Designs By Elizabeth

Of twenty years since 1996, at Designs By Elizabeth, I am truly sadden by your response, especially after all of the countless hours I have spent on your property free of charge. I have a catalog of emails and texts that were sent for over a year, time charts of extensive time I spent overseeing your landscape at no charge trying to regulate your irrigation irregularities, your lack of maintenance and the invasion of your neighbors whitefiles which I personally sprayed for for three weeks. I have not only replaced every plant twice and replaced a magnolia you desired to remove initially; I feel that you expected me to be your personal gardener, free of charge for over a year, which you will read in our contract, was never a commitment.

Per our last email conversations, which I am saddened to post, but I feel is necessary, in light of your negative review, this email and response was sent almost a year after your plantings:

'Hi Elizabeth,

I hope and trust that you are fully recovered from your pre-Christmas surgery and have returned to your breakneck speed as business owner/wife/mother!

Joe and I are hoping that you are available sometime soon to walk through our front and back yards to address some of the issues we tabled until winter was over. Most of the landscaping looks just beautiful! The magnolia is beautiful and seems to be happy in its location. We still have some concerns about a number of gardenia plants that are dead or dying even though we have watered faithfully throughout the winter. We need to replace a number of plants but we need to understand why certain plants in certain locations are not thriving.

We also need to mulch and do some weeding. Sadly, the white flies are back with a vengeance on the viburnum. Our neighbors cut every branch and leaf off of the citrus trees that we believe were ground zero for our infestation. But, as you know, my environmentally friendly treatment for white flies did not exactly eradicate the problem! Will you let me know the name of the more effective treatment that you use to treat white flies?

We are leaving on Saturday for 10 days in San Diego, returning on March 15. Will you please give us some options as to when you might be available to walk the property after that date?

Thank you, Elizabeth. I look forward to seeing you again.

My response:

'Good afternoon Susan!

"We have been trying to beat the rain over in Parkgate and finishing by Thursday. I did have you down for last Friday for mulching, but didn't hear back from you until later last week and added some more Parkgate yards. I was getting my son's Passport expedited today downtown since he needs a Visa in two weeks to travel to Beijing in June. Tomorrow I am in Memorial for three appointments. Adelfo is finishing up the Parkgate yards and he has three on his own. He can, however, take care of trimming, fertilization, mulching and treating for whiteflies middle of next week when I am in Guadalajara for a wedding.

I called the nursery about special pricing for the Gardenias at $14.50 plus tax and delivery charge of $45. Adelfo will want to get them in at the same time as mulching as he will need to add soil that has been blown away from your maintenance crew before he applies the mulch. You just need about two yards of soil.

Last October on the 20th, I offered to replace the gardenias with a less fussy shrub like white Sasanqua Camellias that are not susceptible to white flies and not as picky about root rot from over-watering and sensitive root systems. Since we dug up your last gardenias; most were in pockets filled with water. I replaced most of them already twice, even though it was due to over-irrigation, as well as your Magnolia. At first thought, I was worried it was an issue with whiteflies and spraying, until we dug up, and as you saw, were swimming in water and rotted. My secondary concern was that the mulch was all blown away. I advised and stressed that you needed to add more mulch after we planted the gardenias to cover the root systems that were in the entire yard, as they were exposed, before the winter. I only replace them once, as per contract in a 90 day period, but I have never had an issue where we replaced plants more than once and I really wanted your landscape to thrive and was at a loss at why your gardenia's were not thriving as they were in all our landscapes. Believe me, as I do not get to exchange or replace plants at my nursery, as they have a 'no exchange or replacement' policy, I would not ever use them if they have not been successful in all my landscapes that I use them in. I wouldn't even advise to have them, in your landscape or in my own (as I have more than 30).

I have clients who hire me to supervise their landscape once a month to check the irrigation and overall wellness of their landscape if they cannot with traveling or are not sure how to take care of it if they have a maintenance crew that they are adamant about using. I, absolutely, without doubt, would replace your gardenias free of charge, if they were unhealthy when we planted them, and never was compensated from the nursery for the plant loss that we replaced both times. I planted your gardenias, both sets from your original ones and replacement gardenias, at three homes that have not needed replacement. Of course, out of love and care for your landscape, I visited your landscape twice, free of charge and I took pictures after our last visit, not counting the numerous visits that I have made at no charge since the installation of your landscape. I showed the pictures again to Angela, the nursery horticulturalist, manager and plant specialist again, and she found two issues that were both originally my concern; sooty mold from whiteflies on the gardenias that were infected from your neighbors over-infestation of their citrus, viburnums and sunshine ligustrums, as well as root exposure from the mulch blown away.

It wasn't until this past March, three and a half months after we replaced them, did I know that they were lost again. Plant material, unfortunately, is live material that needs close supervision for the first few months. In fact, watering in for the first week is essential, but over-watering is detrimental, as we saw the second time that we replaced them. The last time we came, we replaced four heads that your maintenance crew knocked out, again, at my cost. This was important to me, because there were areas in your landscape that needed additional coverage in the backyard by your palm. Instead of charging you for my visits, the irrigation heads that were cut; I made replacements for the plants that were over-watered, some under-watered from the heads that had been cut and plants that were exposed. At my last visit to look at your irrigation, you have full coverage of your landscape for more than significant coverage (with the exception of zone 9 that was cut again by your maintenance crew), but you are still dealing with root exposure and whiteflies. The key is not to overwater your landscape and let your yard be susceptible to insects and mold. It should feel dry by the middle of the day for the first 1/2 inch of your yard.

