Westfield customer
We hired Sunnyside based on positive reviews. They started by having a professional landscape architect come and survey our whole property and talked to me about preferences. He then created a landscaping blueprint, recommending specific native-friendly plants and trees based on the variation sun, soil, water, etc. around our whole property. They planted in April while I was out of town.
When I got back I noticed one of the dogwoods we paid for simply hadn’t been planted. Reached out to tell him they missed an entire tree that was on the blueprint. I didn’t hear back for 6 days so I prompted them again and he said they would get it planted, which they did the following week.
A month later both dogwoods were showing signs of dying leaves and doing poorly, clearly had too much water. They first advised me to water them deeply to which I said no, they are clearly too wet and even have moss at the base. He agreed I was correct and they’d have someone come to check them out.
At that point when I was looking at the trees more closely I noticed that on all 6 trees we had bought, all the cages and canvas bags were still very tightly attached to them and some were even showing/sticking out of the ground with big gaps in the soil - seemed like they were planted hastily and without much care. I messaged them some pics. It took over a month for them to address my msgs and come out to assess the dogwoods, which were already a lost cause by then. Bottom line is taking action took weeks and I had to prompt them repeatedly by asking when they were coming to remove the dead trees. I had also asked them to remove or loosen all the canvas bags and cages and reevaluate to make sure the trees were planted correctly, which they didn’t do on the initial trip to remove the dead trees. I had to ask them again to come back to do so.
The contract said their plants were on warranty and they didn’t even make it a full six months. Wasn’t the point of us paying for a landscape architect surveying the property and creating a blueprint - for him to pick plants that were ideal based on the soil/location? Or am I out of line here? They said they’ll replace them but insist I need to sign a waiver saying it’s “going above and beyond” their usual warranty before they’ll do it. That was a week ago and I still haven’t received said waiver.
Then in the last few weeks, the middle 1 of 3 spruces has started showing issues and as of today looks like this. I contacted them about it on Wednesday and have had no response. Again, their contract states all trees and bushes are on warranty so I feel they need to either replace or treat this. I’m worried that we’re running out of time to save it and they haven’t responded.
I can tell it’s very wet (and we don’t manually water it ourselves) so I pulled some of the excess soil and mulch off to keep the roots from continuing to be drowned. But I also don’t get why the two other spruces right next to it are doing just fine.
Of the 6 trees planted (1 maple, 2 dogwoods, 3 spruces) only half have survived - the maple and 2 of the spruce. Several of our boxwoods are also doing poorly which they said they would also replace, but that hasn’t happened yet either. It’s fine if they are busy and need to schedule it out, but again, the communication is either nonexistent or takes weeks of reminding them to respond.
I wasn’t planning to write a negative review but I’m not sure how else to get them to properly follow up and take action. If the plants selected by THEIR architect are not suited to the locations they chose, I’m not sure how that is our fault or why we need to sign a waiver. Architect either needs to reevaluate the property and tree choices and replace, or they need to refund us for the trees we paid for. This experience has been really frustrating. None of my expectations or requests have been unreasonable - just literally want the trees/plants we paid for, and reliable communication from a vendor that we paid this much money.