Ant Design Group Inc. DBA Joe Antine Landscaping Contractor

We worked with Joe last year to redo our front yard and walkway and unfortunately I can not recommend him as a landscaper.

The biggest problem is that Joe quoted our project at around $20,000 but we ended up being charged around $30,000. $2000 of this came from Joe discovering that he needed to re-lay a foundation for our front landing and we were fine with that. Another 700 was tax which is also fine. The other ~$7000 came from things that we weren't consulted on, which was not fine.

The worst of the bunch was our rock wall. In the quote we agreed to pay $2500 for a new rock wall. After Joe installed it he realized that he made a mistake and used a more expensive kind of rock. Instead of doing the honourable thing and offering to cover the difference, he insisted that we pay an extra $1500 for the wall that we didn't ask for.

We also gave Joe a budget of $2000 for new plants for the front planter beds and he bought $3000 worth of plants without consulting us.

He also charged us $825 for mulch and $1800 for regrading our front lawn, both of which weren't in the original quote, and the yews he got us cost $1300 more than originally quoted.

I believe in paying a fair price for work done and that work often costs more than expected, but so many of these are unforced errors... Forgetting to include mulch in the quote seems like it really shouldn't happen. We're also lucky that we had the means to cover this extra expense, but this could've easily forced a family to take on debt.

Also, the success rate of the plants that Joe planted/moved has been relatively poor. The red bud that he planted didn't make it through the winter, some of the new shrubs aren't doing great, one of the yew plants isn't doing well and is starting to die back, the big spruce that he transplanted died, and we lost 2 boxwoods. This doesn't seem right given that we've been taking care of the plants as instructed...

To Joe's credit he did replace the red bud, and even replaced the spruce even though his guarantee only technically includes new shrubs, not transplants. Also, his design sense for planter beds is quite good and the walkway he put in for us is really nice.

I contemplated making this a 2 star review in light of this, but were just too many other hiccups along the way. We asked Joe to choose only plants native to NJ for our front yard, and he even confirmed that the plants were native after we double checked with him. But last I checked a dwarf Japanese maple isn't native to NJ... Also, he would never give us a heads up when coming to replace the plants that had died, which made us feel uncomfortable.

Extremely rude lady who answers the phone. I would not do business with them, based on the 1st call I made inquiring about their services.

My wife and I are so pleased with the new backyard patio you creatively designed. The excellent work of your crew speaks for itself. I would highly recommend your landscaping services.