I think the key to solving this issue to make things thrive and beautiful as we have done for our installations, is for Adelfo's Landscape maintenance team or another crew of your choice, to make sure weekly to oversee any issues and report them immediately, as well as, making sure that they are not blowing away the entirety of your mulch and leaving roots exposed. If you decide to do your own maintenance crew, I suggest you also hire a company that will spray for fungus and insects as well.

For Adelfo's landscape maintenance, he sends his crew out to oversee when they cut the yard as he does with mine and all his landscapes that we have performed which hire him and those of his own. Once monthly, they do light weeding, which is all that needs to be done when the mulch is not blown away. Trimming, full weeding, irrigation inspection and fertilizer is done at your request for a charge (usually, four times a year). Mulching, depending on how much you want a clean bed is done twice or three times a year. He does mine twice. When they see any issue, such as plants suffering, fungus, insect issues in the beds or sod, they contact Adelfo to inspect and he immediately treats or repairs irrigation heads.

It is my assurance to you, the landscape that we planned can come to fruition with proper weekly care with inspection of irrigation once established, getting the whiteflies under control, now that your neighbors are on board by trimming their infected trees and keeping the roots covered (which is essential). Gardenias need to be planted high in ground with a covering of mulch at the base. One this is gone, they are exposed and suffer until well established. Whiteflies love succulent new growth and you provided them with a lot of new plant material when we were unaware of their infestation next door.

I know you Susan! You are hands on and love gardening and beautiful landscapes. You want and deserve a beautiful landscape, especially when investing so much. Truth be told, I am more invested in your landscape because I have paid more personally out of pocket than I made from your installation when I added up all of our expenses for your landscape. I am most assuredly more frustrated than you because, minus personal time, I have spent additional monies out of pocket and time to make sure it that it thrives. When I see the soil and mulch blown away, the infestation of whiteflies, the soaking of the beds, the cut heads of irrigation, it is deflating, when I see all the installations we performed for 20 years and even this last year, it is depressing, when of all clients, I value you and your friendship so much.

I am more than happy to forward you pictures of the gardenias that we installed that were from your same first and second batch. We have pictures from clients that we just serviced this week with quarterly maintenance for your to see that I took Friday and can correspond with their contracts and original photos. I am more than happy to send for you, to feel comforted before you order additional gardenias.

If you still want the gardenias delivered or want different plant material delivered, let me know. The retail on jubilation Gardenia on your own, which I didn't charge you retail per our contract for installation, is $39.98, she is offering $14.50 at cost. If you want to take a different route, let me know as well, as I will get you the cost price from the nursery which is better than their price to me.

Let me know as soon as possible so Adelfo doesn't make any further changes to his schedule since I will be gone from April 20-25th. If you would like to wait until after, let me know as well so we can get you scheduled to his maintenance, the mulching, weeding, fertilizing and spraying.

Warmest regards,
Elizabeth'

Hi Elizabeth,

So sorry for the delayed response. The Habitat for Humanity gala is in two and a half weeks and it's been all-consuming!

Thanks for your quick response. Our current lawn guys are out there as I write this. If possible (and probably like the rest of the world), we'd love our landscaping to be groomed on Thursdays or Fridays, beginning next week. Please ask Adelfo to call me to firm this up if he'd like.

Thanks you, Elizabeth.'

Since my last email , you hired my subcontracted maintenance services and quit your own per my suggestion. I have honored every obligation to not only replace your plant material, once, but twice. I have spent countless hours on your landscape free of charge, and have in twenty years not had a similar experience. This is an issue that I have lovingly addressed with care and compassion. Again, it is my desire to create a beautiful landscape! It has nothing to do with the choice of plant material, but the care given to the plant material. I was never hired to be a personal gardener and oversee your landscape weekly, unless that was your intent, which it is not. At the same time, I did that, free of charge and made comments, replacements and repairs because I wanted to see your landscape thrive, I

It is truly disheartening to see a negative response in twenty years, especially after the personal attention I spend with each and every client. Unfortunately, plant material is still live plant material. If it is not cared for properly, not maintained and neglected, it will fail to thrive.

At the same time, I will post pictures of your landscape before and after. The pictures are not just a transformation but beautiful in comparison to what you had prior, even with your irrigation and whitefly issue. I wish I could control the variables that extend to landscape issues when dealing with live material. We use the hardiest native and naturalized plant material, we build the best foundation and drainage. My love of landscape is obvious as I placed each and every plant by hand myself and oversee the entire process.

Unfortunately, I have no control over pests, that are irregular to the extreme, with an infestation as your neighbor had, as we did. As an alternative shrub that isn't susceptible to the invasive infestation of the neighbor's whiteflies, I offered to replace plant material to the original against this suggestion at my cost (even though it was more expensive) and I had already paid your landscape out of pocket with no complaint. You chose again to have the beautiful Southern Living Gardenia. no matter how hardy, as I mentioned many times, are the love of whiteflies. I offered an alternative replacement...which, again, second time replacing, you chose not to replace.

(To note, I planted this April, 56 Southern Living Jubilation Gardenias in my landscape that are not only thriving as well as blooming proficiently. They, even after the deluge of rain are beautiful! I have over 85

Again, I am truly disheartened...I have always been on-sight and placed every single plant in all of my landscape installations by hand. I follow up in each landscape on my own. It is hard to even have one disappointment in twenty years. But it makes the disappointment more heart-felt, when I over-extend my obligations lovingly for the love of my craft.

Warmest regards,
Elizabeth