JR's Creative Landscaping

It's been almost 2 months since our front yard was transformed by Jim and his crew and it has already brought so much joy to our lives.

We moved to the suburbs about 3 years ago and I am pretty useless when it comes to anything close to landscaping having spent all my life in big city high rises. We live on the Dupage river now so if there was anything we would have wanted to spend money on, it would have been the back yard but my frequent annoyance with our driveway and my incorrect assumption:) that it would be a smaller project lead us to Jim Rose. We went with Jim even after paying another company $2500 in design fees as in the end it boils down to your comfort level and Jim's confidence, flexibility, creativity and easy going personality won us over.

It started with the design and budget. We tried to negotiate into our ball park and in the end we ended up spending 6% over our budget mostly because we changed our mind on something or did not account for certain items such as light fixtures and sprinklers. The job included a complete transformation of our front yard, removal of concrete (an externalu gut job)new pavers, expansion of driveway, a new custom mailbox, lighting upgrade, sod, a front paver patio, new plants/trees, sprinklers .... The Works.

All this cost us a fortune and Jim was honest and upfront that his services are not cheap. Our main surprise was that the personable small business approach underscores how big an operation he is running. JR has most of the workers on payroll so there is very little subcontracting hence getting people to come over to address any of our concerns was painless. Jim was extremely responsive and we interacted via text and phone calls.

Our front yard is now the centerpiece of our neighborhood and almost all the neighbors have stopped by completing us on a beautiful job. If you are like us with very few creative ideas-about what you want and looking to put your faith in a reputable company that takes pride in their work then Jim Rose is your guy.

I have posted some before and after pics that certainly don't do full justice to this art work given my bad picture taking abilities on my phone. Also, apologies for the long review but i hope that it can help someone who is about to spend 10's of thousands of dollars and picking the right company is the most important decision in this process..