Pasadena Gardening & Tree Service

This is the email I have sent to the company. They have lowered the price by $50 on both the wisteria job (to $200) and the orange tree and small lemon tree pruning ($200) because of the poor citrus trimming and lack of pruning of potato tree. Today the wisteria got hung but it looks awful and is not what I was told would happen. Below is the email I have sent the company. I’m extremely disappointed in the work done today. First of all, on Friday i made an appointment for the front yard to be done on Monday. I was told if I could to sign and print the contract. I asked if I can give it to them and the woman on the phone said ok. Monday comes around and no one is here at 8am as we arranged. 9:15 am I called and was told it’s on the schedule. I had to leave at 11am. Tonight when I came back, the front wasn’t done, but the wisteria hanging was done. And I’m VERY disappointed in that. That in no way took 1/2 day as I had discussed verbally with the two men who came to look at the job. I wanted to be here for that and did not expect that to be done today. The wisteria is clumped up and just hung up. It’s dark and I can’t see, but it looks terrible. Nothing was threaded through, it’s one big clump. I’m having a party this Friday and I expected my front and back to be DONE. I will not pay a single dime more until this gets rectified and I have ZERO confidence you guys can do the front yard well. The two who came seemed competent but not your employees. This has been 2 weeks and I’ve been waiting for the wisteria to get done. I only have Wed morning to be available for them to do it right. Otherwise, I’m going to pay someone else to fix the whole thing before my garden party. As for my front yard, I need an explanation as to WHY that’s not been done. I also no longer want your people to put fertilzier in my plants and I’ve been waiting for my other two trees to get trimmed in the back - I’d asked them to trim and shape the tops but instead they cut a few strands at the bottom, which I could have done myself! And finally, I wanted to show the foreman the poor cuts in the orange tree and how there were still plenty of dead branches. I’ve been waiting for a week for that.

John was right on time, recognized the issue right away. Gave great professional input, came up with a plan that will soon be executed. I found his pricing extremely fair considering the work that needs to be done. I highly recommend John and his company, not only for tree service, but for all your landscaping needs. Thanks John

I had a terrible experience with this company.  I initially called them because I wanted to have some stumps removed in the front yard, and some plants removed and new ones put in.  John Lampasona, the owner, came out and was very pushy and not interested in my ideas for how the yard should look.  He did all the talking about what should be done, and I mistakenly deferred to him because I thought he knew more than I did.    Big mistake!  I ended up hiring the company to do the work.  At first, after they finished I thought it looked ok, but then I realized they had failed to remove half the stumps (which started re-growing and sending shooting vines up the side of the house again), and the sprinkler system John had pushed me to let him install ceased working.  I called numerous times to complain (about 5 times over the course of a month or so), but John never returned my calls.  I hate to say this, but I really felt there was something sexist in the way he acted towards me (I am a woman), disregarding my ideas and pushing his own agenda, then failing to do a good job or own up to the shoddy work.  The only silver lining was that I finally got so irate that the person who answered the phone and took my calls finally agreed (after John's repeated failure to call me back) to reduce the price of the work by half because they had failed to remove all the stumps.  John never did call me to discuss it.  I definitely urge people to stay away from this company.

The owner, John Lampasona, came on strong.  He came to both properties, did a walk-through, and told me about what he would do to bring the yards up to standard and then maintain them.  The initial costs of trimming the trees, putting in new lawn where the old lawn had browned, etc., was several thousand dollars across two properties.  It seemed far more expensive than what we had agreed upon, but the work looked good and I was happy to have it done.  I only really questioned the cost when the maintenance portion of the contract kicked in.  I regularly received the wrong bills and had to straighten out the costs each month.  The gardeners showed up with the wrong plants.  Things we had initially agreed upon (putting in new plants, etc.) were never done.  I had to call the office several times to complain because the gardeners blew grass cuttings and dirt into the pool each week; even though we agreed on a schedule that would at least set gardening before pool cleaning, the gardeners did not show up predictably and came the day after, or two days after the pool was cleaned each week.  The gardeners cut the drip lines to a pot and only replaced it when I noticed the plant was dying and called John.  The gardeners broke two sprinkler heads and only fixed them when we caught the problem and called it in.   The new grass I paid so much to have put in quickly began to die.  When I called to talk to John about these problems, he had trouble listening, spoke over me, and constantly asked to simply be trusted.  The final straw came with irrigation; I partly chose John's company because his promise includes resetting all irrigation, something I really needed help with, since we have a big and complex system.  Yet, the gardeners somehow reset the irrigation two weeks ago to go off each afternoon....not only against the rules in our town, but over-watering terribly.  When I called it in, and left messages about it, either John didn't hear me or he didn't tell his guys the problem because, although they came back out, I'm not sure what they did; the sprinklers remained set for daily watering in the afternoons.  Overall, despite all the trappings of a responsible business (articulate owner, contracts), I strongly recommend people avoid this company.  The initial outlay is very expensive, the billing is more often wrong than right, the labor is inconsistent and unpredictable, and John has no follow-through on his promises.