Landscaping reviews in Middleton, Wisconsin

Was so excited to learn of this place on our move to Middleton. So disappointed in the *actual* experience. Astonishingly rude staff for working in the joyful world of gardening?! Observed what appeared to be the manager literally yelling at a vendor in the lobby. Overall very overpriced and unfriendly. Highly recommend K&A or orchids if you like your plants with a side of dignity and kindness.

Went into this place for the first time the other day looking for plants for my new apartment. I went in expecting to not enjoy myself based on the reviews of the others who have posted here. As soon as I pulled up and stepped out of my car, I came across an employee who did not greet me (expected that). Then, when I entered the doors, she was there again. This time, I took the initiative to acknowledge her with a "hello" and she replied back with the same. I made my way to the live plant section and was pleased to see such an array to choose from. So much nicer than what was available at Home Depot (thankfully). The store is really large with many different areas to shop (not just live plants). I have pets and limited light, so I needed some help with trying to find plants that would work that are non-toxic. I approached another worker there and asked for help. It took her a while to warm up to me initially, but I know that some folks just aren't super social. However, once we started to chat, she offered many helpful suggestions. This may just be that place where the customer needs to make the first move. I left without making a purchase as I needed to do some more research on her plant suggestions. I don't want to invest $$$ only to have them not work out (die). But, once I decide, I'll be back to Bruce to make those purchases.

Plants look nice at the garden center... We bought 9 perennial plants and only 6 came back the following year. Bruce of course doesn't warranty the $90+ of plants that died. Of note, we took care of the plants appropriately and they seemed to do fine. Other similar plants we bought elsewhere came back just fine this year. Tl;Dr: very overpriced and poor quality plants.

I’m always amazed when I go into The Bruce Company at the wide variety of items. Mostly because it’s bigger than it seems from the road, and also because they cater to all gardeners, big and small. We went looking for a Magnolia bush and they had multiple plants in several varieties. We found the perfect one and took it home. It’s a must-stop every spring!

The Bruce Company did our landscaping for our home we bought through Veridian. Overall, we’re pretty disappointed. They didn’t plant all the right plants at first, and we had to reach out several times to get the correct plants. But the real issue was they were difficult to work with throughout the process. They were often combative when we explained issues we were seeing. We wouldn’t hire them directly in the future.

I go to here often - they have fantastic selection and their houseplants are lush and super healthy, their plants always thrive the best of all the plants I buy. Staff isn't naturally of the approaching kind but honestly? I love taking a long stroll and checking everything out without being pestered. They are always friendly when I do approach with questions or asking for suggestions. Keep up the good work, guys!

Staff was very helpful finding the shrubs I wanted ( I wish I could remember the woman's name). The shrubs were in great shape, well cared for. Frank offered to load them for me and did you carefully. Very pleasant experience all around.

Be very careful if you have any rock gardens with weed barriers. Their staff have no problem punching holes in the barrier. No response at all from the company rep when I addressed it with them. I didn't even hire them, but they entered my property to place warning signs for a lake they chemically treated. The sign was placed in the rock garden about 6 inches away from my yard which would have been much more suitable.

Update after reply from Bruce Company:

After Bruce Company stated that they had attempted to contact me three times, and after I had used their "contact us" section on their website, it came to light that my Veridian contact gave Bruce Co the wrong email. I had received absolutely no correspondence from them (and no one had tried to give me a call to ensure that my emails were received). Thus, it is fair to say I was shocked upon seeing the plants after getting no communication on my part.

I am updating my review from 1 to 3 stars, because when the error between Veridian and Bruce was realized on their end, James, the Bruce rep, agreed to meet with me very quickly on-site. He caught me up to speed on the months' worth of information I had missed out on due to the miscommunication.

We agreed that many of the plants were dead, and he explained the warranty to me. I cannot give more than three stars for moving into a house with dead plants, but am planning to again update my reivew to 5 stars if Bruce Co upholds their agreement to replace all the dead plants this coming spring.

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Original review:

I have to agree with the other Veridian home owners here. I am closing on new build home on 9/30. My rep with Veridian told me weeks ago I’d be hearing from Bruce Co rep to pick my landscape selections, confirm my options, select the tree for the yard, etc. No one from Bruce contacted me and this conversation never happened. I emailed the generic contact info from their website over the weekend and have yet to get a response. Curious about what is going on, I decided to drive past my new house today...not only was a landscape design selected and planted without my input (which is frustrating itself, given that I was told I’d be part of the process), but over HALF of the plants are DEAD! I mean, they are brown, dry, dropping, falling over, leaves falling off, etc. They look like they are ten years old and haven’t been cared for in years, let alone planted within the past month. I don’t see how this is acceptable to present to someone as a brand new homeowner with brand new landscaping before they even close on their home. I’d really appreciate some communication and accountability.

I had very good luck with the oaks I bought there, but the Sugar Maple seemed to struggle the first summer and was last to leaf out the following spring When I expressed concern to the Bruce Co. desk and floated the idea of returning it, my concerns were dismissed with the suggestion that it was "transplantation shock." I was told to wait and see. After a few summers of anemic growth, the tree started to wilt and brown. I submitted a wood sample to the UW Plant Pathology lab and they returned a diagnoses of fatal, arboreal "verticillium wilt." I strongly suspect it was infected at purchase. Since years had passed and the warranty had now lapsed, I did not try to return it. I did however buy the tree's replacement elsewhere.

