Oakland Nursery

It is with a very heavy heart that I share this as I have shopped at Oakland Nursery for over 10 years and used various services including over $20K of work. Last year, I hired them for irrigation and sprinklers. The manager of irrigation left last fall for Colorado in the middle of my job. He had hired a sub to do it and I have had so many problems: left holes for kids to trip in, pummeled my fence, flooded my basement, planting grass in the wrong place, left a swamp. Although that sub is no longer there, they never hired another head of irrigation. They just used a guy that used to work for the previous head of irrigation (John). In order to solve the swamp issue, he sent a guy that wasn't a landscaper to dig up my sod and put dirt underneath. The previous head had recommended this in April but it wasn't done until months later, when the sun was too hot. It was a disaster and left a hazard as the grass was dying and pulling apart leaving large crevices. My daughter and I both twisted our ankles trying to get to the other side of the yard to water the veggies. They came and put hazard tape all around, ran my sprinklers around the clock and said no one could step on it for 4-6 weeks. I was left with almost half of my backyard that was unusable for a family reunion and two birthday parties. This was very costly to my family in the midst of COVID as we were planning to have these parties in the back yard. (They had also done 10K of work before this to plant a beautiful flower bed at the back of my yard that could no longer be seen because of the bright yellow hazard tape and tall weeds. They told me it couldn't even be mowed. I would have never consented to this if they told me it couldn't be walked on or mowed. When it was mowed 7 weeks later, there were holes, dead grass and a lot of bumps. They still haven't fixed this or even sent a boss to look at it. They send me bills with finance charges even though I paid before it was done. I already paid them $4100 for this service and they are charing me over $2K more b/c the head of irrigation did not put in writing what was a verbal agreement. There is no signed contract. I understand this is my fault but I trusted Oakland Nursery and John, the previous head of irrigation. This has been the worst professional experience of my life. I will no longer be using them and am hiring another company to fix it. I also have a lawyer who will now be communicating with them. My next email is to the Better Business bureau. I have never sued another company in my life, but sadly this is my next step if they continue to send me bills and don't correct the problems.

I have been a customer of Oakland Nursery for over 15 years and had worked with Pete Pavlik all those years with excellent customer service before he retired. I decided give my community nursery a chance. Now that I am dealing directly with the New Albany Oakland Nursery I really notice a big difference in the treatment as a customer. I bought the same evergreen trees I always purchase and was delivered the wrong tree. I was told they would correct the mistake right away that day. No one called or showed up. When I called them again I was told they are not coming back, I expressed my disappointment of not getting a update on the situation. I remembered when years ago Oakland Nursery used to take care of their customers and made sure they communicated and took care of any issues with a smile. It appears those days are long gone. I am still waiting when I purchased it May 5 and now it is June 5.

I have spent over 20K at Oakland Nursery and have given many referrals. However, my interactions over the last two years leave me concerned that it has really gone down hill. I hired a landscape architect, Alison Miller, who charged me $950 and never delivered on services. She was supposed to come back in a week to give me a sketch of where to put bulbs and fruit trees before winter started. She returned a month later with a drawing that was completely different than we talked about. She said she would do revisions. I waited on winter and called and emailed. She blew me off and then talked down to me when she came around in the spring, still without a decent revision. I also called and emailed the president. When I finally got through months later he said that they don't stand my their landscape architects. They are independent contractors. However, when I called Oakland nursery, there was no disclaimer about this. Moreover, on their website, it is communicated at they have award winning landscape architect services.Please either hold your landscape architects accountable or make it clear that they are independent so that I don't trust your name and pay them 100% up front.

They are they best nursery that I've been through and they are very friendly.

Pete is one of their designers and he is very good. They are fairly reasonable in price and they have always done a good job. I would recommend them.

Fast courteous and perceptive. Highly recommended

We shop there for all of our shrubs trees plants etc. Guarantees are great

They did a quote and we said that we were going to use them but they never came back. I tried calling them on multiple occasions. They never called me back. Then one day, they just showed up at the house to do the work. After my husband and I decided we were just going to do it ourselves. So I had to fire them.

The team the was actually did the plantings was prompt and professional. They planted 4 trees, 4 shrub roses, hydrangeas, catmint, thyme, Itea among other shrubs and perennials. Plantings were installed according to the plan from my landscape designer. My only complaint would be that the Ajuga was planted after the mulch was put down and over half of the plants almost died due to no contact with the soil. Since I did water this area daily, most of the plants survived and have filled in nicely.

