Two trees in my backyard were topped by Central Coast landscaping. They were fast, clean and…read morethorough. Very easy to work with to get an estimate with Jesus and he was there the whole time getting my feedback to make sure they didn't cut too much. 5 stars, price was great!

My gardener, although wonderful in the past, has become a procrastinating old man with a slight…read morelimp and a sore hip. Seeing as how I'm married to him, the time finally arrived to pass the torch to a new gardener! Of course, before I made this big decision, I talked about it for several years, in case the old gardener was attached to this chore (which he sort of seemed to be). In any case, the limit was reached and I couldn't continue to live in an overgrown jungle of underpruned and underloved plants anymore! I reached out to my neighbor who had had a terrible time with a dying hedge until she got a new gardener and asked about her new gardener. Cue Jesus... Jesus and a crew of 4-5 men spent about 8 hours in my yard and they were FAST! They tore out the neighbor's Ivy that is always threatening to take over our yard. They pruned the neighbors huge bush that is more of a tree that hangs over half our backyard and drops red berries all over and in our jacuzzi. They pruned my Chinese elm tree that was partially hanging on the roof. And they cut a swath through every part of the yard, pruning and pulling out dandelions and other weeds that proliferated there. I believe they hauled away 2 dump truck loads of yard waste! Even my old gardener was thrilled with how it looked and moving forward, Jesus's crew is now coming every 2 weeks to keep our yard in tiptop shape. I should have made this decision 2 years ago! It's hard to know as you get older when to hire people to do what you are used to doing yourself. The reaction from all our neighbors is clear. Jesus and his crew were the right decision. Thank you, Jesus, for shepherding us into this new stage of garden life.

Everrett Branden repaired many issues with our irrigation systems. He is dependable and a very…read morehard worker. I recommend him without reservation.

From the owner: Branden Irrigation Repair & Design is located in beautiful Santa Barbara, Ca. We are a full…read moreservice design, install, and maintenance company. Branden Irrigation Repair & Design is locally owned and operated. We specialize in landscaping, irrigation, drainage, installation and maintenance, for all your irrigation repair and design needs.

Jorge and his team were incredibly professional, prompt, effective, and thorough. We needed the…read moreremoval of an invasive tree, landscape installation with new plantings and drip irrigation, and multiple transplants. Their pricing was incredibly fair and the team did a great job while being highly efficient. Afterwards, I realized there were a couple of our existing plants that could do with a transplant once. We asked Jorge if he could help and he had his team out the next business day to complete the request at zero extra cost. Would easily recommend him and they team to anyone. P.S. The bad reviews here clearly say more about the person behind the review than they do about SB Evolution

I am delighted with the repairs and improvements that Jorge Cortez and his team made to my ancient…read moredrip irrigation system. He found the ultimate cause of a significant leak (a valve stuck open in a hard-to-get-to controller under my back deck) and manually shut it off while he ordered a replacement. His team replaced several drip nozzles with micro-sprinklers, and swapped out some badly deteriorated lines for new ones. Everyone was friendly and super-efficient. At the end, Jorge returned to inspect everything (correcting a couple of very minor flaws) before declaring the job finished. All the work came with a one-year warranty. I wish we had a world where everyone had Jorge's attention to detail and commitment to excellence.

Excellent service from Chavez Landscaping. They assisted me to remove a large tree that fell in my…read moreyard and removed an overgrown oleander bush. Edward showed up and gave me a fair quote, and was back the next day with his crew and completed the project. I'd recommend them and plan to use in the future for landscaping needs.

Edward and his crew removed a bottle brush tree from my yard that was out growing the space. They…read moredid a nice job. I asked him to remove a bush that was overgrowing a planter and he did it at no additional charge. Edward answered all my questions promptly and communicated well.

Chris and team alway ensures they understand the work you want done, and offer great suggestions…read more They work quickly, have reasonable rates, and do a great job. As an added bonus, when you need work done that is outside of their area of expertise, Chris has a large network of other contractors to recommend.

