We hired Bob Spencer of Minerva Designs to do a landscape/planting plan for our front yard with the understanding that we would expand to a full design once construction was completed on our back deck. We met with Bob on multiple occasions discussed what we were looking for and what was important to us: 4-season greenery, maintaining as much lawn as possible and some privacy from the road. The design that he gave did not meet the first 2 criteria so I took pictures of several other landscaped yards and showed him what we were looking for to ensure that there was no ambiguity. After finally convincing Bob to redo the drawing to meet the original requested needs, he never got back to us. Finally, he sent us the design back, unedited, and sent us an email stating that he felt that he had met the needs outlined and answered a couple of questions. He offered to provide consulting services at an hourly rate if we wanted him to do anything additional to the design. At our first meeting, I specifically asked about the back and forth process to ensure that the design met our needs. He assured me that it would be an iterative process. Needless to say that was not the case. We ended up with a drawing that it unusable, have wasted multiple months in trying to get him to provide a new drawing and wasted a few hundred dollars. I strongly recommend that you cross Minerva Design off your landscape design list.
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