I live in West Covina and normally go to Chino to pick up soil. This day I was in a time crunch knowing I will need to make 3 trips. So I decided to go to Cal Blends (much closer to me). Normally don't write reviews but after reading all the reviews I am deciding to. Let me be as fair as possible. All 3 ladies I dealt with in the sales office were as nice as I needed them to be! The young lady driving the tractor was very skilled and nice. Maybe this place would be good for rock and wood mulch products. However I do not recommend it for soils. First off and least important, I paid $12 more for 1-1/2 yards of the compost soil blend. Most important the mix I got was poor quality. You can see their soil in the picture. It is the lighter grayish color around the perimeter of the dirt area. The lack of brown color means it is low in nitrogen. It is very sandy with tiny rocks. The middle of the area is my old dirt which is much more rich and healthy without being touched for at least 10 years. As a matter of fact 10 years ago when planting grass in this same section I needed a little more soil before I laid my sod so I came to Cal Blends for the first time. Again close to my home. My dad noticed right off it has a greenish gray color (not brown) and almost a eucalyptus smell to it. I can say it didn't make a negative difference for the newly laid sod. Fast forward to last week I can immediately see the difference in quality compared to my old existing dirt. I have read their responses saying they only use soil and leafy products in their mix. Not true. There is a lot of sand and tiny rock mixed in as filler too. The tiny rock I am talking about is almost the kind found in cactus mix from drainage. Another concern I have (for sure my OCD) is the scoops they use on their tractor. I ordered (3) 1/2 yard scoops. The scoops are bigger than 1/2 yard so they have to eye ball it. It's not filled. They do it for a living so I am sure they are pretty close. I just don't know if that's what I am leaving with. I unloaded 8 wheelbarrows full the first load, 6 loads on the second and 5 on the last trip. I guess that's just me being dumb and probably not a big deal but I am used to the place in Chino that has a small scoop for their 1/2 yard which is full and heaping for $4 less. Again they seem to be a great family and even a fun place to work but the soil just lacks. I am a two time customer over ten years and like one of their responses to another review I would agree that "their soil products have not changed and have stayed consistent over the years." read more

Cal Blend Soils - Amended soil mix - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

Excellent service, excellent product (better product than expected, actually)! They were all too kind in doing their best to accommodate my needs. I will definitely be back soon. Thank you so much, Cal Blend Soils crew! read more

I'm very disappoint in the Garden soil I purchased recently. I've ordered here about 10 years ago and the quality was great. But whatever amendments they are using now is horrible. It's also not 70% amendment, made mainly of mulch and some medium bark, lots of gravel. First of all I ordered 3 yards, but when delivered looked more closer to 2 yards. I've waited for over 2 months to see how good the soil so I can give a honest feedback. This soil is BAD for all my plants!! I noticed after adding the the soil and repotting some fruit trees, all the leaves started turning yellow. The new branches are short and very few flowers. Every year my fruit trees thrive with just some fertilizer, but after using this soil it has stunned its growth. All my seedlings are also dying. I don't know what cheap amendments they are using now , but what ever it is , it will hurt your plants. I am so disappointed and will never buy from here again. read more

Popped in for topsoil, wow Great selection of soil toppers and the staff super knowledgeable, gave Great advice based on what I explained as the issue with my lawns. Good value and excellent customer service! read more

We got 2 cubic yards of certified playground chips from Cal Blend to cover up a dirt area in the backyard so kids could play. Everything from initial quote to setting up delivery to actual delivery and product was excellent. Price is very reasonable and product exceeded my expectations. Thanks Cal Blend! read more

Cal Blend Soils - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

Fast, friendly, and honest. I called for a quote and they were able to give me a quote from the phone. However, they suggested to come to the yard to make sure we got the correct size rock. Originally we wanted 3-4 inches Mexican beach pebble. I'm glad we went, we really wanted 1-2 inch Mexican beach pebble. read more

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NIce place to check out rocks and mulch. Looks like they are not open to the public but they are. read more

