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My cactus

June 12th, 2006 by Kenric

I wrote before here about how new construction neighborhoods get inundated by all types of businesses trying to sell you their product. I’ve had landscapers, people with rocks, pest control, window blinds, water softner and interior design people come knock on my door.

It turns out that I hired a landscaper that came to my door and it has been 3 weeks but he has finally completed my front yard. I don’t know much this guy makes but from what I can see, he has an old pick-up truck and a bunch of laborers and does an all cash business.

About 4 weeks ago, he came and rang my doorbell at 7:30am! I woke up answered the door and he said I can do your landscaping for you. Come in my truck and I can show you the other houses down the block that I am currently doing. BTW, he didn’t say it exactly like that, let’s just say he couldn’t speak English very weel. Now, being 7:30am, I’m in shorts, no shoes, no contacts and some strange guy wants me to go in his truck with him. Yeah right. I point to my neighbor’s yard and say how much to make it look like that. He says $3,000. I said I’ll think about it and please come back later with no intention of ever hiring him.

A few days later he drives by my house when I’m in the garage and goes through the same spiel. This time I was awake and dressed and had a couple other bids from other landscapers so I went with him. After seeing his completed work and some of his work in progress I thought he did a decent job. He wasn’t going to win any awards with his work, but it was decent.

So we come back to my house and I point to my neighbor’s yard across the street and say just make it look like that one. He says “let me design for you in my mind” and proceeds to spray the dirt with his design. When he’s done I say how much for that, he says $3,500. Hmmm that’s $500 more than a few days ago. I really want a cactus like my neighbor so I ask him what if I replace a tree with a cactus. He says then it costs more.

Luckily I’ve done my homework at this point. I went to the nursery and priced out all the plants, hoses, timers, lights, etc… so I know what it would cost me if I were to go buy this stuff and do it myself. Just an FYI, a large 3′ tall cactus is around $300! At retail price for me I would pay about $1,500 for my 3 trees, 1 cactus, 4 lights, timer, water timer, stone, 5 rocks, dirt and hoses. So I have to decide if $2,000 is worth it for me to spend days and nights to install it. Keep in mind it is 110 degrees during the day and 90 degrees at night here. Digging, trenching and moving rocks is not easy work… so in my brain I’m thinking there’s no way I’m going to do this myself.

So I’m just standing there not saying anything and he says, “if you say OK right now I’ll add the cactus for free.” Now this is the start and turning point of the negotiation because I didn’t bring up anything about the price being too high, but his willingness to toss in a cactus tells me that he’s willing to negotiate and eager to get my business right then. “You’re making it hard to me to say no, but I just can’t decide right now.” After some side conversations about how big the cactus will be (cause you never know, he could show up with a 3″ cactus in a cup) I say, “How about $2,500.”, he says “$3,000.” and I respond with, “$2,700 and you start today.” He says “OK, but you can’t tell your neighbors what price I’m giving you.”

No contract, nothing in writing, it’s all verbal. I know it’s kinda scary but at least I know where his other job sites are and I recognize his truck. So I write him a check for $700 (hoping I’ll see him again) and bust out my digital camera pretending to take pics of his design sprayed in the ground. But I’m really taking pics of him and his truck’s license plate and he knows it.

True to his word, 2 hours later he’s back with a small crew starting on the job. As with all contractors they start real fast and then just slowly finish. I had all my plants except the cactus installed within 3 days. The water drip system and lights were all in within 5 days. Then it just sat there. Without the water timer I had to manually turn on the water and turn it off… once I left it on for 6 hours cause I forgot about it.

I now understand how he works, which is pretty brilliant. See, he installed my plants and lights real quick for all my neighbors to see. Using my house as another show piece he was able to get 3 of my neighbors to hire him within the week. In fact he ended up doing 6 houses on the block after mine! Because he got so many houses and he starts quick my house was being neglected at the end. I literally drive down the street and see him at the other houses.

All the other plants have been in for 2 weeks, but still no cactus. I’m getting worried that he forgot about the tossing it in free conversation we had. So I leave him a message about the cactus and also say “dude when are you going to finish my house? I’m sick of turning the water on and off everyday”

So for two days he keeps saying that the cactus is coming and it never shows up. Finally I figure I have to use the language of money to talk to him. I say “I’m going on vacation to California for a long time and you have to come turn the water on and off everyday or these plants will die and you’ll have to replace them. Also, I’ll pay you when I get back from California”. Now he finally gets it and says when are you leaving for vacation? I tell him tomorrow at 10am. He say’s it will be done by then. The next morning he’s there at 7:30am and is done by 8:00am. He had 30 minutes of work left to do and it took him 2 weeks! Oh and my cactus showed up too.

Now that it is all done I can say that I’m pretty happy with his work. This is the 5th landscaper that I’ve hired and I may actually use him again. The reason is that he was not cheap with his materials. Because we had no contract signed I was worried about getting small plants and cheap plants but he brought very large plants and stones.

For those who have done landscaping the difference between a 24″ box tree and a 15 gallon tree is huge in size and price! He gave me all 24″ trees. Ever wonder why when you see ads for trees they use terms like, “Medium, Large, Huge, Super Huge, Gigantic, Titanic” instead of 1,5,15 gallon, 24″,36″,48″. I think it’s because then you can’t compare the prices with other nurseries. At one nursery their Super huge tree could be a 15 gallon tree and at another one it could be a 24″ one. So by advertising that way it makes you either call them or come in to see what the actual sizes are.

On a side note: My last landscaper specified all his plants, I had a bunch of 5 gallon shrubs. When they died and were under warranty they came back and replaced them all with 1 gallon shrubs. I didn’t notice it at the time, but they’ve grown now so it’s no big deal. But it’s something to watch for. If you pay $200 for a 24″ tree and it dies, make sure they give you another 24″ tree cause a 15 gallon tree may only cost $75.

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