We thought when we hired this company that we were spending extra money but it would be worth it to…read moreget the job done and get it done well. Boy were we wrong! From the very beginning, we had issues which is why we had to fire them. 1) The drawings that you pay 5K for aren't actual drawings-its just a picture! 2) The drawings showed two fences on the sides of the back yard, but the bid only included one...which they let us know once one fence was already installed. 3) A chainlink fence we installed only went 3/4 of the way across the yard because that is all that was included in the bid! Again, we learned that it was too short after the fact and that we were supposed to pay an upcharge to have it go all the way across. 4) The design they had for the BBQ doesn't work and we had to relocate it to another area. 5) Their partial billing system is beyond annoying and over the top. 6) They talked us out of the pool deck we really wanted and put in pavers that we hated. They kept telling us they would look different after they dried, after the were cleaned, etc. We ended up tearing them out. The problem is they only provided one paver instead of many as a sample. I thought I was clear about the look we were going for but they just didn't get it. 7) But our biggest gripe (and that's saying alot!) is they did a bio retention basin in our back yard and it has never passed inspection. They assured us that they would make that happen but never did. We now have to pay our GC additional money because Clearview does not appear to know how to make inspections happen. In fact, we have had to pay to have that basin inspected a ridiculous amount of times. We finally decided they were never gonna pass inspection which is why I am writing this review. I do not recommend this company if you have a substantial project or any permits involved. I say that from a calm, thoughtful, responsive energy where I want to look out for potential customers. They cost us a lot of needless time and money.... even suffering! They don't listen to clients and they are not accountable for anything they do or don't do. In fact, at one meeting the owner Chris told me to stop complaining about the price of the project because it was distracting and not helpful! These are not guys you want to work with. Don't be tempted by the marketing like we were.

Kitson Landscape has been an exceptional landscape company for the 20 years that I've known them…read more They service our HOA and many other places in town. For many of those years, I had been the liaison between my HOA and the Kitson crew. The crews I've seen over the years are always respectful and hard working. When we asked questions about what type of trees we could plant that have certain characteristics (e.g. some flowering, not heavily deciduous, not a lot of fruit droppings, not too tall to block views, etc.), the owners of the company provided a great list of suggested tree candidates for us to review. If I recall correctly, the management at Kitson has advanced degrees in horticulture, so they have a wealth of information about so many plants and trees. Coming up with a list of trees fitting the characteristics we wanted is simply not something I could have done and there is no book containing a list of trees. It's only someone who has a vast knowledge after seeing a variety of trees in their growth habitats who could formulate such a list with those specific characteristics. I once wanted to donate some of my own money to re-landscape around our HOA pool and I chose a palate of drought-tolerant plants (from the Goleta Water District's drought tolerant plant display). Sarah (at Kitson) offered to draw up a sample landscape design to lay out those plant types in various locations. She was very helpful and, in retrospect, I realized that many "landscape architects" are now charging big $$$ for simple landscape designs. She didn't even charge us for her landscape design, which wasn't a trivial thing to do. The Kitson foreman, who comes out weekly with his crew is such an amazing person. He's like family to us. So diligent and always cheerful and can solve vexing irrigation problems or breakages. He's also so very patient if fussy neighbors make demands. I'm well-connected in town, so some of my clients also use Kitson and I have heard no negative comments from these clients about Kitson. So I'm quite surprised to see a few bad reviews here. Could it be competitors trolling? This just doesn't make sense! And the one nasty review about Kitson using Round-up is quite odd. I believe Kitson doesn't use Round-up currently. They use something else that is super benign. And even when they used to use Round-up, we have fruit trees in some areas and Kitson's foreman was very accommodating: "No spray near the fruit trees." Ironically, as it turns out, all the anti-Roundup hype in the news lately may actually be way overblown. Google for the following article on-line: "EPA-science-could-torpedo-roundup-lawsuits." And perhaps the guy who posted about Kitson's blowers at his office building needs a lesson in the "corporate pecking order." Your office landscape company (in this case Kitson) probably has a contract with your management company and/or the owners of the office building. They decide what type of parking lot method is employed (blowers or labor-intensive sweeping). Blowers are the most cost effective way to "sweep" an office parking lot. If there are enough complaints about blowers to the office management company, then the owner/manager has an option to forbid the use of blowers and pay for more expensive broom cleaning of the parking lot. Surely they don't want to pay for costly broom sweeping of your parking lot, so the lowly employee/tenant in an office building like yours needs to contact your office management company with their concerns. The landscape company workers will do what the office building owner wants them to do per their contract. So, of course, the workers at the landscape company will ignore your requests because you're not on the contract. This problem would exist with any other landscape company where someone who is not their boss is telling them not to do what's in their contract.

