10 THINGS YOUR LANDSCAPER WON'T TELL YOU

This is taken from smart money. When you are hiring a landscaper to do things for you around your yard you have to ask yourself whom are you hiring? Does this person have a landscape contractors license? Do they actually know what they are doing? Well Smart Money has put things into perspective with these 10 things that your landscaper won't tell you.

1. “My sprays are real killers, all right.”
Sure, you want your lawn to be as green as Yankee Stadium’s outfield. But does your landscaper need to poison it in the process? Gloria Megee knows what harm grass-protecting pesticides can do. Several years ago, after a landscaper had sprayed pesticides on the yard of her Arlington, Va., housing development, Megee’s bichon frise, Monique, started to nibble the grass. Seconds later the dog was vomiting; she would experience seizures throughout the night. Monique eventually became riddled with skin cancer and tumors. The cause? Megee’s vet blamed it on the pesticides. “The poor dog’s paws were totally raw from walking on sprayed grass,” Megee says.

Indeed, research has linked pesticides to Parkinson’s disease, Hodgkin’s disease and liver cancer. One of the major culprits in insecticide poisoning, diazinon — once an active ingredient in Ortho and Spectracide, among many other pesticides — was so dangerous that the Environmental Protection Agency banned it from all household and gardening products in 2004. But a spiffy lawn and long-term health are not mutually exclusive.

Rather than chemicals, some landscapers now use bug-eating birds, kelp spray and insects that prey on vegetarian pests, the ones that harm trees and plants. Says Steven Restmeyer, a landscaper who has practiced such techniques: “When landscapers deal with pesticides, they deal with liability and health issues, and they are replacing the natural process of the soil microbes that feed the plants.”

2. “Don’t expect a refund if your garden croaks.”
A month ago your landscaper planted new shrubs in your front yard. They looked great — for a day. Now they’re dry as a wheat field. The landscaper blames you for failing to water them enough, and you blame the landscaper for buying bush-league bushes. Who’s right? It doesn’t matter — the plants are dead, and don’t expect your landscaper to cheerfully reimburse you.

Jeff Herman, the owner of a landscaping company in Fair Lawn, N.J., says landscapers get no money-back guarantee from the nurseries on the plants and shrubs they buy for homeowners. “They figure that the landscaper ought to know what he’s doing,” Herman says. Still, that doesn’t mean your landscaper can’t provide you with some protection. While you’ll have little chance to get a refund on such things as rose bushes (they’re prone to bugs) or ground cover (ivy, for instance, which will die quickly if not watered), you should demand some kind of payback from the landscaper if it’s obvious you properly cared for the plantings. “Show your landscaper the grass around the dead plant,” says Hugo Davis, former president of the Kentucky Nursery and Landscape Association, a trade organization for landscapers and nursery owners. “If it’s green and thriving, well, then you did all the watering you needed to do.”

3. “I’m not qualified to do the job, but that won’t stop me.”
Michael Torquato wanted to take advantage of the well behind his new home in Port Charlotte, Fla. So he hired a landscaper to build an irrigation system that would provide fresh, free water, but the plan quickly sprung a leak when the landscaper ended up connecting the irrigation system to a city water pipe — a maneuver that a city inspector later told Torquato was illegal. Torquato’s big mistake? Hiring a landscaper to do work he wasn’t licensed for. (In this case, he should have had a well driller’s license.)

Licensing regulations involving landscapers differ from state to state. Still, with jobs that result in water running underground — with the potential to flood your basement in a big and costly way — James Hsu, executive director of the New Jersey State Board of Architects, offers this rule of thumb: “Unlicensed landscapers should not do anything involving grading or drainage.” And don’t be swayed by reassuring words without the paper to back it up. “Some landscapers tell clients, ‘Don’t worry, I’m capable. I can take care of this,’” Hsu says, when “often, it’s impossible to tell what they’re capable of.”

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