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I had a bad experience with these guys. I previously posted a negative review about the quality of the soil we received (like many others here, nothing would grow in the soil we ordered, even after heavy amendment). I suspect there is something in the leaf post that does not allow plants to grow, as it smells very very strongly (cedar/eucalyptus type smell). The owner's response was to insist that the soil I bought was filler only and needed to be amended. When I let him know that we had added compost, vermiculite, potting soil etc and that the rest of our garden was thriving outside of their soil, he said he needed to come to my house to see what I was doing wrong. Immediate red flag. We had to remove all of the poor Cal Blend soil ourselves and replace it at our own expense, and Cal Blend refused a refund so I ended up settling the issue with my credit card and thought that was that. What led me to repost a negative review all these months later is the realization that Cal Blend delivered *WAY* less soil than promised. We ordered 10 cubic yards from Cal Blend, which had to be removed after killing our plants. This delivery is the first picture. We then ordered 9 cubic yards from a competitor as a replacement. LOOK HOW MUCH MORE SOIL THERE IS than the "10 cubic yards" delivered by Cal Blend. What a rip off. Avoid ordering garden soil from these guys at all costs. Their mulch seems to be ok, although I would be suspicious of quantities. read more

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Great service. Informative and helpful over the phone. Showed up exactly when promised. Delivered in a clean and considerate way. Good selection. read more

This established, family owned business answered all of my amateur questions with patience and expertise. When they didn't have the exact item I needed, they directed me to another local business. The service was outstanding and prices were excellent. I highly recommend them. read more

Their garden mix is not soil. It is sand and mulch. I was told this was primarily made of organic matter, that it had a nitrogen compound added (which sounds suspect, upon reflection), and that it is exactly what I needed for my vegetable garden. All of this proved to be false, which is why the gardeners who left reviews here saw no plant growth and yellowing leaves. It also explains why another gardener reported in a Google review that the soil had no nitrogen. Luckily, I only bought a half a cubic yard. Unluckily, I read the reviews after I had spread it over my cover crop that I had recently cut down and dropped on my soil. After reading the reviews, I tested the garden mix, and while it had a neutral to slightly acidic ph and plenty of phosphorous, it had absolutely no nitrogen. I made a 5:1 water to soil solution for my soil tests, and when the soil settled at the bottom of the container, I saw that it was sand and rocks. I have clay soil in my garden plot, and if it were to mix with sand, it would become even less porous. This means in order to salvage my plot, I'll need to remove this garden mix, my cover crop, and any soil it mixed with in the process. I don't know if I can also call this luck, since I'll have to do a heck of a lot of work to fix this (if it is fixable, which I hope it is), but I'm glad I caught this issue before I planted. I was told this was primarily made of organic matter and that it's good for vegetables. It is not primarily made of organic matter, and it should in no way be used for vegetables. Even if the price is appealing, either save up for real soil or make your own compost to amend what you have. Do not purchase soil from here. Read the reviews carefully. The positive reviews are for customer service and mulch, not soil. I hope they can make good on their customer service reputation, at the least. read more

Cal Blend Soils - pH test showing slight acid (maybe neutral) soil. Tests were working properly. - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

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Can't recommend Cal Blend enough! We called not knowing exactly what we needed (or how much we needed) and Kristen was absolutely delightful and wonderfully informative. We had soil on our driveway 2 hours later! read more

Cal Blend Soils - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

The experience with Cal Blend Soils was first rate. Called late on Friday; they'd gone for the day but I left a message. They called Saturday morning. The lady understood that I wanted bark mulch, quoted me a price and a delivery time. They called to say the driver was on his way, and the driver was friendly and backed the truck into the drive in order to dump on the tarps I laid down. A communicative, professional and a reasonably priced place to buy mulch. I will use these guys again. read more

The lady's there are very rude!! They talk to you as if they're doing you a favor!! Also never deliver on time .. also when you speak to them on the phone they're not very courteous and hang up the phone abruptly without kindly saying thank you or goodbye.., read more

