Deducting from Security Deposit: Yard Care Landlord vs Tenant

[Chelsea Slattery]

I am a tenant in CA. My lease states that I am responsible for the yard maintenance, but my landlord pays for a gardener. We are required to let them have weekly access to the property (which we do) The first three years we had a great gardener who took care of everything! Our yard looked great no issues. Last year they decided to cut cost and changed to another company who is rude doesnt communicate. rarely shows up when they should. They spend 10min doing some basic lawn cutting and moves on. For two months we complained. nothing was done about it. We even told them we would take over the yard maintenance but they said no. Now the yard is destroyed. Even though we water like crazy the grass if full of weeds and dead. The new gardeners continuously break the sprinklers and run over our expensive hoses which we pay for to fix. When we terminate our lease who is responsible for the destruction of the yard?  Can the landlord hold our security deposit even though they took responsibility for the care of the yard? I can possibly get a noterized statement from the prior gardener saying the first three years the yards were cared for and looked good. it was when the landlord switched gardeners is when the destruction happened.