Kimo’s Landscaping

Kimo’s Landscaping did a great job on a redo of an old and difficult sloping driveway about 120′ long which also had several layers of asphalt and was broken up by huge roots of a 50 year old pine tree. My major concern was to preserve the tree and the roots during the demolition. A couple of other contractors had looked at the job and had turned it down because they thought it would be too difficult and others never got back to me or gave quotes that were not consistent with what I was asking for (e.g. trying to substitute for materials that I didn’t want). During the bidding, it really helped to have a detailed plan from a landscape architect to clarify what I wanted and why. Kimo’s quote was competitive and they were great about maintaining communication via phone or email throughout the bidding and the work, which I really appreciated. The demo of the old and construction of the new driveway was massive and involved several large tractors, a jack hammer, and many large trucks to take out the old asphalt with hand digging the asphalt carefully out and around the roots to protect the tree, plus layers and layers of different grades of gravel reapplied and compacted. The driveway was finished on time and very close to the original bid with alterations that were reasonable considering that a new main water line needed to be put in as well (we didn’t really know the location of the original line before beginning). The crew always showed up on time and were very professional, polite, cheerful, maintained a clean area, and really tried to do a good job even when it sometimes wasn’t obvious what was needed. When something broke, they fixed it or paid for the repair promptly. The end result is a really nice gravel driveway, with a small area of asphalt at top, a gentle swale for water run-​off, and several layers of graded gravel overlain with sand, each layer carefully compacted. Best of all, the tree roots only needed minimal cutting at the drip line, so I think the tree will be fine. We happened to have a very heavy rain a day after completion (happy coincidence), and I must say, the driveway held up really well. I am very pleased with the end result. The only recommendation I would make to others is to be sure to ask who will be the foreman for the job and to meet that person ahead of time so that everyone’s on the same page. My job had 2 supervisors and I was a little surprised to meet them on the first day because I had assumed that Kimo himself was going to do the job. It all worked out well though and I am very glad they agreed to take this on and did such a great job– thank you!

Kimo and team did a great job for us. We started out with a pre-​install builder yard with a concrete slab, lots of mulch and a few trees scattered around. After scheduling an appointment with Kimo’s, Krystle came out to meet us. Krystle is very unassuming, patient, and nice. She made us feel comfortable with the landscaping process and made sure to understand everything we wanted to do in our project.
After our initial meeting, a landscape design was created and explained to us in great detail. We liked the design very much and decided to go ahead with the plan after getting the pricing figured out. Of note in the plan was a pad for a jacuzzi we were intending to get. Krystle mentioned that they have done many of these before and would make sure that everything went flawlessly with install of the jacuzzi from the spa vendor.
The first portion of the project was the pavers. They were installed professionally and cleanly. On a couple occasions we noticed that a line of pavers wasn’t quite right or was off plan a bit. Upon bringing this to Kimo’s the team was accommodating and, agreed to make the changes after the pavers had already been laid at no extra cost to us. During the paver install, the pavers were kept as cleanly as possible on palettes on our driveway. At the end of every day the team would clean up the work area as much as possible.
During the paver install, we realized that we had some extra pavers available and Kimo’s offered to do our spa pad in pavers, rather than concrete at no extra charge. We really appreciated this as the finished product looks much nicer with the pavers.
After the paver install, the team had to remove a ton of our Carlsbad clay soil from the property and replace with more appropriate garden soil. It seemed like they took about 5 – 6 truckloads of the old stuff out of our yard. The trees and plants went in smoothly with drip irrigation and Kimo’s was, again, accommodating when we decided to drop by the nursery and get a couple extra plants that we wanted in specific spots. When the change was major they were forced to charge us but we didn’t feel like they were trying to nickel and dime on the small stuff.
The sod install went great and we are now very happy with our finished yard.
Kimo’s really paid attention to detail with landscaping lighting and the other little things. We were checking up on how to do certain landscaping things on the internet while they were being done outside. Kimo’s was always doing the things we were reading about like installing the sod immediately when it arrived.
All in all the project was a couple weeks behind schedule but, on the whole, we didn’t mind. Our yard looks great now, the spa went in perfectly and there weren’t any major unexpected costs.

KImo’s crew did an amazing job with our backyard– they turned it from a functional, dull, boring space to a gorgeous entertainment yard. We cannot believe the difference (nor can anyone who sees it!). They were thoroughly professional to work with, from start to finish, and even after, when a few minor repairs were needed. Together we ‘built’ the design, and they dealt with permits, etc. Their crews were great a pleasure to work with. The job completed on time and on bid, and the quality of workmanship is really good. They were recommended to us by satisfied friends (after we have interviewed 5+ other companies and been really unimpressed) and we are still glad we had them do this job. Thanks guys!

Our experience from the very beginning was horrific. Christopher arrived late if at all for scheduled appointments, and was very friendly and cordial but was put in charge of a job that was way over his head. They used drawings from a different company that had incorrectly measured… so the measurements were off… we asked repeatedly for a work schedule… which only arrived towards the end of a long, drawn out, painful project.
There was a crew on site for an entire week without a portable toilet… but they charged us for it.
They left trash everywhere… including on the city sidewalk and street… constantly…even after being promised by Krystle that it would NEVER happen again and it wasn’t how they ran their business… obviously it was how they «cared» about our job.
Our project cost us quite a bit and we had several days of nothing being done because of the crew being pulled to work on other jobs, so our job dragged on and on as well as we had several occasions when the crew had to spend the entire day fixing a problem that they had created.
We were informed by a foreman, who later quit and informed us that he couldn’t work for a company that treated both their customers and employees horribly, that Kimo consistently made customers believe that it was them that caused the problems… when in fact it was Kimos.
When Kimo finally came to our house to go over «our issues»…again at the END of the project, he responded to one of my statements with «we can’t wait to be done with this job»… Because obviously we were pains. Even Christopher, his employee commented later about how shocked he was by Kimos response to me.
They did zero research for our job… left it up to my husband… didn’t research our gas hook ups and put in our firepit that we haven’t been able to use while our back fireplace is on… shuts it off. Timers didn’t work for over 3 months, charged us for their design errors and consistently placed blame on other employees of their company.

Thanks to Kimo’s Landscaping, we received over a $ 1,500 rebate from the City of San Diego by replacing our lawn with drought resistant plants and a micro-​irrigation drip system. They not only did an excellent job with the new landscaping design and installation, but also worked with us to make sure the City’s water conservation rebate requirements were satisfied. Thank you Christopher of Kimo’s Landscaping!