Kristen and Sally are so wonderful and helpful. Answered our questions and very accommodating to our needs

Ordered super fine mulch from here via the phone and it was delivered the next day! This is the only place that has it for a reasonable price. Delivery was on time and driver was courteous. Delivery was $90 though, wished it wasn't so expensive read more

I don't know why we've waited so long to refresh our mulch when it is so easy! Reasonable prices, helpful service on the phone, and our driver Juan somehow managed to land a giant dump truck of mulch exactly onto our driveway and tarp without getting any of it onto our gravel. He was very patient and careful. read more

We love coming here for mulch! It is way cheaper to load a truck up with a few scoops of locally sourced mulch Thani is to buy it per bag at Home Depot. Plus, it feels much better to support a family owned and run business. The customer service here is great! read more

Cal Blend Soils - Glorious mulch! - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

What a great company! I needed bulk materials (gravel, mulch, rock and DG) for a landscaping project at my home. Sandy and Kristin in the office helped me figure out how much I needed and were helpful with all of my questions. The delivery drivers were friendly and super helpful and did a great job placing the materials on my driveway! I highly recommend Cal Blend Soils!! read more

This place is great. They have a great selection of soils. They answered my questions about soil types and composting, plus they deliver. Needless to say I will go back. read more

Cal Blend Soils - Delivered to my front lawn. Good service. - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

This is the best place to get your soil and your landscape needs !!! Just left this place this morning and this makes this three trips !!! And Everytime I come by to pick up more soil I really appreciate the help and friendly and helpful service they give you is outstanding !! Customer for life and I will tell everyone where to get there soil at !!! Thanks Cal blend !!! read more

I order cedar mulch from this company. They can help you with the amount of mulch you need, give them the measure of the space you will plan to add mulch. Very happy with the quality of their cedar much. It has an orange bright color (compared to the cedar chips I got from when the tree guys trim my tree and gave me some shredded chips). Hope there was no color added. Booking the delivery was also easy but call a head a week in advance you can pay by noon the day prior of delivery. $49 per cubic yard and $80 delivery fee to Monrovia. Thought that delivery fee was pretty high and they tax on delivery fee too. read more

Such a great company to do business with. Super friendly staff, lots of quality soils to choose from. Very fast from order to delivery.

This was my second time ordering from them. First time, I would give them 5 stars, but the second time, they were less than pleasurable. I ordered 1400 sq ft of grass and I asked the lady (she sounded like an older lady) what she would recommend to mix with our native soil and she said 8 cubic yards without raising everything. I took her recommendation since I had no clue. The delivery truck came on the same day as he was suppose to, but ended up just running over all my sprinklers, pipes, and everything. My mom then told him to be careful and mindful of the sprinklers and he just gave my mom attitude and ended up driving the entire lawn to dump it at the end. Then he made us sign a invoice that we received it and on the invoice, it says in fine print "not responsible for broken sprinklers, etc etc". If they disclosed that first, I would have had them dump it on the driveway. That should have mentioned to us first. Already a bad start. The sod came a few days later. Cal Blend actually sells them as a middleman and Pacific Sod was the actual seller and delivery guy. They came in and was very polite, asked us where we want the sod and they delivered everything on site wherever I wanted. He was very careful and big plus to Pacific Sod and their employee. He handed me the invoice before he got started which had all their disclaimers, the proper way of doing it, not AFTER. My contractors started to prep the land to lay the sod and noticed we just have way too much amendments/fertilizer. He said we should have had only 2 cubic yard, but Cal Blend recommended 8. Even after covering my entire front yard, all the rose bushes, the entire back yard, and any place where we had soil, we still probably had 5 cubic yards left. We still literally had a mountain of fertilizer. So we ended up giving it away to the contractors so they can haul it away. I called Cal Blends about this and they said "oh that's good stuff! Ask your neighbors to pick some up for their yards, it's good for them!" Fair enough, but when I asked what you recommend for 1400 sq ft of sod and you gave me a number 3x the amount, that's just total BS and I spent 3x the amount I should have. Then comes billing. The invoice says $295 or so and I got charged for $315. They said they made an error and it should have been $20 extra for shipping (Keep in mind shipping was already $100 for 3x of fertilizer I didn't need). Well, that was your bad, not mine. I called them about this and the girl said "it wasn't me, I'll leave a message and the person who took your order will call you back." Guess what, nobody called me back, nobody apologized, nobody offered me a partial refund. I really did like this company a couple years ago when I ordered over 2000 sq ft of sod with them, but this time around was enough for me to start shopping around for someone else. I do NOT recommend these guys and their service has dropped since. read more

