Independence Gardens

We hired Independence Gardens to help us plan how to build a deck and then to return and put the covered pergola on top. They were a tremendous help, great at giving "pro tips", and helping us in ways that all the deck books we were reading could not. Tygh has a great eye for detail and thinking through options for different ways to do the job. For folks who *want* to be at least part DIY to save money, and then call in the pros for the part that is better left to the experts - I strongly recommend them! This is four instead of five stars because I think they were at the peak of their busy season and a few details shifted from lack of capacity - nothing major, but enough to not get the full rating.
May 2nd, 2016

My sister had a fence put up by Independence Gardens and it is a mess. The fence slopes and the cross pieces are all which-way. I thought she was just being fussy until I went into her backyard and looked for myself. It looks like two teenagers with no experience put up the back part of it. A huge, expensive disappointment.
Jul 8th, 2015

This is a tough review to write. I see even 6 years ago a Google reviewer wrote "I hesitated to leave this negative review because they are nice people and I wanted to support a local, female-owned business that supports edible landscaping." That's just how we feel. But all the positive reviews online helped us decide to work with them. If there are other people out there who had the kind of experience we had, we wish they'd have posted their reviews so we could have avoided the mess of the last year. So we feel kind of obligated to write this. Things started well. They came out and looked over the property, which includes an eroding steep slope. The slope, which supports a few mature trees, was our primary concern. It needed to have the invasive plants cleared out and have something done for erosion control. We thought a small retaining wall with some native plants to soak up rain water and provide root structure, plus possibly a french drain, would do the trick. After working with Karen on our contract Tygh was brought in to look at any necessary permits for the retaining wall. Six months later, with very little communication from him in the interim, we received an email from him saying the wall that was estimated at $10k in our contract could cost us up to $50K and that he now expected $1,200 for his time in finding this out. This fee had never been discussed with us, nor was it reflected in our SIGNED CONTRACT. We wrote back that we would proceed with the work that was in the contract, minus the insanely expensive wall, and that we did not feel we should be expected to pay this unexpected fee. From that point on IG attempted to make changes to the contract at every step of the way. I can't know the motivations of others, but it certainly felt as if they were trying to recoup the $1,200 through price changes or changes to the number/size/quality of the plants they put in. In any case, we wound up having to refer them to our contract repeatedly to prevent them from making unapproved changes. The worst part is that after having to fight to retain the pricing and services listed in the contract over such a long process, the end result is SO BAD. There has been erosion that has occurred since we've been waiting for them to do the planting, because after the major clean-up we had to wait months before it could be planted. They blasted the bare slope with compost and then planted a little at both ends and put most of the plants on the flat bit at the top of the slope, with NO plants at all on the huge stretch of the slope that is eroding. None. The original planting plan specified that the plants would be evenly distributed over the slope, but the night before scheduled planting they sent a revised plan that added a qualifier to that sentence. I guess they'd already planned to leave the slope bare. Because it is. The vast majority of the slope is now completely bare with just a thin layer of compost over it. Compost which has already begun to drain off after the rains. So after thousands of dollars spent and months and months of explaining to our neighbors that the huge ugly slope would soon be looking landscaped, we have a big ugly bare slope that is still eroding. Should you decide to hire IG after reading this far, please make sure that you are very careful with your contract. Ensure that it really includes everything necessary and at prices that they are willing to stand by. Otherwise you may find them bringing in caveats and qualifiers at every opportunity.
Jul 9th, 2017