For the last 8 years we have used Oakland Nursery to do our spring clean-up and mulching. We contacted them by phone in 2016 to schedule the service and they did not return our call. They just showed up several weeks later and started the work. This year (2017) two phone calls to schedule the service were made. One was mid March and the other was mid April. Neither call was returned. All calls were made to Brian Joyce who has been our primary contact for several years. Messages were left in all cases. We assumed because of no return call last year that they would do the work this year without contacting us. We contacted them in late April and were told that they would not be able to do the work because their schedule was full. In desperation, I placed a call to the CEO of Oakland to share our experience and our unhappiness with a lack of response from Brian. I also hoped that he would be able to remedy the situation since we needed to have the work done in time for a celebration party for our twin granddaughters graduation from OSU on May 7. It has been nearly a week since I placed the phone call, left a message and have not received a response from the CEO. We are finished using Oakland Nursery and are most disappointed with respect to poor service.

I had $3000 of trees planted. I paid 1/2 up front 6 months before they were able to schedule a planting. Then, they were planted in mid-July during a hot weather spell. I was very diligent in tending to them. They replaced the 5 when they were dead in the spring. AGAIN... they went in late in the season (as if other more important jobs are done first). Again, I was very diligent. 1 of the 5 lost all it's leaves and I suspect will not be alive this spring. I spoke with the individual who is "in-charge"... I was told that whet replace them only once. Of note, this individual is the daughter of the owner and is an attorney... trust me, I didn't;t have a leg to stand on despite my very valid claim. Too Big to care about the small jobs.

This is a very nice nursery and they maintain a good stock of health flowers.

Very good, will use again! Highly recommend!

I purchased a large palm tree from Oakland Nursery, and based on my experience and the extremely poor customer service, I will never go to ANY Oakland Nursery again. I purchased the palm tree back in July. I had Oakland trim the tree, spray it and deliver it to my house (which costs extra). Shortly after it was delivered, a couple of branches started dying.... then more started dying. I called, they said its normal. It got to be roughly 30 days out and after multiple delay strategies on their end (to go over the 30 day mark so I couldn't return), I finally said I want a new one. Shawn was very nice and came out with a new tree and said it was spider mites that ruined the past tree and that it was not our fault. He said he sprayed the new tree and said we would NOT have any mites. As weeks went by, the tree started dying again and I was told that it had mites (again was told it wasn't my fault) and that I would need to come in and buy a bunch of products for spider mite removal. I told them I want a new tree and they said their policy was they would only give me 1 tree and that's it! I was never told this, or else I wouldn't have taken Shawns word on the new tree and ask for my money back. I just spoke with the manager Nick today and he claimed its their policy and I am out of luck. This expensive tree has been an eye sore for months, and the best I could get out of them was 25% off IF I want to come back and buy something by Saturday. Nick explained to me that "hey, we are out money on this too", which is extremely insulting to me given that I am out over $500 after buying a pot and other items for it.... and they are out the wholesale price of a tree. I offered to even pay their cost for a new tree and they refused. I guess customer satisfaction and willingness to please customers is not their policy. I hope the owner reads this and decides to change his policy going forward for other customers since my family, friends and I will not be coming back.

From the initial design to the actually installation, they did a great job! My family loves our backyard. I plan to work them next year for another phase of landscaping.

The landscaper-consultant did not arrive at 9:30am so I waited until about 9:45am and called her and left a message inquiring if she was on her way. I also stated that I could wait a little while longer but not too long as I needed to get to work. As of 10:15am, the employee had still not arrived nor called. I then left as I had to get to work. When I returned home that evening, there was no note, no voicemail message nor any other communication apprising me as to why the employee did not appear. There was no apology nor a request for an opportunity to reschedule. Due to this lack of professionalism, I will not attempt to schedule with their landscaping consultation service again. I would use the Company again however because their selection is very good and the personnel on site are very knowledgeable and helpful.

