Pat Gibbs Landscape Design & Construction, Inc.

Pat Gibbs builds the hard parts of a yard — retaining walls, patios and walkways, fire pits, outdoor kitchens — and does it as an Authorized Uni-Lock contractor laying the Techo Block and Uni-Lock pavers it is trained on. That is the through-line: a hardscape outfit that also cuts grass, rather than a mowing crew that occasionally lays a patio. The rest of the list runs long for a landscaper. Lawn maintenance and fertilizing, plantings and design, mulching, pruning, small tree removal, masonry and stone veneer, excavating, trenching and grading, tick and mosquito spray, fencing, dumpster rental, snow removal — and, unusually for the trade, bathroom remodeling. The company describes itself as veteran-owned and Black-owned, and says it belongs to the Massachusetts Nursery and Landscape Association and the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute. How long it has been at this depends who you ask. Its own site and its Houzz page both point to 2003; the Better Business Bureau records the business as started and incorporated in October 2015 — ten years — with one employee. The BBB carries no rating either, saying it lacks sufficient information to issue one, and the Houzz page shows a single project and states it has no reviews at all. Nobody who has hired them has written about it anywhere. So: a reasonable company to price a paver patio, a retaining wall or a seasonal maintenance contract in Canton and the towns around it — Brookline, Braintree, Foxborough, Dover, Abington. Ask which year the company was actually formed, how many people will actually be on site, and get the hardscape warranty terms in writing before you sign.