JD Organic Landscape — Local services in Scotch Plains

UPDATE 6/5/23: John sent a check to cover the damages made.

UPDATE 5/28/23: John reached out to me shortly after I posted my original review a month ago. And ever since, I’ve been playing this cat and mouse game where he scheduled to plant the vines, only to reschedule three time, first blaming it on “delays in one of his jobs”, followed by blaming it on the nursery supply delays twice. Once again, he’s failed to meet the expectations he set for me and not taking any accountability by placing blame on others. We’ve once again rescheduled for a future date TBD. This is his last chance. It’s pathetic that I have to keep him accountable by maintaining my critical review on Google, as it’s the only way he’ll pay any attention. I’ll update my review should anything new come up…

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

I used JD in 2023 for lawn maintenance and spring/fall clean-up and was very disappointed in not just their quality of service but also customer service. Things to note:

The landscaping crew destroyed the decorative vines in the front of my lawn to the point where 80% of the area that the vines used to occupy is bare. I brought this issue to John’s attention. He sent his colleague Joseph to assess the damages to which he acknowledged and said they’d circle back with a resolution. After weeks of following up, no resolution came to light.

The landscaping crew damaged one of the light fixtures in my backyard. This was also brought to John’s attention. No resolution.

The landscaping crew destroyed my Japanese maple tree saplings. And just like the above mentioned issue, John was made aware and no resolution came to light.

Fast forward to winter 2024. I sent a notice to John & JD ceasing services and again noting my displeasure in their customer service because of the issues above. And once again he offered to rectify the situation. Again, nothing came of it. Then in March he sends his crew to perform spring clean up and lawn maintenance, followed by sending me an invoice. I promptly followed up noting my notice to terminate his services and said I wouldn’t be paying the invoice.

YMMV, but he and the way his business is run is, among other things, very disorganized and not customer service friendly.

If he/JD decide to reach out to me offline, please note - they had better offer a tangible offer to resolve this issue. I’ll update my review if/when I hear back...

May 2023 Update - I have increased my review from 1 star to 4 stars based on my interactions with John to resolve the issues I mentioned in the prior review below. John wasn't at all defensive and worked to remove my account from the collections agency. His crew also recently seeded areas of lawn damage.

I became a client of JDO because my original landscaping company was acquired by them. Towards fall of last year, after JDO reseeded my lawn, I was happy to see grass growing nicely, until JDO's own mowing equipment tore the lawn up again. After several messages to John went ignored, he finally replied and acknowledged he would "look into it". He also agreed to defer payments on two invoices until the lawn is repaired in the spring, and his assistant also made a note of this on my account. I am otherwise current on all my other invoice obligations. Today, I received a notice from a collections agency for my unpaid amounts, which is extremely disappointing.

My advice to those considering JDO: They are fine, until...

John and his crew are AWESOME. At our old home we had nothing but problems with Landscapers and ultimately ended up doing all the work ourselves. So happy we found JD Organic at our new home. These guys are prompt. They are very careful with our property. John is insanely responsive when you email him. And they do really nice work. It's also very nice to know they use Organic NonToxic materials as we are a very earth and health conscious family. Highly...