Be warned
Guy Giles trading as Canterbury Landscapes finished my landscaping project in the middle of March 2025, and I’ve had ongoing issues with the patio grout ever since. It has been admitted by Guy, that the grout (aspects easy joint) wasn’t compacted in at all as it should have been and was only brushed in, so the grout just kept disintegrating leaving sand particles everywhere.
The problem became apparent shortly after the project was finished with blue tile spacers (that should have been removed) being exposed as the grout disappeared. After 8 visits to do repair work, over 5 months, and much inconvenience to me, there were still issues. The last failed attempt in July, to repair one of the joints, left me with a grout line that looked twice as big as the others. Really disappointing given the cost of the project overall but also as I have beautiful porcelain slabs which were left covered in crumbling grout.
It was only after I left a review on facebook that I received an apology (and with that false claims the issues had been resolved promptly).
I have now used a different landscaper to redo the grout as my confidence in Guy Giles being able to fix it completely vanished after his 8 visits to attempt to do so. This corrective work together with fixing a gate installed by Guy which had dropped, has cost me an additional £1,740 in addition to the £27k I paid him to do the complete project at my 4 bed house.
Given the hassle that’s been created by a failure to do an important part of the project properly I would not recommend this business.
For completeness the following issues that also occurred during the project were addressed:
1. Moving the majority of the planting selected by Guy, from the back garden to the front, as my research revealed the plants were highly toxic to dogs;
2. Treating a wooden sleeper with woodworm treatment as there was an insect infestation when Guy installed it;
3. Blocking my drains with gravel by failing to put any membrane over them to protect them;
4. Covering the drain for the washing machine outlet pipe with a patio slab so the patio flooded when the washing machine was used;
5. Painting fences with a bad mix of paint so they needed repainting; and
6. A bolt latch on the gate was put on due to the fact the gate will not close without being locked with a key. The gate Guy installed dropped since installation affecting this so he made the bolt hole larger. I have just had the gate fixed.
