San Lorenzo Garden Center

Great selection (usually). Sometimes difficult to find help in the yard, but the help is knowledgeable and super helpful.

Great customer service, nice selection of healthy plants and garden supplies. Prices are ok. Will drive from Salinas for this place.

We have shopped at this store for a decade. Usually staff is kind and helpful. Today when we came in, we asked for information about installing a drip system for irrigation. The first staff member we spoke to laughed at us. Confused, we asked her for help again, and she laughed at us again. We then went to ask another staff member for a manager and were given vague directions to find the manager (not actually shown to the manager). When we finally found the manager and explained the situation, he asked if he should deal with the situation. We asked for courtesy, and he again asked if we wanted him to deal with the situation. No one ever actually assisted us with irrigation or apologized for having staff laugh at us. We finally asked if we should go to a different store and were told yes. The whole situation is very surprising and out of the ordinary, but a complete lack of courtesy and customer service will lead us to never shopping here again.

When judging this garden center one needs to consider the limited local competition. SLG is my main source of plants and garden supplies… when I am buying locally. When it comes to soils, amendments, seeds and tools, they have the best selection in town. Their plant selection is wide, as well (in spring through early fall), but much of their plant stock is poorly maintained. They allow plants to dry out and then drown them in water while they are in full sun, which cooks the roots. So be careful when you buy here: check the roots in the larger pots by pushing your finger down into the soil, or pop the plant out of the smaller containers. If the roots are brown and sodden looking, don’t buy. If they are so matted that you see no soil, ditto. Find out when the plants you want are delivered and get them fresh off the truck, or place an order for them and avoid having them sit out on the selling grounds. During bare root season the best fruit trees are always put aside for regular customers who phone ahead, so if you know what you want ahead of time request that selected trees be tagged for you. Be aware that some of the employees are very knowledgeable about plants and growing, while others know little or nothing — but will often offer opinions anyway — so find a manager if you have detailed questions. Overall, this is a good resource, as long as you buy with care. (It’s funny to see the complaints here about a certain female employee who has worked at SLG forever. She still works there, and is still unhelpful and not very polite, and never follows up on anything she says she will. The young woman who does the purchasing for Annie’s Annuals is reliable and personable. As I said, be careful who you consult.)

I was looking for a particular variety peach tree. It was February, the end of bare root season, and nobody had it from San Mateo to San Jose.
These guys did, though, and they were willing to mark it sold and wait for me to drive over the hill for it and were just very helpful all around. It was a top-​notch specimen at a price half of what I’d expected to pay. I planted it, admired it, and wanted to buy from them again – and so I went back a week or two later. A fig, a tart cherry, and a mandarin tree, and a year later, they’re all flowering and starting to fruit (those mandarins are about ready to pick). At a year old. Nice!

I’ve been a loyal customer of San Lorenzo Garden Center for decades! I love their variety of lesser know plants. Today, my husband and I went looking for bare-​root fruit trees. We received great advice and help from «Kate» in the yard, not only advising on how and when to prune the trees, but actually pruning them prior to leaving the store. It made it so much easier to transport. Plus she went and found several flyers from the store to help us once we took our trees home.
Above and beyond great job, Kate! Thank you!

Very knowledgeable and helpful staff. Medium priced, but quality merchandise. A high recommend if in SC

Planted my caleus today in the front yard, now i just need a fence to stop the wandering pets in the area. Was going to purchase them online but these guys gave me a good price for the moment and I was passing by, will be back thanks team!

I get that shoppers high when I buy plants so a visit here makes me happy.
Nice bonsai section! Haven’t bought any bonsai from here but maybe in the future.
Nice selection, some things seem expensive and some cheap. Got a nice size split leaf philodendron recently I’m pretty excited about.
Convenient location.
They got water pants.
They got trees.
idk what else to say. It my go to spot.

The nursery here is fantastic — a must stop during any trip to Santa Cruz!

Thanks to Larry for great customer service in the garden center!
He went out of his way to help me find and order a plant that I was looking for.

I appreciate the support I get from the staff. Unlike the «Depot» people know their job is to help the customer, and they do it with a smile on their face. The lay out takes a little getting used to, which is why I gave 4 stars.

I absolutely love the customer service you receive at this nursery.
I had interactions with 4 different staff on my trip here to buy Bareroot Roses for my Mom. All 4 staff members were extremely helpful and knowledgeable, but the 2 that really stand out was Tyler who was working in the Christmas Tree section and the Cashier Kate.
They definitely were very friendly and went above and beyond.
Thanks for all your help and making my shopping experience much smoother and happier.

