Gillis Landscape Garden Center

Two brothers, one yard, forty-nine years. Pete and Matt Gillis started the business in 1977 — both Stockbridge School of Agriculture graduates with environmental design degrees from UMass Amherst — and it still runs as two things at once: a garden center on River Road West in Berlin, and a design-build crew the owners say they work alongside from the first day of a job to the last. Google sits at 4.3 across 24 ratings. Most of the writing is about the retail side and it's consistent: a June 2026 customer buys mulch and compost mixes, calls a hanging basket the lowest price around, and mentions prompt delivery; a 2023 regular describes coming back again and again for seedlings, perennials and trees. The construction side has fewer voices, but they're the more useful ones. A 2022 customer had a patio and backyard landscaping installed and said it came out nicer than expected. Another, writing in June 2025, described a patio Gillis put in a couple of years earlier as fast work that has held up since. An October 2025 reviewer had front-yard work done and said they would hire them again. Two people had a bad time, and both are worth knowing. In August 2024 someone wrote that calls went unanswered and that after talking through a landscaping job, nobody showed up. In July 2025 a first-time shopper described a staff member as rude over unmarked soil and said they wouldn't return. Nothing like either appears in the five reviews written since May 2026, which are all positive — but the no-show is the one to guard against: get a start date and a callback commitment in writing before you count on the crew. BBB files the company under the name Gillis Landscaping & Lawncare and grades it A+, though it is not BBB Accredited; those are two separate things. Massachusetts doesn't require home improvement contractor registration for landscaping-only work, so the absence of one here is not a mark against them. The company states a one-year warranty on installations — worth having spelled out in the contract. A sensible fit if you want the same people who sold you the plants to design and build the patio, wall or drainage they go around, from a small owner-run outfit rather than a crew you never meet. Confirm scheduling in writing, and pin down what the warranty covers.