We had a great experience working with Bruce Company on an extensive landscape project which included a Waupun stone retaining wall, UniLock pavers for a large patio, raised garden bed, several large trees, shrubs, perrenials, sod and placement of large boulders. The team included Megan Knutson, Jon Olson and Kevin Smart. Onsite installation workers and team leaders, Rich, Misael, Pepe and Lloyd all did excellent work. In spite of many rain delays over a period of 3 months, the project was completed within budget. We were very involved day to day and all the Bruce Co. employees were very responsive and professional.
Ann Jauquet & Bruce Hendrickson

Bruce company can usually be counted on for rude/aloof service but we have gone back the past few years because they would plant our window boxes if we bought the overpriced plants there. This summer, there were at least 5 employees standing around and we were told “we don’t do that anymore due to staffing.” Literally 3 people stood around discussing how to tell us no. We had picked out all of our plants and ended up leaving them there. We were willing to pay their inflated prices when it came with service but not without. Urban gardens took great care of us and didn’t even dish up any attitude like they do at Bruce.

I tried to get a bid from Bruce for a landscaping project for my home. They were one of three companies I contacted. Unlike the other bidders they spent about five minutes at my house and when I tried to follow up on the status of the bid, they never returned phone calls or emails. The estimated cost of the project was $10,000 to $15,000. When I called to complain about the lack of customer service and responsiveness to my calls, they said a manager would call me back. Never happened. I am going with a different bidder. Don't even bother. They don't need the business.

I passed this place for years because I don’t have gardening and landscaping needs but I saw an ad for their holiday gift selections. Looked like I might be able to find holiday hostess and coworker gifts, and it was. I also discovered that it’s probably a great place to find unique little gifts for people all year long. I’ll definitely shop there again when I need a unique gift that’s nice quality but won’t cost a fortune. (they also have some stuff that does cost more if you’re looking for something special!)

What should have been a positive customer experience (the sales and delivery experience was good) turned out to be poor. Shortly after delivery we discovered several fasteners missing from the back of the expensive patio furniture we paid to have assembled and delivered. We contacted them early July and now nearly 2 months have passed and the fasteners have not been installed. We still can't use the chair since it is unsafe because of the missing fasteners and summer is quickly coming to an end. Bruce Company, I ask again to please resolve this issue.

Stopped in during a late lunch hour around 1:15 pm on a Tuesday looking for a wedding gift and some specific plants. It was me and one other car in the parking lot, and I only encountered 2 other customers. Although there were staff throughout the store and in the garden center (I counted 10), only one person stopped and asked if I needed assistance-and he was very helpful. The rest of the staff seemed more interested in chatting with each other or carrying on with their tasks than checking to see if a customer needed help finding anything. Disappointing.

I strongly recommend going with a different landscaping company. The work on our new lawn was completed almost a year later than it was supposed to be completed, and was done so poorly that we've received several comments from our neighbors who had a different landscaping company how bad our yard looks compared to theirs. Erosion mats were never used on steeper slopes in our yard resulting in large areas of washout and bare areas with little to no grass growing. The areas that they did repair per our contract they used soil filled with large rocks that we needed to go pick out ourselves. Multiple complaints resulted in little being done to get the issues in our yard corrected. We are now spending hundred of additional dollars and hours trying to fix the poor job The Bruce Company did installing our yard.

Update: A bit more than 5 years after they installed our retaining walls one of them is failing due the poor work that they did. They refuse to accept any responsibility for the poor quality of their work, but did let us know they would be happy to take our money to fix their mistakes.

I reached out to Bruce Co early this spring to schedule a water feature project. I had extreme issues getting responses from them over a 3 month time period. They seemed to lose track of my request, never returned phone calls, but continued to reassure me that they wanted my business when I called repeatedly. They made site visits twice but never followed up with me. After a month of not hearing back, I called again and was reassured that they had me on the schedule for the week of 6/7 but they had been too busy to send mock-up options for my design - they said mock-ups would be sent that day, which never happened. We are now a month past my "scheduled construction" date and I never heard a single thing. Nice enough people, but totally incompetent customer service. I don't understand why they would send someone to do measurements and then never follow through. It seems like they had intentions to follow through but they were simply too disorganized to run the business. I do not recommend working with Shane who runs their Aquatics program because it seems to be managed very poorly. I wouldn't trust them with my business at this point due to how hard it's been to work with them.

The good: they grow their plants and trees from seeds and are a local business.

The bad: the salespeople (James in my case) made promises that simply weren't backed up. When I held them to account for promise they made, I received blame for their plants and trees not surviving (they blamed me, the wind, and the local animal population - true story).

I get that they need to make money and have no problem supporting good businesses who back up their products. Unfortunately, The Bruce Company is not that vendor.

My recommendation: for the money you'll spend, find a business other than The Bruce Company for your trees, grass, and landscaping. They do not back up their products and services like they should for the prices they charge. I replaced my dead Bruce Company tree with a beautiful maple tree from Jung Garden Center.

I go to the Bruce Company a lot as I have a houseplant problem. They always have a great selection of house plants of all sizes, and I think their selection of pots is the best in town. There are lots of funky colors and interesting designs!

The reason I’m giving 5 stars is due to a really wonderful interaction I had with the owner, Judith. Their credit card machine was down and I don’t carry cash. Unfortunately that meant I wasn’t going to be able to leave with my new dragon tree and pot to go with it. Unexpectedly and completely unnecessarily, Judith came over and asked to comp the plant and pot for me.

It wasn’t too expensive, but I wouldn’t have minded putting it on hold and coming back the next day, which I told her. But she insisted. It was a really sweet act of kindness that cemented my view of the business, and it’s that type of person I want to do business with.

I’ll be returning for years to come to fuel my plant addiction! They know how to treat their customers well.

We had a home built by Veridian and they use Bruce for lawncare. They offer one free washout. Installed the lawn before a strong storm that washed out most of the yard. It all settled in the drainage spots. Very little seed ever took hold. When we redeem the wash out the didn't overseed anything. They fixed 4 small spots and left us with a crabgrass field. Wouldn't recommend.