Solano’s Tree Service & Landscaping

Having an appointment with someone for an estimate and not showing without a call or text is unprofessional.
Being a manager for multiple apartment units a company that does this type of thing has potential of losing thousands of dollars in business.
Another company that showed up got the contract.

So thankful to Mike for accommodating me on this small job and working with my budget. Now my backyard looks better with the lemon tree nicely pruned and shaped. Mike returned my call, came on the appointed date and did what needed to be done. Thanks a lot Mike.

Mike and his team did a great job on our yard, for a great price. They came out for a quote within an hour of my initial inquiry, which was much appreciated. They were easy to communicate with via text/​phone/​email, negotiated a rate with my landlord, and were very prompt in scheduling the work. I would definitely hire them again!

You know, there are a lot of knuckleheads and ding-​dongs out there and in the past 6 years of being a homeowner, I have come to be very very wary of everyone I hire. However, Mike and his team have always done a great job with tree-​trimming and landscaping work. We have 3 unruly ficus trees that are a gigantic pain in the ass. Solano keeps them in check without making them look like weird stumps. On top of that, Mike Solano is just a cool guy and makes me feel like if there is ever a problem, I can go talk to him.

Mike Solano and his team topped a big eucalyptus tree for us in Beachwood Canyon on a Saturday. He provided a reasonable quote on the spot and showed up at the scheduled hour a week or so later to top the tree. Solano’s did an excellent job. Mike was always available by phone and responsive to requests for insurance certificate etc. The work was high off the ground and appeared to be safely and professionally done with ropes etc. I recommend Solano’s and would use them again.

This is the third place that I tried to call him all the best week to have some gardener to come and clean my garden in my house in Sherman Oaks but I got no luck on finding some and I called the businesses they never answer and never call me back in this business is one of them I am very upset with it still didn’t find any Gardener in my area.

We called these guys after several quotes and these guys were awesome. The only comoany to show up on time and reasonabky priced. The service was excellent five stars.

Mike and his crew were kind, courteous, professional and fast. Thought the job would take at least two days, he had it done in one day by sun down. He was easy to talk to about all of my concerns and gave me a fair price. It could not have been a better experience. I am extremely grateful for his services and I could not recommend him higher.

Solano’s Tree Service has a great sense of how to shape a tree. We’ve hired them twice to take the height out of trees on our property and trim them back to a healthy shape, and both times I was greatly impressed by their speed and precision. Great work! Getting them scheduled, I will say, can be a little tricky, but the skill (and the price) is worth it.

I called Mike from Solano’s tree service, and he came right over. His estimate was more than fair for what they did. They worked hard all day and did a beautiful job removing tree stumps and a tree that unfortunately had to be removed. They worked on a hill side which was very challenging. I would call him over and over if I needed to. Great job! so impressed. Thank you Mike.

Well… He did show up to check out my yard… But… It’s been a week and still no estimate and no communication…
Hmmm yeah I guess I could hound them and follow up but isn’t that their job? After all we left it at «I’ll let you know the estimate and send you pics»…
I wanted to use the hero program to pay for our landscaping redesign so need a licensed contractor…
Guess I’ll use the neighborhood guy and pay cash out of pocket… Oh well it’ll cost me a fraction of the price I’m sure so thanks for nothing!
Ba humbug!

AMAZING! Honestly, I have used several different landscapers and tree cutters but am I glad I found one that is unbelievable. Mike Solano is super professional! He is very reasonable and gets the job done right the first time. His crew is very efficient and work very clean (something I really like). After everything was done, Mike himself came and did several final touches and inspected everything to make sure it was up to his standard. These guys cut down my gigantic tree and removed all the roots evenly and without making a huge mess. Then installed a whole new sprinkler system with a fresh grass and a beautiful rock landscape. Highly recommend these guys, trust me you won’t be unhappy. After going through a lot of trouble with others it is nice to know that you can have someone do what you like and DO NOT have to call them or be home to watch them the whole time. These guys came, got the job done right and never bothered me once. Thanks guys, appreciate it.
Shane

Great experience with Solano’s Tree Service. I had to remove a very large pine tree that was dead. Mike gave me an extremely fair price and his crew took it down without any damage to my property or incident of any kind. Guys on the crew were skilled, professional and friendly. I highly recommend them for any of your brush clearance or tree needs.

We’ve been looking for a local landscaper to help us with tree trimming & annual fire clearance. Solano’s is nearby & gave us a fair quote, so we decided to give them a shot.
So far so good! Scheduling is always a little difficult for landscapers because of the nature of what they do. Working to get them booked in the next week.
Update:
All went pretty well. They did a pretty good job. We have had landscapers pull all the weeds by hand — They just weed whacked. Otherwise pleased.

