A few words from Rick

Welcome; and thank you for coming to our web site. I would like to express to you how very happy I am that you took the time to come and check us out.

  First of all a great big thank you must go to our web designer Peter Williams of Avilon Consulting www.avilonconsulting.com you have been very patient and have spent hours on the phone from Calgary to us here in Toronto, you have worked with both Ashleigh and myself, and I take my hat off to you. You have done a great job and I know we made the right choice, when we chose you, and I know as we continue to build our site and improve on it over the next few years you will continue to be our guy. Thank you so very much!

  Another big thank you has to go to our suppliers Unilock, Permacon and Perma Paving Stone. In many of the photos through out this site you will see the fine products of these manufactures, one thing is for sure, with excellent  products like these, you can rest assured that Quality is Job Number One.

  Let me start by saying it is my desire to be the best landscape company out there. In a world of false and misleading claims, with everybody claiming to be the best, (lets face it, who is going to tell you his work sucks and that he is going to rip you off) but that is what happens every day to some customers. Almost any body can make a job look good on the day of completion, but what about next year or 10 years from now? Hey in some cases it never looks good.

  I am always running into customers who are looking for the cheapest price. Believe me if you want the cheapest price, well Im sure you will find it, but isnt landscaping something you do to improve your life style and increase the value of your home, something that is done to add beauty to your home and express your unique individuality and personality? Landscaping is something that must be done right, the first time, if it is done wrong it will always look bad and will only get worse, even when repaired it will still fail unless it is completely ripped out and rebuilt from the base up. Sad but true.

  I would like to quote a few of my customers from a few years ago, first is Mr. Frank Potter of Markham. Mr. Potter had shopped around for a contractor to install his driveway, front and side walkway, I was called in and it turned out that we were the most expensive quote, but I explained what was I going to do, and that we were going to dig it out 14 deep for his driveway. That was in 1995, that driveway looks as good today as the day we installed it. Now for Mr. Potters thoughts; he told me that he was employed in the tourist industry selling cruise line accommodation for Cunard Ship Lines. When a potential customer would tell him that, they wanted the cheapest room on the ship, he would say so you are telling me you want the worst room we have to offer, is that correct? This would normally bring a different response from the customer, and they would normally book something a bit better. Mr. Potter told me

 You only get what you pay for,  and I only want to pay once He showed me some other work in his neighborhood that was sub standard and was only a couple of years old, he made it clear that he did not want that type of workmanship, We showed him that we were the guys to do it right. He gave us a compliment on the completed project, calling it Artistry in Stone. We did get a few more jobs in his area as a direct result of the work we did at his home.

  I still drop in on him and his wife Helen every now and then, and they always welcome me like a trusted friend, its a good feeling.

  There was another Asian customer that we did in around 1992, this fellow wanted it done right also, he also told us we were not the cheapest, but after checking out our other jobs, he was satisfied that we were the right people to do his work. He said Confucius say: Cheap job no good… good job no cheap. I really wish that I could convince more people that this is the truth, and if you are not going to get it done right, then dont get it done at all. A bad installation only gives my industry a bad name and makes other potential customers feel that interlocking stone will not pass the test of time.

