Here is my full review of Jo's company (Echo Family). It has been around 5~6 weeks since Jo finished my backyard. Overall, I'm very satisfied with his company and the final look of my back yard.
1. Price & Quote
His offered price was reasonable and cheaper than some other companies for a same design concept & plants.
2. Design stage
He was willing to accept customer's preference/opinion without pushing his own preferences & specialties etc.... When I contacted several landscaping companies for quotes and design consulting, I felt that some companies pushed specific design concepts, materials and colors that they had mostly done in the past. Jo also gave me his recommendation and advice on my thought but he put customer's preference as his first priority.
3. Plant choices
This is my favorite part of Jo's company. My wife and I spent longer than 2 hours with Jo in a couple of nurseries and material vendors before I paid any deposit and sign any contract. And he let us choose plants, stones and gravels what we'd like. He was very knowledgeable on plants so he helped us to choose right plants. On the other hand, other companies I met, usually a general contractor just asked customer's preference and they choose plants within budget allowance.
4. Warranties & maintenance
He lives in Irvine and he's always local. When we had an issue, he easily stopped by and resolved issues because he always hang around Irvine communities for his job and his crews were always nearby neighborhood.
I had a couple of issues before & after back yard completion, everything was well sorted out without any issue.
Here are the issues I had and resolved so far.
* We have a wood-top sitting wall and there were minor nail-holes after completion. We asked Jo to fill those holes by using my own wood fillers but it actually made looking worse because of oil stains. I shouldn't have asked that but Jo completely re-done the entire wood top for my satisfaction. I haven't paid any extra for this additional work.
* We were kinds of unfortunate because of hot weather in this summer. When Jo completed all the plants & trees in my backyard, there were consecutive heatwaves over 100 degrees for a week. so many of plants were burnt/dried out before their roots were properly settled down into the soil. Jo replaced all the dried-out plants to new ones, now they're well settled down and growing well these days.
* Faulty sprinkler
We found that one of sprinkler's head stopped working recently and we showed him that. He replaced it to a new one right next day.
I actually contacted him after reading the old thread between Jo and studio/bones/dealcatcher. I had a little worry about his job quality and final result. Now I know he's a good guy and he does a good job. I'd probably ask him another yard job without any doubt if I need to move or want backyard renovation in the future.
If I have to say any downside of him, customers may have to be diligent and have enough time to choose/shop around their preferences. Otherwise, just let Jo bring/choose his recommendation. For example, you need some time to visit nurseries, stone yards and planter/pot shops to let him know you exactly want. In my case, I actually spent long time and these kinds of efforts turned into a good result & satisfaction. I guess some people may not want to do this hassle and prefer a contractor does everything without spending customer's time.