How should I rate this company?

[Amethyst]

No doubt, a tightly defined contract would be feasible for the typical homeowner who severely borders his little square of property with white pines or Leyland cypress, plants a row of generic shrubs along the front facade and calls it done. (He/she probably calls the act of planting trees and shrubs, "installation.") However, scope and complexity of the job play a part.

We have a 3-acre property, with unequal borders, and more than 100 trees and shrubs that we planted some 25 years ago and have allowed to go their way since then. I know, it may be mind-blowing for some on the forum to even imagine such an unbounded lifestyle

At any rate, achieving a perfectly defined contract would have required the estimator to tell me exactly how many trees and shrubs, of the 100+ on our particular property, a team could trim in a day; to define "trim," for each tree, when every tree is different; for me to know, in advance, exactly what I wanted done to every one of those trees and shrubs, just by looking at them; and would probably take 3 weeks to write if I could even find a company to accept such a thing.

Bottom line, I was fine running around with them all day to steer them toward the highest-priority trees and shrubs, and occasionally having a discussion about which tree most needed trimming. Right up until the damage and the full chipper truck, all went well and they accomplished more than I expected. If I'd gotten my full 8 hours, and they hadn't wasted time fixing their own damage, all would have been awesome.

I agree with H2ODude's attitude, in that I would have set up a contract to do specifically defined work rather than a set time period to do ill-defined work. A much better option (presuming you can get agreement with the contractor -- not always possible).

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