Lasbury Tree and Shrub, LLC

Have had Lasbury out twice - once to trim and cable an ash tree - good job, but expensive. They came out for a second tree that looked like it was dying and they said thy could "save" it by fertilizing and trimming. The tree of curse came down in the last windstorm and did some damage. I have called and emailed them to inspect the damage and quote a cleanup price, but they have not responded! So much for "valued customers." They do not stand behind their work.

No response to inquiries

Amazing work, extremely professional, tree including stump was completely removed.

I made an appointment and Michael came at the agreed upon time to ***** what needed to be done. He made recomendations and followed up on e mail and with a contract in the mail. I called to set up the appointment and they followed thru. The workwas very well done and my trees look great. The clean up was perfect, leaving my property looking beautiful.

unknown

The company removed a large oak tree from the back yard that weighed about 25,000 pounds. They had to remove each section of the tree by using a crane that had to swing each piece of the tree over my house! If they had dropped just one 1500 pound section of the tree on my house, they would have destroyed the house.

I did not sleep well the night before the job.

If I ever need heart surgery, I may call these people.

The price was about 1/3 less than the other two top rated Angie's list companies.

Mr. Lasbury had provided a quote last year that we never followed up on. When I contacted them about an updated price quote he let me know that last year's quote would stand. The work was performed within two days of my returning the quote with my signed acceptance. This is the second time that they've been out to service this tree and I remain totally satisfied with their work. They are pricy, but worth the cost in my opinion. I have seen hack jobs done by other companies on my neighbor's trees. The Lasbury team knows what they're doing. They carefully chose which branches to trim and accomplished a totally natural looking result. I really had to look carefully to see exactly what they trimmed.

They have been doing a great job for me for about 30 years

We requested an estimate for a yard clean-up to include pruning trees, trimming back ivy, removing a dead tree and weeding our patio. Two weeks later, Lasbury provided us an estimate for 1) the yard cleanup, 2) fertilizer and 3) pest management. We opted to take the first two services, but not to take the pest management part. We had also ended up weeding the patio ourselves in the two weeks before we got the estimate.
On a Friday, Lasbury sent an email asking if they could do the work the following Tuesday. We responded that they could and asked what time we could expect them. We did not receive a reply. Between Friday and Tuesday morning, we left three voicemails, trying to reach them to discuss what work should be done since we had done part of the work we believed to be covered by the estimate. Since we had never received a reply about a time on Tuesday and they had not returned any of our calls, we went to work assuming they would not come on Tuesday.
When we came home, they had come, and much was left unfinished. They had not removed the dead tree, some pruned branches were left behind, and there were still several limbs that needed pruning. We did not have complaints about the work that actually was done.
John Lasbury did notice that they had not removed the dead tree and offered to have them do it the next day, when they came to do the fertilizer, which they did. When we told him of our other complaints, he did not address them specifically, he just told us to meet his employee at our house that afternoon and that he would take care of things. This meant that one of us had to leave work in the middle of the day to help deal with this. Fortunately, the employee that we met did resolve most of the issues.
Because we had done some of the work ourselves (weeding the patio), we requested by email that we get some amount of refund. Instead of responding to that email, John Lasbury came to our house. When we brought up the question in person, he claimed that the weeding of the patio was part of the "pest management" service that we had chosen not to purchase. Nothing in the description of pest management that Lasbury gave in their estimate suggested to us that it included this weeding.
In the end we felt like the company was very difficult to communicate with, much more expensive than comparable companies we got estimates from, and somewhat vague and misleading about what their scope of work would include.


Update 11 July 2015: Response to the Response
We completely agree with with Mr. Lasbury about the timing of the communication. We just seem to have different standards for customer service. We did not consider the appointment on Tuesday set since our last communication had been saying Tuesday would work and asking what time. Since we hadn?t received a response over the weekend, or during business hours on Monday, we went to work on Tuesday expecting them not to come.

Mr. Lasbury says ?I went to collect the bill in person because he was trying to extract a bunch of free work in exchange for his payment.? Here is the text of the email I sent him that caused him to come over:

?The work on the side of the yard was too much for your guy to add on. As I mentioned before, when you came out to do the estimate, one of the things that needed to be done was to deal with substantial weed growth on the patio, sidewalk, and driveway. I ended up doing that myself, so your people had less to do than was included in the original estimate. Can you tell us how much of the original estimate was for that work? We believe the cost should be discounted by that amount.

Also, is there a time that you could give an estimate on the work that is needed on the side of the house?

Thanks,?

I have a hard time interpreting that as ?trying to extract a bunch of free work.? He was fairly rude to us in his unannounced collection visit, so by the end of it, there was no danger of our accepting an estimate on any more work. Mr. Lasbury's flippant, accusatory comments in his response to our review are par for the course in his interactions with us after getting a signed contract.

I was told the crew would be here between 8:30 to 9 AM on Friday April 10th, 2015. They showed up at 8:23 AM and was done and driving away at 10:40 AM. They were very efficient and cleaned up very well. I would recommend them to anyone.

