Smooth talking Salesman - ZERO INTEGRITY

I received a flyer in the mail from a Garden Maintenance Company called Southern Gardens run by a man called Riaan Southgate.

He quoted me R75,000.00 to re-landscape my small front and back garden. I told him I had a budget for R50,000, but was persuaded to pay the extra R25,000.00 as he claimed he would then be able to do a perfect job and have enough in the budget to purchase adequate perennials and annual plants as the garden had very few good plants in it when I bought the property and moved in in March 2020.

He had 5 main projects:

1. Plant posts and build a wooden frame 5 x 2.5 m for a vertical garden in the front and back of the property, hang vertical garden bags onto these with sunlight-appropriate plants.

2. Build a water feature in the back garden and a pergola laid with garden cemented paving stones for a floor and paint the pergola.

3. Build a hot tub (his suggestion) with a wood fired stove (also his idea) to heat the water in a small area (1.3 x 1.3 x 1. 3) and tile it with pool mosaics, finishing the plumbing for a water inlet and drainage system.

4. Sink a well point and connect up the motor and piping.

5. Put down decking over a small area in front of my house between the vertical garden and the carport. He suggested Pine-wood and as my budget was tight, I agreed.

From the beginning he emphasized how much integrity he had (also see Riaan Southgate - Southern Gardens Cape Town on FaceBook), and promised that he’s be done in one month.

I run a small wellness practice from home and so closed shop (after an uneasy few months of COVID19 lockdown), for 1 more month in August, so he could do all the work unhindered.

He took up November (4 months) and had to abandon the wood-fired stove as it was leaking and choking up the carport with smoke (was totally unworkable). He had to re-do the decking as he didn’t have a clue how to do decking and was using crate planks which weren’t even sanded or smoothed and sealed; he had to re-do the pond of the water-feature which he formed out of raw cement with stones in two plastic basins - and the finished job was asymmetrical, chipped and almost impossible to move; he had to re-do the mosaics in the hot-tub as he got in a tiler who didn’t have a clue about tiling (in all of this, he would drop off one or two helpers who would sit on their cell phones most of the day when not watched to sit and chop tile cement off the mosaics to re-use them). He never supervised the jobs and only when I expressed my total disbelief at the terrible quality of work all over the front and back garden, did he come in and personally work alongside his men, still messing up as far as they went.

He assured me the pool would work. It didn’t.

I finally had to bring in a professional plumber to finish the job and lead warm water from my solar geyser across my roof to the hot tub in the front (something I never intended to do as I didn’t want to use municipal water due to the drought).

He also assured me the bags (he used shoe storage bags) would work for the vertical garden, telling me the material they were made of was exactly what they used all the time in the gardening industry.

Needless to say, the sun literally “ate” through the bags in less than 2 months (pictures available on request).

I repeatedly pleaded with him to come back and replace these bags, to no avail! I lost about R25,000 worth of plants hat died in the process.

I lost work time as my property was a total mess for 4 months instead of one; I also had to personally get new workers in to help me re-install proper vertical garden bags, which I had to re-purchase and remove the cheap ******* he installed which he paid R30 for per bag (each drop of proper vertical garden bags costs R250 for two).

Between the professional plumber, the gardeners and the extra costs to sort out his mess, I have had to lay out another R50,000.

During his work-time here, his workmen left my garage door open to the road (they were under strict instructions to never leave the garage door open) and an expensive mountain bike got ****** (possible “inside job”).

As a whole, I remained sweet, kind and patient, until our last attempts in December failed to get him to respond to calls for help to salvage the remainder of the vertical garden that kept collapsing. He blocked out numbers and never responded.

I issue this as a warning for anyone in the Southern Suburbs who might be tempted to use Southern Gardens for garden maintenance or landscaping or who falls for this confidence *********’s smooth presentation and easy smiling reassurances that he has a great track-record. He doesn’t, isn’t competent and literally wasted R75,000+ for jobs which had to be completely re-done.

This is so sad as he claimed integrity and good work practice. Caveat emptor!