De Leon Gardening Services

DeLeon rocks. I had one of those situations where the lot I inherited needed to have be groomed. The usual guy wasn't returning my calls and the county was breathing down my neck. I live 500 miles away. What to do?

DeLeon's To The Rescue!

I called and talked to them immediately. Sylvester drove by and gave me a reasonable estimate within two hours. He did the work without being prepaid and did it right away. Fabulous!

Oh yeah, the landscape guy I've used in the past called about a week later and told me he had driven by and the lot looked great. =oD
Thank you DeLeon's!

I would have given a 5 star a few weeks ago, but then they disappeared without any further communication. Silvestre and his team maintained our new landscape and yard weekly for a few months. His crew was friendly, worked quickly and efficiently and they always showed up each week and kept our weeds at bay without using chemicals. We LOVED the work they were doing. It probably felt like a small job for them, but he told me his fee and accepted the on-going maintenance project so why would you accept if you didn't want to do it? I'm only guessing here. We wanted to work with someone knowledgeable so in the future when we needed help with our sprinklers, pruning plants or anything else we'd have someone to call. We will not be hiring them for anything in the future.

A few weeks ago I received an invoice which was slightly higher than we agreed per month and when I reached out about it, I didn't hear back from Silvestre. I ended up paying it because I figured times are tough (and their prices were very reasonable). We never saw/heard from them again. I just assumed maybe they got covid and gave them the benefit of the doubt, but wish I had moved on to hire a new crew sooner because our yard is looking very untidy.

When I last called, the phone number was disconnected. His number is still published on his website and yelp, so it might be that he just blocked me. I typically block people who are spamming me, are rude or acting belligerent. and I was none of these things when I messaged him, in fact I was friendly.

I'm hoping that nothing bad happened to him or his crew, in the time of a pandemic I can't help but wonder and worry. If he just ghosted however, I wanted to leave this review just in case he is still in business to let others know that he exhibits unprofessional behavior and is unreliable.

Sylvestre started out as a great option for us. Then as time went on things continued to get worse! He did not have the skills and experience to do the work we needed him to do. I had to correct him and his crew on the process several times (Stairs, rocks, and gopher wire installation). I tried to be patient but he continued to disappoint. His lead man Antonio did great work when properly directed but Sylvestre was not around much and constantly having to run for parts or whatever. HE was next to no help in plant selection. Then he told me that the rocks we had in the plans were more than he thought, that the plumbing was harder than he thought and finally that the job did NOT include the plants. for each of these items he added several hundred dollars to the price. His $9,500 bid ended up costing me $10,700. Like an idiot I just paid him because I wanted the job done and to be over it. Now 4 months into the two week project the sprinklers and lawn are good but the steps are not finished, the plants (I had to pay extra for) are not planted, the drip sprinklers are not connected, one of the valves leaks and one of the sprinklers is a 270 degree vs 360 degree head. The ground cover that was supposed to be 4-6" is closer to two and doesn't even cover the 1/2" drip line.

I have called and emailed with no luck. From our experience he is not a responsible contractor and very unprofessional. I'm seriously thinking of taking him to court, but that would likely just add to the frustration.

Do not hire this landscaper! He may be okay ad mowing the lawn and blowing leaves around but he is unprofessional and did not do the work he was paid for! His crew were great guys!

I am very disappointed to say the least!

I hired Sylvestre to level out some decomposed granite I ordered for a horse paddock as I was getting a shed installed. I chose him other than the ranch hands because he was licensed and because he said he knew how to do it. When he came to give me the estimate, I explained that I was having 20 tons of granite delivered and asked if he had the machines to move the substrate. He said he did.
He showed up with one other guy up and wheelbarrows! He said he could not get the machine. I had to pay a ranch hand to use the ranch's bulldozer to bring the granite sand in as with wheelbarrows it would have taken 3 days. Furthermore, Sylvestre took a job of leveling the paddock, but did not even bring a level. Good thing I had one. Anyway, apparently, there are right and wrong ways of putting down and leveling decomposed granite and this job was not done professionally. I wish I would have known that the quality of work I would get would amount to that of hiring a couple of day laborers.
Sylvestre himself was very nice and he and his worker are hard workers, I'll give them that. However, he should have never excepted a job he did not fully know how to do and did not have proper equipment for.
I took a picture of just how "level" they got the paddock when the crew came to install the shed. It enraged me enough to leave this review. See for yourself. A picture is worth a thousand words.

A huge shout out to Silvestre and his crew who did a major cleanup of our front and back yards and did a fantastic job. They extracted dead shrubs, pruned back overgrown fauna, pulled unruly weeds and cleaned up the spaces beautifully. They were professional and efficient, and we very much appreciated his timely communication. Thank you Silvestre for taming our yard.

Great landscape/gardening crew on the coastside! We use Silvestre and his crew for weekly landscape maintenance; and have also had them do several special projects. They mulched our planting beds and did really nice work on a difficult job pruning a very high hedge of Pitisporum that borders our property. Silvestre maintains our drip irrigation system, and found and repaired a break in the main irrigation line caused by a careless fence builder. These guys are friendly, proud of their work and have reasonable pricing. I'm lucky to have found them!

Poor quality work- He basically overdid it in the front of our house and hacked everything into a sad little display. Once they got to the back they must have been tired because they did the opposite and left everything overgrown with clumps of gorilla hair thrown in between. I called him and he said he could come out in another week to shape the plants in the back and do the planting he promised but I told him to forget it and cancel the maintenance we agreed on. Don't waste your time on this guy.

Sylvestre and team are top notch. Have used him three times to remove and old lawn, put in a new lawn and landscape prior to putting our house on the market.

Sylvestre is a hard worker, been in the business for many years and shows up when he says he will. I have coached him on advanced plant Identification and maintenance technique and found him willing to work and willing to learn.

Sylvestre De Leon, of De Leon Gardening Services, was great to work with. We needed an estimate for sprinklers and he arrived on time and was thorough beginning to end. Thank you Sylvestre! I would recommend him highly.