Landscaping your yard can be a fun and exciting do-it-yourself project; however, some of you may feel overwhelmed by the possibilities, or you may not feel confident in your choices, or you may decide that your time is best spend doing something else, whatever the reason, you may choose to hire a landscape contractor to install your project. Choosing a contractor can itself be a daunting task; there are so many contractors around, so where do you start? I would recommend getting the answers to these general questions before narrowing your choices:
1. Is the contractor insured?
2. How long has the contractor been in business?
3. Are their crews someone you can communicate with?
4. Will they supply you with references?
5. What type of warranty do they offer?
Once you’ve narrowed your choices to 2 or 3 (I wouldn’t recommend more than that, it starts getting confusing), you will want them to come to your residence/project site to go over the project you’re contemplating. Hopefully, you have chosen A.G. VanGundy Landscape, Inc. to be one of those two or three. Each company has their own sales process, but this is ours (and it seems to have worked fairly well for nearly 30 years).
First you need to call or e-mail the office to schedule an appointment. If a sales representative is not readily available at the time of your call, our efficient office staff will get some general information from you and pass it along to the sales rep. The rep should call you back within a day or so to schedule the appointment.
Before he/she comes to your site, you will want to consider a few things, like budget. You will want to convey to our rep what you are comfortable spending. You may want a $50,000.00 landscape, but you have $10,000.00 available. Keep in mind that this is not a huge problem. You may need to install your project in stages. We’ll discuss this a little later in this blog. You may also want to look around your neighborhood or at other homes; do you see any plantings that you absolutely love or hate? Our rep will want to know that also. Do you have a preference of colors? Do you love pink? Do you have reds? Finally, think about how much time you want to spend maintaining the newly installed landscape. Do you want it installed and virtually forget about it? Do you like tweaking things throughout the season? You may also need a copy of your plat of survey for the initial meeting.
Once our rep arrives, he/she will want to look at the area(s) to be landscaped. They’ll want to know the answers to the above questions and probably other information to help them customize the design to your taste/personality/lifestyle. Sometimes, especially if the project is not complicated, the rep will be able to sketch something on site and present you with the estimate. Other times, the rep will bring back the dimensions and notes and prepare a scaled design. There is usually a fee involved with the preparation of a design; however, the rep will certainly go over this with you at the meeting. Once the design is completed, the rep will contact you for a 2nd meeting to go over the details of the design. This meeting usually takes place at our office although not always. The rep will go over the overall concept of the design, basic colors included and bloom time. The rep will also go over the cost and our contract terms. If you love the design and the price is right, you’ll be asked to sign a contract and for a deposit to hold your price and get you on the schedule board. If you love the design, but the price is a little of your budget for now, the rep will be more than happy to discuss with you the options that would be available. For instance, you may decide to do the project in stages, our rep can help you prioritize which should be done first, or you may decide to install portions of the landscape yourself. Whatever you decide, we want to make sure that you’re happy and comfortable with the decisions.
Once your deposit is received and the contract is signed, your job goes on the schedule board for installation. We will give you an estimated date for installation. Your actual installation date is not something that can always be guaranteed because our work is very dependent on weather conditions and jobs that are being installed in front of yours.
If a permit is required, we can take care of that for you in most cases. We may need additional information from you and you will be responsible to pay the permit fees and/or bonds that may be required by the village and/or county. But, we’ll be happy to submit the paperwork, pick up the permit and be the liaison to the governing bodies.
Once your installation date is near, we will contact JULIE to mark the underground utilities at your site. Please note, that JULIE does not mark wiring that you have installed, i.e. invisible dog fence lines, low voltage lighting wiring… In these cases, you may want to mark them yourself or at the very least make sure that your sales rep is aware of these.
We will usually call you a day or two prior to the day we will be at your site to start your job. Your “start up” payment is usually due once our crews arrive to begin work.
When the work is completed, the sales rep or the crew foreman will walk you through the job, go over the watering instructions, the warranty again and answer any questions you may have. It is then that the final payment is due. But, don’t think that just because you make your final payment our relationship has to be over. We’re here to answer questions that may come up or assist you with other projects you may want to install.
Finally, deciding to do any home improvement with a contractor can be nerve racking, but at A.G. VanGundy Landscape, Inc. we try to take some of the nerves and turn them into excitement.