Let me first preface to say that I take part of the blame in not setting expectations during my initial visit with the landscape designer. I was also a little naïve about the whole landscape design process. If I had known better, I may have shopped around more before engaging in Oakland's services. I contacted Oakland about landscape design and was directed to one of their designers. I basically wanted to redo my landscaping in front of the house and back, as well as repair an existing patio. The designer was very prompt in returning my call and scheduled a visit to my house. On the phone, I recall her telling me that the design would cost around $175, but when she got to my house, she indicated that the design for the entire house (front, back, and sides) would cost $400. I don't recall hearing that on the phone. I chocked it up as just me not being specific enough on the phone, or that I might have misheard her, and agreed to paying $400 for the design. What I did find odd, was that she asked us to write the check in her name, instead of Oakland. Maybe this was a red flag, I don't really know. Again, I assumed it was just standard industry practice. However, the designer was very friendly and enthusiastic about doing our design. We even gave her an approximate amount of our budget. So, we agreed to pay her $400. This is where our expectations didn't exactly meet what we ended up receiving. I had falsely assumed that if we paid $400, we would get something more professionally done than what we ended up with. What we ended up with, was a drawing that looks like it was done by hand, and could have been done in less than an hour. I guess for $400, I was expecting something that was more than what could probably be done in some college class. Again, I was a little naïve and thought that this was standard in the landscape industry. That is until I started talking to other landscapers and they all told me that for a hand drawing, they wouldn't charge anything. They would only charge, if I wanted more specifications, something computer generated, or that looks more like a blueprint. For a drawing like that, these other landscapers said they would have done it complimentary. Additionally, after she sent me the drawing, the designer never offered to come back to our house to go over the design. Instead, we exchanged a few emails. Again, I take part of the blame because I never asked for her to come back to our house to discuss the design. I just assumed that's how the industry works. With all of that, we probably still would have gone through Oakland to install our new landscape design, if they had provided better customer service. It's almost like the designer really didn't care if we chose Oakland to install the landscaping or not after she already received her $400. Instead, we ended up going with another landscaper, who never charged us a single dime for the landscape drawing he did, but had come to our house on 3 separate occasions to answer questions, and go over our design. Not only did he truly want our business, but we just felt more comfortable going with a landscaper that truly took care of us as customers. I never felt that way with Oakland. Again, I chock this up as a learning experience and in that regards, the $400 was very well spent.

We had installed landing with stairs from patio doors and walkway . Previous years we had landscape installed front and back. Love how it all turned out!! Everything looks great!

They were friendly and professional.

It went okay; it went well. They did a good job, but I don't like the way they handled the contract. They are very slow to respond to my questions. However their service was normal as expected.

I wanted to surprise my boyfriend for his birthday by having the 30 foot spruce tree in our front yard lit up with Christmas lights when he got home. One of my friends recommended Oakland Nursery. I spoke with Adam, who was very helpful, courteous and professional. He scheduled a crew to do the installation the following week and even called me 10 minutes before their arrival so I could make sure the coast was clear for the surprise. I provided the Christmas lights and Oakland provided the timers and labor. The installation went smoothly and that night my boyfriend was so surprised he was speechless. They really made his birthday special and something he will always remember. Oakland Nursery did a wonderful job. A few things to note about the B ratings on responsiveness and punctuality: On the front end, Adam was very helpful and prompt getting everything set up. When I called to have the crew come back and take down the lights, I had to leave several messages with Adam and their general voice mail box before Adam returned my call. He scheduled the crew to come the next day but they never showed up. I called Adam again and he apologized and said they would come out as soon as possible. The crew showed up and did a great job of taking down the lights and coiling each strand. The last thing I want to mention is that I never received an invoice for their services. I emailed Adam a couple of times and reminded him again when I spoke to him last and then I finally received an invoice in the mail. For the most part, my experience with Oakland Nursery for this type of service was a positive one, so I do plan on using them again next year.

It was very good. We had two plants that failed and they had a one-year guarantee and they honored their one-year guarantee. They replaced the plants. They were very reliable. Their price was reasonable. I would certainly recommend them.

They’re a little high, but they do a good job. They have big choices and they helped me. Michael Warner, who is the designer there, he helped me choose. They stand behind their work and if anything dies, they replace it for nothing.

We buy almost all of our garden plants and pond supplies here. They always have a good selection and price.

The employee at Oakland Nursery answered my questions and advised me on my selection of a maple tree to replace a tree that had to be removed from my front yard. I wanted a tree that had colorful leaves in fall. The checkout person helped me arrange for delivery and planting of the tree. They also contacted the utility company to mark where lines were located in my yard. The tree was delivered at the agreed on date and time. The place where I wanted the tree planted couldn't be used because the roots of the previous tree were in the way. They helped me select an alternate location. They did an excellent job of planting the tree and surrounding it with mulch. I was very pleased.