Hired them to repair sprinkler system valving and add a manual shut off valve. They did a decent job with the plumbing. But they had a very tough time wiring the system back up. They did not have the proper tools (e.g., wire cutters, wire strippers, etc). They made a mess of it. Finally got it working, but the wiring job was really ugly. I’m gonna have to redo it myself.
Update — two of the four sprinkler systems are now no longer working. They really did a lousy job with the wiring.
I will not use them again.

Mike rocks! He’s a confident guy and does professional work. He landscaped my front yard, put in a sprinkler system, and laid sod, also put in a very nice sidewalk. My neighbors were blown away with the results. He’s got a lot of jobs going on so he’s more of a supervisor, but all his guys are well trained and very friendly. It’s a family business, and they all seem to really want to please Mike, so expect good work. Make sure and bust his balls a little too!

It sucks… they don’t know what they need to do!!!
I got Trimming tree service they made a huge mass!!!
They didn’t say sorry at all!!!
Unbelievable!!! Don’t try this company!!!

Mike and his crew were Amazing! We had them remove a Chinese Elm and trim back the entire yard. This was a massive job as the yard had not been tended to in 25 years. His crew of four guys completed the work in three days and their bid was lower than two other companies I called.
Not only did they complete the work on time, the trees look so good. The knowledge of cutting trees that these guys have is un-​paralleled. They knew all the species of trees and cut them differently to make them look the best. The whole yard looks amazing and rejuvenated.
I saw the other negative comments about the customer service. I did not notice any problem with the customer service at all. Mike was professional and courteous and other than a little misunderstanding regarding a start date, everything went great!
I would 100% recommend theses guys for any tree work. I will be having them back in the near future because I was so impressed.

Okay — so to be fair, I did not end up using Mike’s service and went with someone else. I feel compelled to write this review, however, because of the basic lack of professionalism and pretty blatant rudeness this guy exhibits towards his customers. I read all the reviews here before contacting him — and though there are a few 1 stars, I figured that the overwhelming majority rated him highly so why not give it a try.
Well — he’s expensive, so that’s his first ding. Now here’s the second ding: one of the reasons why I hired him was to clear out the ivy behind a wall in my backyard. If anybody knows ivy, it’s tough and resilient, and it comes back. The job requires you to pick it out by hand, not just cut it back or clear it. Then, you have to come back at least three times to spray it and make sure it’s gone.
Mike quoted me what I thought was a reasonable price (and I received 4 different bids) — not the cheapest but given the high ratings I thought I’d give him a chance. Well — luckily my wife cleared up with him that we wanted the ivy completely removed not just cleared; to which he replied «no way, that’s a totally different job.» Okay then, if that’s the case, his bid was astronomical — because all other bids included full removal and follow up (just so you know Mike quoted $ 1250 for it).
A word about his rudeness. Well — I don’t think he’s a bad guy — just not a very happy guy. And I read some of the reviews about Mike possibly being chauvinistic — and to his credit, I don’t think that’s true. Being a male myself, he was pretty much a jerk from the get-​go, so his grumpiness isn’t selective. I just don’t think he’s happy in general — but hey, who knows what happened in his life so I’m not gonna judge.
A word about his professionalism: I did have to follow up several times to get a quote. And when he finally got it to me, it was incomplete and was missing the biggest part of the job. He had also told me that he would send me pictures of possible plants he could plant, but that never happened. Finally — after he sent the quote, I had to struggle several times to get in touch with him — and then, all of a sudden he sends me this message saying he’s going to start in a few days (without any confirmation from me).
All in all — a pretty lousy customer service experience. His work may be good or bad, I don’t know — but honestly, there are plenty of good landscaping guys out there with comparable prices and better attitudes.
I hope this helps those people who are on the fence.
Peace!

I hired mike and crew to do a job that he had estimated at 3 or 4 days for 1300. It took them 7 days, but he kept his word on his price. That I commend. Why the one star?
First it could have taken them less time, but mikes son was basically incompetent. I would beware if you are asking for skilled work to be done and he shows up. Just cancel immediately. He lost the plans that I had given him, then dug holes in the wrong place and removed PVC where he didn’t need to. He rented equipment when it wasn’t needed. Finally mike sent someone to finish the job.
The entire crew was courteous to me and generous, mike and son included. They also buried brick dust in my garden… Wtf?
However, the real reason for the one star is that I’m convinced they poisoned my young persimmon tree, probably with a kind of weed killer. It was right next to where they were doing the work, and I planted several young trees at the same time as that using all the same soil amendments which are still doing fine. But as soon as they left the job that tree showed immediate signs of poisoning. The grass around it yellowed and die first, and then the tree itself yellowed and began dropping leaves. I waited along time to write this to consider every possibility, and did a lot of reads each about every other possibility. Every piece of evidence points to the cause being someone on mikes crew poisoning the tree. It’s now dead.
Will I ever know for sure? No. But the strength of the evidence combined with the lack of care and competence shown by this crew are enough to know that I’ll never use them again.