate/scope was provided for sprinkler work — we never approved it no vendors were ever hesitant to work with us; we declined one $200K-over-budget bid for full landscaping. Sarah's is the only bill we've ever disputed we liked our original setup — we only asked why they changed it in the first place (again, clear in email) nearly 10 mos later, she offered to replace the plants. When we didn’t respond, she posted this reply to...

I was referred to the Garden Girls by some friends to landscape the yard of the house I am building. I was told that in order for Sarah to come and meet with me I would have to pay a $100 consultation fee. I spaced it, and then on the day we were scheduled to meet I was contacted by the company I was told that if I didn't pay the fee by a certain time she would not come to the consultation. I thought that was a little weird but I paid it anyway. We met at the building site and discussed some ideas. We agreed that she would do my landscaping in the spring of 2019 (The initial consultation was in the Fall of 2018). In January of 2019, the contractor needed to know some of the areas that I would like cement poured for my backyard patio. I tried to contact the garden girls company multiple times by phone (at least 6 times over the course of 2-3 week and also left a message. NO ONE ANSWERED OR RETURNED MY CALLS. I finally had to hire another landscape architect. I was irritated by this time, and emailed the company about their lack of response, and that I would like a refund of my $100. I received an email back from Sarah saying basically that they were sorry no one returned my calls and that they were out of the office (they don't check their messages?) . She said that she WOULD NOT REFUND my $100 because she came up with some really good ideas???? in the time that she was at the building site. The problem is that she wasn't available to give me any help with plans on where to pour the concrete in my yard when I really needed it. The reason I paid the $100 was so that I could have expert advice.... which I didn't get. This company obviously has no concept of customer service. WHAT A WASTE OF...

I don’t recommend working with the garden girls.

The owner came for a consultation and we bounced some ideas off of her for our front and back yard. She charged $100 just to come which was frustrating, but I figured it was fine because she came highly recommended. Nothing was agreed on during the consultation for what work we actually wanted done, which plants we’d use, etc.

After the consultation, I was sent an invoice that said it needed to be paid before work was done. I was confused, so I tried to figure out what the invoice was for since nothing had been agreed on. I sent multiple emails, called and left multiple voicemails and messages with the receptionist, and even went so far as to ask one of their employees who was doing maintenance on our neighbors’ yard to relay the message to the owner that we wanted to talk and figure out what was going on so we could finalize plans and get work going. My many attempts at trying to reconnect were over the span of a few months from the time the consultation took place.

There was no response to any of my attempted outreach, leaving me feeling like I was duped out of $100 for no reason. I wanted the work done, and I wanted it done by them, but they never got back to me. Given how many times and in so many ways that I tried to get in touch, there’s no explanation other than my attempts were intentionally ignored.

I don’t want to work with people like that, and I bet you don’t...