Eli H.
Yelp
I just bought a house, and am currently in the process of dealing with the ridiculously overgrown ... everything. The bushes in front were in danger of swallowing me whole when I walked by they were so out of control, which lead to chopping them down, getting the stumps ground out, and buying some new plants to put in there.
Being totally overwhelmed with the choices at places like Home Depot in their garden centers, I figured I needed someone who knew what they were talking about to tell me what plants would look good in front of my house. This lead me to The Growing Place's $50 in-store "landscape coaching" hoping they'd help demystify the process.
The coaching was... alright. On the phone they stressed all this stuff we needed to bring including all these photos which must be printed out and must be in color. Additionally, you need all your measurements. So, I took a ton of photos, went to Walgreens and dropped $10 getting them all printed out, and when we got there the designer wasn't even interested in them and worked entirely off the measurements we had, basically wasting an hour of my time and some cash putting it all together.
Then, from there, the area in front of my house was apparently too big to do in one session... Which was a little confusing because I've got a small house and basically just needed a recommendation for like six bushes, and both sides could even be the same. The web site is super unclear in regards to how big or small of an area they'll do, and the people on the phone seemed fine with what I mentioned needing done, so... Weird.
In the end, she ended up doing both sides of my doorway, but I feel like they really need to iron out what exactly is included in this coaching session so everyone's expectations are in check. If they just would've stated somewhere that you get one 5x10 area sketched out, I would've been like "Oh, alright, cool." Instead, the only real qualifier is that you get an hour of their time. I would've been pretty annoyed to take the trip out there to only get half what I wanted done.
So overall, the experience wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I ended up buying a bunch of stuff, as you get a $30 off $150 coupon, so the coaching effectively cost $20. The garden center itself is really nice, and their plants have good guarantees. Of course it's in Naperville, so it feels like you're paying Naperville prices and a good chunk of your cash goes to how well curated the place is.
The people who work there randomly wandering around are super helpful, which makes me wonder if I couldn't have basically gotten the same thing the coaching service offered just by showing people my phone and getting plant recommendations without all the fuss of printing photos, making appointments, and being roped in to spending $150 for the coupon.