Everything felt so hopeful in the Spring; https://pbase.com/britestar/image/174737990
But thanks to an incompetent landscape designer (who convinced my husband months ago to sign on the dotted line), the feeling is now one of disappointment and anger.

The trees we had "before" (and will be keeping) remain as lovely as ever. They're settling into late Fall. However, our going forward with physically adding anything new remains at a standstill. The landscape designer has had all kinds of excuses all Summer and Fall long. Now, the weather has become (fact) too iffy for Fall planting. This is very upsetting to me, and now extremely disappointing.

Meanwhile, the landscape designer STILL has not given us a working plan. Without a working plan, her company can't move forward in planting. As a result of the paid pro's dismissive attitude to us as clients, I've had to do my own landscape design work. Wish I had known months ago - before contracting the job out - that I'd end up having to do this. If I had originally just done my own thing at the start, maybe we'd have the yard landscaped now. However, I really didn't feel like putting in all the man hours it takes to create an attractive landscaping plan with plants that will actually grow here. That's why we hired a professional.

She may have a college degree in landscape design, but at this point, I'd call the woman we hired anything but professional. Even after I have now provided - in writing - a detailed working plan for her to work with (listing the plants to be put in and where), the landscape designer is still doing nothing. On top of my laying out things on paper, my husband & I have physically measured & laid out the spots for planned new trees ourselves, including putting in stakes to mark those trees. Yet, the clock kept ticking and October turned into November. Halfway through November, the landscape designer still has not created approved design plans for her company to do physical work for our job. When repeatedly asked once again to submit a working plan for me to approve, she was once again very slow & needed several requests, but she eventually replied that she'd done all the changes I had requested & had send us copies. We received nothing. When I got more forceful, she then finally sent me an exact same plan which I had rejected twice.

We're paying a small fortune to have this work done. Yet the "pro" continues to block any forward progress. This thing with the landscape designer has gotten so out of hand that my husband (who doesn't let much bother him) is now getting almost as upset as I've been for months. Her company has a sterling reputation. The problem lies with the landscape designer who must submit a working plan for the company to proceed.

Footnote, the house remains the ugly (to me) grey/brown that it was in the Spring. We don't plan to repaint until the landscaping work is done. That's another disappointment. The new paint has been bought and is waiting in our garage... Maybe things will work out in 2025. I sure hope so.