Eastside Gardens

Good prices on trees but don’t expect the owner, Chester, to be very professional at all. Don’t expect the sales staff to return your calls either. According to Chester, I’m «some guy bothering» him instead of a paying customer.

I’m a longtime customer of Eastside. Over the years it’s been hit, or miss with the caliber of staff, but the selection has been consistently good.
Pretty disappointed with my experience at Eastside today. Purchased a bunch of plants, transaction completed. The girl helping me asked if I needed any fertilizer, or mulch. I remembered that I wanted to pick up more of their cocoa hulls mulch and purchased two bags. Went outside to put them in my car (you pay at the counter and then go out in the parking lot to pick it up) and there wasn’t any. I went back in and told her I hadn’t seen it. She said that they must not carry it anymore. Bummed, but okay, just refund me. They don’t have a comparable substitute. She conferred with the other lady working, asked if it was okay to refund in cash? Um, I paid with credit card, just refund my credit card. Said I would be charged a 2% fee. «The owner doesn’t like us doing refunds» Huh? I made this purchase two minutes ago and you sold me something you no longer carry and I have to pay a fee to be refunded? Wow, that’s all bad in my book. That doesn’t seem right, guess I’ll take the cash.
Their selection is good and they seem to have more people out in the nursery which is great when you have a question. I’m not throwing in the towel on Eastside because of their selection and there aren’t that many options in town and I like to garden. Just pretty disappointed in my visit.

One of the worst customer experiences I’ve ever had in a retail establishment… The owner (Chester) was not only rude, but he actually cussed at me, all because I simply asked him if he warrantied his plants… It was a simple phone call that turned ugly real fast… Reading other reviews on his business it would appear that I’m not alone in this type of treatment… Avoid this establishment at all cost… There are way to many other options in Bend to deal with a guy like this…

I love this large and beautiful nursery. I bring my children with me and they have always made us feel very welcome. I have been assisted by many of the employees and they are very knowledgeable and happy to chat. Friendly and magical place.

Spent over 500 dollars here and they wouldn’t return three plants that failed within a week. I had a receipt and the plants. Don’t think it was an gardening error on my part. Pretty chapped. Luckily there’s an awesome local nursery close and they are more friendly.

I was told, by the owner, that it wasn’t *his responsibility that his employees gave me false information. Then he wouldn’t honor the warranty the employees offered me. And, he called me an a**h*le on the phone.
It is. And you should have, a**h*le.
Plenty of other places that are far better, and staffed with good people. Use them. Forget this dump.

Lots of diversity in plants and trees. I loved that.
No one there the day I came in could answer any of my gardening questions… even how to plant the asparagus rootings. Quite pricey compared to other places too.

The product we bought is great but the experience and price tags were not. Shop around.

Ok, first of all… your website is a very important reflection of your company. It’s the end of April 2015 and the Winter 2014 specials are featured prominently on the homepage. Then… there’s no email! Their Facebook page is dismal. If you’re going to have a FB page… you need to update it regularly and the only review there is a 1 star out of 5. Ok… I giggled a little…
Called to get a consultation on landscape work that needs to be done at my new home. Several times over the past couple of months. Never got a return call from Chester. So I decided I’d pop in. It’s pricey. Didn’t get a warm & fuzzy feeling from any of the employees so I left. «Stick a fork in me, I’m done»

Overpriced plants!
I spent $ 63 for two dwarf mugo pines. Lowes price per plant (with better planting instructions): $ 6.98. And the plants at Lowes looked much better than their counterparts at Eastside. I had to comb through all the plants to find two decent looking specimens.
I admit its not a completely apples to apples comparison because the Lowe’s plants were half the size of those at Eastside. So double the price of the pines at Lowes and add in $ 6 for ‘extras’ and you get a sale price of $ 20.
Two stars for pricing, three stars for selection. I can’t address service because I really didn’t get any. Nobody could be bothered to walk me over to the mugo pine area, I found it myself.

Fantastic nursery! Wonderful selection of perenials and Central Oregon growing conditions shrubs, vines and trees. Best of all for us — moved to Bend in March — was the excellent advice, friendly and patience of Alejandra
We so appreciate the time and advice she gave us on what would work in our garden! We are also delighted that Eastside Gardens will deliver the big plants that wouldn’t fit in our SUV. We are planning on making Eastside Gardens our go to nursery!

Horrible service. Rude representatives. Owner is Chester.
I purchased 8 trees. 2 died
No one assisted me. They yelled at me… the staff is rude and very unknowledgable.
GO ELSEWHERE

Poorly ran by management. I got the run around on pricing. The management seems disorganized and does not seem to care. I over heard the manager lady bad mouth the customers saying how lame they are because someone asked a «stupid question» I will spend my money else where.

I had the absolute worst customer experience of my life with Eastside Gardens. We ordered a tree and at the time of purchase were told we could cancel the order for store credit before delivery. After talking to our neighbors, we called Eastside Gardens to cancel the order. The woman answering the phone and managing the store said that was fine.
Later in the day we received a call from the very angry and rude owner, telling us how much we had inconvenienced him. We apologized and said we would have taken the delivery if we were told as much when we’d called. He did not mention any charges, just a lot anger.
When we went back to Eastside Gardens to use our credit, we were charged $ 180 in restocking and inconvenience fees, most of the value of the tree. The owner said the people answering the phone and operating the counter are separate and don’t know what’s going on. He was even more rude this time. Amazingly bad service.

These guys are solid. I noticed the one negative review from the gal in Cali. Don’t know why she received the poor care she perceived. Certainly hasn’t been my experience. Sometimes non-​locals can be a bit rude themselves, but that doesn’t excuse poor customer service or even the perception.

C. H. is right on in the accolades for Eastside Gardens! In seeing the review we’ll add «us too» for a myriad of great experiences with Eastside over the ten years or so we’ve shopped there.
Eastside Gardens has a top notch selection of perennials in sizes from small «tuckers» in 4″ containers to robust gallon sized options. They also have a great selection of healthy and Central Oregon growing condition friendly shrubs, vines and trees. An indoor plant area in the main building provides a selection of more «weather delicate» plants.
The friendly staff knows their stuff to help make recommendations and answer questions and there always seems to be someone available to help.
We always enjoy the displays of funky garden art sculptures that are tucked in the entry garden, and available for purchase too.
And it’s fun to pet the nursery’s friendly cat. On our recent visit, a couple of weeks ago, it was cool to meet «Bob», a wild turkey that had taken up residence at Eastside. He followed us around as we shopped and made us feel even more at home!
If we could wave a magic wand, we’d have Eastside bring back the nice selection of native plants that they used to have but no longer carry. Looking for those gems is the only thing that keeps us away from Eastside to look elsewhere these days.
Accessibility tip… parking lot is all deep gravel so if you need accessible parking and access, the first challenge will be trying to get from the lot to the nursery itself. Tough to do for a wheelchair user and probably also dicey for users of canes, crutches or walkers. However, once in the nursery, a few of the paths near the main building are solid surface and the gravel paths among some of the plant display areas are smaller grained and more hard packedl than the parking lot making accessibility muh better. Firm surfacing in the parking lot would be a winner strategy all around.