Minus one for the insanely rude receptionist in the office. We came to run an errand for my uncle, who is a regular here. We asked for red bark chips and she snapped at us and said, "You mean gorilla fuzz?" with an attitude. We said sure, since we described it and she again got snarky and insisted we call it gorilla fuzz. We take the ticket to one of the loaders and he comes back with mossy-looking stuff, which is not what we ordered. It took three tries to get what we were asking for, thanks to her. Thankfully, the man loading it was insanely helpful and friendly and didn't lose his patience with us. He let us know where to back up the truck and made sure we were getting what we wanted. A+ for him being awesome! read more

Follow Up Review After leaving 1-star, I was contacted by Nancy and Mike (owner). Mike visited and examined the soil and my plants with yellow leaves. He offered a bag of Nitrogen to address the yellow leave issue. I applied the Nitrogen to every single plants in the raised bed. More than one week passed, the yellow leaves started turning a little green. However, the plants has aged so much, they missed the growth period. I got rid of most of them, then planted new vegetables with the Nitrogen. After another week, the new vegetables seem to grow normally. The result confirmed the soil I purchased from CalBlend was missing Nitrogen. The question is why the soil delivered to me was missing Nitrogen? Do they have quality control? I missed most of the growing season for summer vegetables. Wasted my time and money. Who will cover my loss? Plus every time I plant I have to add Nitrogen. I purchased garden soil numerous time from Homedepot, why they NEVER had any issue? I do not need to add Nitrogen ( Nitrogen might have been mixed with the soil). I give 4-star to appreciate the owner's visit and offered a temp solution. I could have given 5-star if the solution is complete and my loss is addressed. Original Review Having looked at the two 5-star review, I ordered 5-yard Garden Mix With Bio Start recommended by Calblend for my organic vegetable garden. The soil was delivered in a truck load. My initial impression was really positive - looks and smells really good. Specially the smells - it has nice mulch scent. I moved the soil to my raised bed which has newly built PVC irrigation system. After thoroughly watering the soil for one week, I planted the same purchased plants, tomato, cucumber, pepper, cilantro, watermelon, squash. Since I grow these vegetables every year, I know how to grow them well. Every year, I harvest lots of them. After a few days I noticed my squash leaves turned yellow. I thought maybe the fertilizer mixed in was not enough, I added adequate quantity bought from homedepot. The yellowish continues. Then I noticed cucumber and watermelon also turned slight yellow. Hundreds of small mushroom started to grow in the soil. The worst of all, after three weeks, none of my vegetables grow much! I spent four hand bucks on the soil delivered and they do not grow vegetables. It is a complete waste. I bought different garden or vegetable soil from Home Depot over the years, my vegetables always grow well. It is my bad choice to buy soil from Calblend! read more

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UPDATE: Cal Blends went out of their way to win me back as a satisfied customer. Their customer service team could not have been more helpful, and I would not hesitate to work with them again in the future. I purchased 4 cubic yards of "garden mix" from Cal Blends and had it delivered in October. I used the soil for my winter vegetable seedlings; kale, chard, lettuce, mustard greens, etc. Nothing grew. Nothing. At first I thought it was not enough hours of sun? (these planters are in a new location). I put a few of the chard seedlings into a pot with another brand of potting soil right next to the planters of dying seedlings in Cal Blend and they grew very well. I STILL would not have believed that the Cal Blends soil was to blame (who sells soil that kills your plants?) except for the other reviewer who had the same experience. That is why I am posting this review. I am an experienced gardener and I thought I that I must have done something terribly wrong to loose my entire winter crop, plus everything else that i amended with the CB soil. I am one unhappy customer, waiting to hear how they intend to make this right. Refunding my money would help... read more

