How to choose a landscaper
Written to be used on any contractor, including this one. If a company objects to being asked these, that is the answer.
Ask for the licence number and the certificate of insurance
Not "we are licensed and insured" on a website — the actual number and the actual certificate, in your hand, before work starts. Then check the number with the issuing body. It takes five minutes and it is the single most useful thing you can do.
Ask who will be on your property
Employed crews or subcontractors? The same crew each week or whoever is free? Neither answer is automatically wrong, but a company that will not answer plainly has told you something.
Ask what they looked at before quoting
If nobody mentioned drainage, grade or where the water goes, you are being quoted for a symptom. On this coast that is how the same job gets paid for twice.
Get it itemised
Plants, materials, soil prep, labour, machinery, haulage. A single number tells you nothing and cannot be phased, compared or trimmed.
Read the warranty properly
What is covered, for how long, from what date, what voids it, and what the remedy is. A warranty that does not separate plants from workmanship is not really answering the question.
Be careful after a storm
Large cash deposits at the door, pressure to sign today, no local address, a phone number that is only a mobile. After every major storm these arrive together, and they leave together.
Ask where they were last February
Storm work attracts companies that appear in September and are gone by spring. The question is not aggressive, and the answer tells you whether anyone will honour anything in two years.
Applying question one to this site: this is a demonstration site, so it publishes no licence numbers, insurance certificates or accreditations. A real company would answer with a number. Ask for it.
Tell us where the water goes.
A free walk-through, an honest recommendation and a firm itemised price — including "leave it alone" when that is the right answer.
Mon–Fri 7am–5pm · storm calls triaged same day