   Now here is a horror story and it is true. I quoted an elderly woman, whose husband had recently passed away in 1994. She was unable to provide for herself in the same manner she had been use to since the passing of her husband. So she decided to offer day care at her home to a number of children. (Ill get back to this part later) Anyway I did quote her, but she chose another contractor, as he was $2500.00 less, (I dont like to loose jobs) so I tried to convince her that this driveway would need to be dug out 14 deep to maintain its strength and appearance, but I could not convince her, she said the other guy would do the same job, but could do it for less because he only did this on the side, and had a full time job as a garbage collector. Well four months later she called me over to take a look at her job because it was failing very badly, when I asked her why didnt she call her contractor back, she said she did, but he wouldnt come back, because it was a cash job and therefore he wouldnt fix it and she had no receipt anyway, he told her he did it too cheap to start with. How bad was this job? Well let me tell you, when this lady pulled her car into the driveway, she could let go of the steering wheel and the car would steer itself into to garage which was behind her house (no not just at the back but actually 15 -18 to the right of the driveway) She asked if we could repair it, this would not be possible as her contractor had only installed about 2of base material. (Not even enough for a walkway, let alone a driveway) (This guy had no idea what he was doing, either that or he just saw an opportunity to take advantage of an elderly person and make a quick buck.) I explained that we would need to remove every brick out of the driveway and dig it out, and put in a proper base and that it would be at the same cost as my original quote. She said but I already have all the brick, you wont need to buy them, but the problem is, we now have to carefully lift up 18,000 bricks and carry them out to the street, clean each one, and stack them neatly, in a manor that will not interfere with traffic and that the cost of the labour would just about be equal to the cost of the brick. The repair was going to cost about $10,000. (This job actually had 2-3 tire ruts in it) Now back to the horror story, as if this was not bad enough. As I said earlier this woman was now running a day care from her home…. One day as the children were coming out the door, one of the children tripped over the driveway, and fell on his face breaking a few teeth and a jaw. The parents sued…. the woman had for one reason or another let her home insurance lapse and to make a long story short, lost her home in the ensuing court case… all this could have been prevented, but how was she to know what would happen. An awful way to spend your golden years.

  Lets face it, I dont hear this type of story every day, but it does happen. As I said earlier I dont like to loose jobs, and I will do anything I have to do to get and keep a customer, But I will not cut corners or do bad work, try to remember that the short term joy you will receive from the money you save today will soon be lost to the long term pain of a job that is falling apart, causing a dangerous situation and detracting from your property value. Over the years we have lost a lot of jobs, because of price, only to come back to see the finished job is not near as large as we quoted, not the same material and falling apart.

  Its hard to compete against the guy who is working under the table, he doesnt pay taxes, Workmans Comp. (wsib) Employment Ins. (E.I.) Holiday pay or even carry business insurance. If anything go wrong on the job you have no way to recover from your loss and if a worker gets hurt while on your job, you the customer can be held responsible for all costs of the workers recovery.

  On a final note: I love what I do, I take great pride in every job we do, even small jobs are given the utmost in care and concern, we use only the best quality products, which are guaranteed by the manufactures for between 25 years and as long as you own your home. All our work comes with a written guarantee of between 2 and 5 years, and we have been known to do free repairs even 10 years later (you see if we take care of you, youll take care of us, taking care of our customers is one of our best forms of advertisement)

  We have become very aware of global warming and therefore we do all we can for our environment… we recycle everything we can, every piece of concrete and asphalt as well as brick cuts that we remove from your home is taken and recycled and we buy it back as base material after it is crushed not only is this good for our environment, but it makes a much stronger base material for your home. We take old trees plants and shrubs to be turned into mulch and compost, which we buy back for our jobs. All our on site garbage is recycled (coffee and drink cups and lids, lunch bags and wrappers, all shipping materials… shrink wrap, plastic strapping and metal banding) and starting in 2007 we will be planting trees at our customers homes, we have not worked out the details yet but you will get a small tree with a walkway and a larger one for a driveway and so on. Just a good way to replace some of the oxygen that is lost with our use of tools, equipment and trucks on your job. These trees will supply oxygen for years to come. We may instead of trees, give you a supply of energy efficient light bulbs for your home, helping you reduce green house emissions and reduce your hydro bill to boot. Some of you may be interested in global warming, and I hope you are, so I thought I would add a link to help show what you can do to help out with this very serious problem. www.climatecrisis.net You may care to check out a movie by former Vise President Al Gore of the United States, it is called An Inconvenient Truth. You should find it very informative.

  Well I guess Ill close here, for now that is. Im sure as time goes on Ill come back in to add a bit here and there, Enjoy the site….Thanks Rick