Cal Blend Soils - Chard seedlings in soil from my previous residence after one month. - Nurseries & Gardening Near Me - Irwindale, California

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I had a problem with Cal Blends Garden soil also. It was horrible and nothing would grow in it. When watered it became hard and formed a thick crust on the top that would not allow water to soak in or plants to grow. The owner came out and tried to convince me that it was fine and brought a zip-lock bag of fertilizer to mix in our very large raised bed. It did not help and after a 1-2 years of mixing in other soils and composts I gave up and removed the dirt. When I called back after removing the soil to explain this to them and ask for a credit they refused. Previous to this delivery I had used their garden soil and it was fine. I was surprised that they would not give me a credit. read more

This place is a gardeners dream come true. I told them what I was planting and they created a custom blend of soil just for me and my picky plants. I have ordered soil in the past from other places and it's a total crap shoot, you never know what you're really going to get, the guy dumps it on your property and drives off leaving you with a pile of junk. When the soil arrived from Cal Blend I was blown away. It is sooooo much better than I imagined. The staff is incredibly friendly and the driver was professional and pleasant. I will order from them again and again. I love this place. read more

Went to the place, very nice staff. Very imformative. Ordered soil twice and was extremely satisfied with service and promptness. Will definitely recommend and order again when needed. read more

Highly recommend Cal Blend Soils. We purchased topsoil blend and have it delivered to our front lawn. The price is reasonable and the service is friendly and professional. We did not know what soil we should get, and they recommended the best topsoil blend for our need. We grew our lawn from seeds and built a little flower island using the topsoil. The result came out great. read more

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Received mulch and compost from here last year and the plants are thriving. Will be ordering again from them soon.

Great company! Quality soil sold in bulk l, I just roll up in my truck and leave with a bed full of soil. Love this place.

I always get my products for landscape here, costumer service is excellent, Irma and the rest of the team!!! five stars.

Couldn't be happier with their products and service. They have a huge selection of all kinds of stuff and the employees are really nice to deal with. I went there because they has a impressive website compared to most other landscape type suppliers. read more

The organic soil is bogus. I suspect it's excavated from some basement and then mixed with a scoop of organic miracle grow. It is awful stuff with more of a gravel appearance when it is wet down. Won't grow veggies. It hardens up with water,even when amended with compost. Steer clear and don't throw your $120 away like I did. read more

They have the best hours manure compost blend! my vegetables grow so well and it inproves the flavor!

After looking all over for great big chunky bark chips I stumbled on this place. They had very reasonable prices for this hard-to-find product, and Irma (Erma?) in customer service was GREAT and really helpful on the phone. What I really appreciated was that unlike EVERY OTHER place I have ever ordered a large item delivered from, they actually LISTENED when I explained that I live atop a narrow, winding street and a big truck wouldn't fit. Within two days they had sent a truck that was just the right size, and their super-friendly and helpful driver had dropped it off right where I wanted it. The whole experience was painless, relatively inexpensive, and fast. I will definitely be ordering more from them in the future, instead of making ten trips to Home Depot or whatever. read more

The landscaping world in Southern California is a real mixed bag of quality, reliability, knowledge and fairness. The wide range of all of the above is dramatic. If you need anything that Cal Blend Soils provides look no further. This place is great and they are by far the best providers of naturally composted mulch. And they can mix up a special combinations of different types and size chips. Mike the owner is extremely fair and friendly and Jennifer was helpful and patient. I'll say it again, if Cal Blend Soils provides what you need look no further. read more

Cal Blend Soil rocks! No pun intended. They know their dirt. If you have a yard you will need them sooner or later.