Very big nursery and very knowledgable and helpful staff. Good selection. Only disappointment was that they lied about their return policy and I only got 50% back. Felt a bit ripped off.

ProBuild changed it’s name back to San Lorenzo Lumber

So new to the world of gardening! I can be a bit clueless when it comes to just about anything plant related, but ProBuild is starting to turn my thumbs green.
I have bought nearly a gazillion plants from here since the start of summer and will continue to do so because of the extensive selection, the impeccable organization of the nursery (seriously — whoever designed the layout is incredible, it is so easy to find everything), and knowledgeable staff. It can be a bit of a challenge to get some attention if you have questions, but when you are finally able to pull an employee away from a fellow gardener, you get amazing customer service. I always come with tons of questions about what I am buying and get them all answered every time. On my most recent visit, I was buying a friend a fern (ferns are new territory for me) and wanted to find a specific size, look, good for indoors etc. The lady helping me showed me every single fern she could think of that would work, which pots were good, which potting soil… everything. I thanked her, and was making a decision, when she ran up to me again because she had thought of three other choices in random display locations that she could show me! I really appreciated the afterthought.
Skip OSH and Home Depot (HD has really good staff though too) and stick with this local gem.

I needed to purchase a tree for my daughter’s birthday, and I live in Washington state. I called ProBuild Garden Center to see if they had the particular tree I wanted. Sheila answered the phone and really went the extra mile to help me. She even took pictures of the tree to send to me so I could see it. She was very helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable, a delight to work with! Next time we are visiting our daughter, I plan to go to ProBuild Garden Center and look her up, and thank her again for her help!

I like these folks a lot. Great selection of seeds and tools. Everything I need. Also I asked for a somewhat obscure cover crop mix and although they didn’t have it, the lady looked it up online to see what was in it, and which of those legumes they have so I could mix my own. It’s also nice to not have to explain what «organic» means, or not get strange looks when I say that I grow my own compost.
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update, January 2014: OK so I can buy my bare root cane berries here for less than half price of what I can get them locally. Yes, exactly the same canes, from the same supplier.
Also just got my bare root strawberries from here, including the delicious-​but-​perishable «seascape» variety. Also reasonably priced.
I like to that I can ask questions of everyone, including the cashiers, and they all know how to properly plant bare root strawberries and are happy to explain it to me even though it’s 3 minutes past closing.

Was looking for one-​stop shopping of organic upstarts to fill my Tower Garden. I needed 28 upstarts. I wanted organic and variety. I called first before driving up from Monterey to be sure it’d be worth my time. I spoke to Tyler B and he was more than helpful. I love it when people go the extra mile without having to plead with them to do so. He was extremely helpful, friendly and professional on the phone and I could feel the love. So, I headed up to make my purchase. The place is wonderful, the prices are very fair, the folks I encountered all had wonderful attitudes and seemed like they really wanted to be working there. I’ve already told two friends who own the Tower Garden in my area and they’ll be heading up soon.
So Ray, Mel or Nathalie… whichever of you is the boss… give that Tyler B a raise!

I drive to this nursery almost once every two weeks, or stop in whenever I am near Santa Cruz. The prices are better than in Menlo Park, the staff (except for one or two) EXTREMELY friendly. I love Kim and some of the guys whose name I have to learn. They are knowledgeable, and if they don’t know the answer the find someone else who does, or go look it up on line in their office or in one of their books. They have some really interesting plant selections you don’t find elsewhere either because they have access to local Santa Cruz growers who are doing interesting hybridization.
I am a nursery hopper because I love plants and gardening. I go everywhere from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay to Correlitos to shop, and Lumbermans is probably my top choice for plant variety, quality, knowledgeable staff, and fair prices. They also carry Gardener and Bloome products I cannot find in the Bay Area.
One wonderful young man even taught me how to set, spring, and use the gopher traps, another helped me with my grafting supplies, another with pruning. Except for the one crabby buyer someone else mentioned, I think they hire employees who enjoy people and enjoy sharing their gardening expertise. I have several personal favorite employees that I see have been mentioned here too (like the gentlemen handling bare root trees… he even told me out of print books to buy on composting and gardening. There is another woman who works in the flower department. I feel like they are my friends. XOXOX to everyone!!! I can’t wait til my next visit (in 3 days).