Fine, it went very well. They were on time, efficient and pleasant.

They came out and gave me a bid for the work.  They were almost a $1000 cheaper for the work.  They were punctual and dependable, arriving on time and doing a very good job.  There was no trash left laying and I am very please with the overall appearance of my yard after they completed the work.  
 Not only were they reasonable, dependable and clean in their work, they were all very personable and answered any questions I had.  
I will be using them each year to maintain my many trees and shrubs.

We've used them for years and years and years; it has been about 15 years. The annual plant care is $375. They are really good. We will absolutely use them again.

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Both jobs went very well. Workers showed up when requested. They were courteous throughout, and personable and responsive when I asked questions. Excellent job cleaning up.  
I am not sure if the following is a positive or negative, but the response when I inquired and asked for corrective action was certainly positive.
The area under the pines had been slightly elevated due to spreading of mulch for a few years, then adding ground cover later.  A couple weeks after the job was completed  I started turning over the ground cover to level it, and prep for seeding of grass in the fall. That, along with settling of the stump debris, revealed a couple areas of roots that had not been completely removed by the grinder. These areas were below the level of the beds prior to removal of the trees, but were above the original grade of the lot. I am not sure whether I should have expected all roots above the natural grade of the surrounding areas SHOULD have been found and removed, or not.
Regardless, when I texted John and sent a couple pictures he immediately responded, and said it would be taken care of. His crew showed up the second working day thereafter and took care of it.

Lasbury Tree did a fantastic job in carefully trimming a large magnolia tree back from our neighbors property. The tree is a focal point of our front yard and Lasbury took this into account. Lasbury was exceptionally responsive and we're quick in setting up the job. The team who performed the work were absolute professionals and left no trace when the job was complete. I would highly recommend Lasbury and will definitely use them again for future projects. Job well done!

It was 1400$ for yard clearing and 2600$ for removal of diseased tree ($200 was discounted) Went well arrived exactly @8am (team of 2) and (3) for big tree. A small branch fell on garage(no biggie), some sawdust fell on backdeck and side walk(no big deal) All in all A+ company and yes I would hire them again. A big tree felt a little scary to me and they handled it expertly!

unknown

Company owner John Lasbury was our very first point of contact.  John was courteous and immediately set up an appointment for a free estimate.  Arborist Mike Bonds came to our home the following week.  That same day we received our estimate with 4 pricing proposals.  We selected our option (which initially did not include trimming the cherry tree).  We had also contacted another Angie's List landscaping company for a quote (which they never delivered), plus a vendor that had done some work for a customer (we had concerns about his professionalism).  We hired Lasbury, signing the proposal and paying a deposit, and an appointment was scheduled.
Bright and early (and on time!) Wed., May 21st, a crew of Lasbury personnel and equipment arrived at our home, led by John and Mike. The field crewmen who actually performed the work, Kevin and Kenny were outstanding!!  They labored from 8:30am until 6pm, clearing our yard.  That same day we decided to have the front yard tree trimmed.  Several hours later, a third Lasbury crewman joined the "party" and tackled the tree, climbing Rambo-style, up, up, up to the top, armed with belts, rope, and tools.  Meantime, Kevin was working the machine that grinds the stump and Kenny was busily feeding the backyard debris into the wood chipper. Kevin later joined his colleague up the tree to finish the trim project.
Did I mention that a two-person land surveying team from yet another Angie's List vendor was also on sight conducting our field survey. As my husband ran the show outdoors, I prepped snacks and watched the carefully choreographed, friendly interplay between the landscapers and the surveyors.  Several neighbors passed by to watch the actions and get business cards for their own landscaping/surveying project needs.  
A week later, after we'd secured additional permission from our neighbors to have access to their adjoining properties, John okayed Kevin and Kenny returning (at no extra cost) to remove sections of chain-link fencing that were impeding their ability to grimp several stumps that were either embedded in the fence or on the fence line.

unknown

We had them come out a couple of years ago because BGE had severely hacked the tree. Limbs and branches were falling and the tree appeared to be dying. They treated it and trimmed it properly and today they did a follow up treatment. The tree looks 100% better now. I'm pleased with their services since others weren't even able to diagnose the problem correctly with the tree.

This is the second time Lasbury has pruned these trees.  The last time was 6 years ago, and both times the company did an excellent job.  His crews are punctual, polite, and hard working.  This time, snow cover made work a bit more challenging.  A lamppost under one tree and a fence post were damaged by, I assume, falling debris.  The crew leader pointed out the damage, and Lasbury promptly repaired both within days of the pruning.   

Mr. Lasbury took the time to explain to me each species of tree and what needed to be done to keep it healthy. I appreciated his expertise.

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Their estimate exactly matched what I was expecting to pay for the service. Their crew came out the very next day and performed the requested services: removed a diseased tree and trimmed back the row of very tall, overgrown trees along my fenceline, as well as trimming 3 other trees on the property. The results were exactly what I requested, and will save me a lot of time and money on leaf raking and yard cleanup this fall, as well as protecting my car against falling branches.