Professional, consistent and reliable. Management is very responsive when I have any concerns or…read moreadditional needs for service. The Irrigation specialist is the best!

My yard got a total makeover. It was a jungle now it's beautifully streamlined, clean and…read morebeautiful. I'm very pleased with the work Solis did for us! I was especially impressed with the manner in with they worked with me on the pricing. Very accommodating! Highly recommend!

5 Star. We have lived in Santa Barbara for 2 1/2 years. We are on our third gardener. We are…read moreextremely happy with Solis and we are very glad we found them. They are on time, communicative, professional, reasonably priced and most of all - honest ! We highly recommend Solis Landscape. After only a month and a half our property looks better than ever. My wife and I are very happy with their services and expertise.

Dave's Organic Gardening has been a wonderful experience for our family plus extended family!…read moreDave has taught us so much about plants and how to take care of them. All naturally, it has been a fantastic ride; our plants are doing great under Dave's excellent teaching. This morning I looked up at a tree that was trimmed under Dave's advice. I realized how gorgeous it had become, perfectly balanced and happy! I am learning and loving it; Dave is so strait forward so natural, with a big heart showing all over him. Creating a garden, fruit, veggies, flowers, succulents, whatever is your fancy, you need a wonderful soul like Dave to guide you and teach you the ropes and send you on the way the be a green thumb! Genuinely written with much gratitude.

If you want the review in a nutshell, here it is: Dave's Organic Gardening did more damage than…read morehelp for our yard. He charged double what he said he would. He would go for long periods without communicating and showing up. And when we asked for clarification on bills that listed visits when his team did not show up, or for work that was never completed, he got very nasty in his communication. To read more about our experience with Dave, please read on. We had high hopes for Dave's Organic Gardening. We hired him after doing extensive landscaping, and our previous gardeners were doing blowing and mowing, but very little active maintenance of the yard. We agreed to pay him double what we had previously been paying, and he promised that he would get the yard in great shape. He and his team began by replacing plants that weren't doing well, and he encouraged us to use his "tea" to get the plants going. Despite the agreement on $300/month for the maintenance, he began regularly charging us $600+/month. We initially thought that the high rates would go down as soon as the yard got in shape, but the huge invoices kept coming. To make matters worse, he wouldn't arrive at a regular time each week, which made it difficult to communicate with him on site. In fact, he would go weeks without showing up (as our lawn soon began to look like a meadow of weeds). One major element that needed help was irrigation, and he promised to get the irrigation of the front and back yard figured out. I gave him access to our irrigation system, yet he only worked on a small portion of the yard (neglecting the irrigation across the majority of the yard). Many plants died as a result. After months of neglect and infrequent visits (yet continued invoices that kept arriving), we canceled our relationship with him. Here is a quick list of the reasons we are so unhappy with Dave's Organic Gardening: 1. Some of the plantings that we paid for at the outset were never ordered and planted. 2. Many of the plants that we laid out to be planted in particular places were planted in the wrong place. As a result, some areas are crowded with plants, whereas other areas are empty. 3. A large percentage of the plants that were planted with the expensive compost tea died or are still struggling mightily. In fact, most of the plants that he installed are now dead. 4. We were charged for items in the invoices that were never completed. For example, we needed our vines trimmed, yet they were never done. Even so, his invoices listed these tasks as completed. 5. Irrigation on the yard was only partly completed, yet we were charged for all of it. 6. Regular maintenance was charged for but not provided (e.g., lawn was 2' tall), but invoices kept coming. 7. Dave encouraged us to mulch the garden, but the mulch job was super sloppy. When they installed, they just covered the yard with it, ignoring design elements like a pea gravel border. Worse yet, he charged a lot for the mulch, but we were removing trash and ceramic bits out of the mulch for months. 8. We had to re-do all the pea gravel landscaping that was buried under mulch. What makes all of this worse (the sloppy work, the dying plants, the exorbitant prices) is that when we asked him to elaborate upon the invoices, especially the ones that came in months late and included dates when he and his team weren't there (my wife and I were home working throughout the pandemic), he was--as others have said--really nasty. He starts out very nice, but he can quickly turn very unprofessional. Since we let Dave go, we hired another gardener, who charges a fraction of the rate, works very efficiently, and has helped our yard recover from the damage that Dave did.