Creating a picture-perfect outdoor paradise requires both soft and hardscape features. The former involves the use of plants and bushes, while the latter incorporates elements like patios, walkways, and driveways. One company that specializes in landscaping and hardscaping is Paradise check this company Hardscapes, located in Broomfield. It has received a number of complaints for its dishonest practices and misleading advertising, and the Better Business Bureau has made a note on its website that it does not endorse or recommend this landscaper.
Tom’s story highlights the complex dynamics at work in imagining paradisiacal landscapes. He describes how his experience of the exotic landscape in Santa Cruz was informed by a fusion of socially constructed and mimetic narratives and imaginaries of paradise with existent and mundane ‘authentic’ daily realities in situ (Notar, 2006). In other words, feelings of paradise emerge at the intersection of authenticated familiarities and unfamiliarities and are fueled by expectations of paradise that resonate with the cultural and natural characteristics of the landscape in question.
In the case of Santa Cruz, these imaginaries are shaped by the town’s geographical remoteness and’remoteness’ as well as its natural environment, Maya Kaqchikel residents, and the’relationship’ they have with tourists. These ‘paradisiacal’ landscape constructions are simultaneously entangled with and detached from existing social, historical, economic, and political conditions in situ. In doing so, they shape a tangible landscape that is experienced ‘otherwise’ through narratives of paradise and that informs alienation from everyday life ‘back home’ as well as from ‘authentic’ daily experiences while traveling.
Several Denver area residents have complained of the unethical behavior and misleading advertising of Paradise Hardscapes, and some are considering filing a class action lawsuit against the company. Others have reported being pressured to sign contracts before the company can even give them a quote. In addition, the company has been accused of not cleaning up after working on a property and not paying attention to its workers’ safety. In one instance, a frail 77-year-old man with asthma said he couldn’t open his windows because of the dirt and debris piled up by the landscaping company at his house on Blake Street in west Denver.