Bananalama Landscaping Ltd

It was a real pleasure to meet everyone involved. I found the team to be very courteous and capable and really appreciated that the job was done on time and to a very high standard. Looking forward to having some other work done by the team in future! Many thanks.

My mother had a terrible experience with this company, and I would like to highlight this to others.She employed Bananalama Ltd to landscape her property given their impressive web page, and apparent great reputation. However, the service she received was appalling. They constantly fobbed her off with hollow excuses, false promises, and long unplanned absences – I’m talking months, not days of being stood up. They left her property exposed for over a year allowing for some garden equipment to be stolen, and their standard of workmanship was poor and not to building code standards. This has now cost my mother thousands to remedy. We had mediation and they apologized profusely and said they would fix their mistakes, but despite this guarantee, made hardly any attempt to do so. Consumers are meant to be protected by statutory NZ laws but when breeched, unless you have deep pockets to mount a legal challenge, it is not enforceable. My mother is an elderly widow living on her own and they completely took advantage of her. This has caused her a great deal of distress and regretfully it has taken its toll on her physical health and confidence.Please don’t make the same mistake.Written by Cate Barrington-WardTo address Bananalama's response below:Whilst Bananalama claim to pride themselves in the quality of their workmanship, had their work been done as they seem to suggest, I would have no cause of concern or complaint. However, to claim that any of the work was done “in a timely manner” without long unplanned absences is a great distortion of the truth as neighbours can testify. Their hollow excuses even begun before the work started, with them not beginning the work until 3 months after it was due to start. That should have been a red flag, but my mother stuck with them as she had faith in their reputation. She has never undertaken any landscaping work before and believed in their false promises. She was initially pleased with their work as on the surface it looked good. However, their “few” issues along the way amount to over two pages long including, but not limited to, a leaking deck roof, cracked plasterwork, unseasoned timber being used to build a “pavilion” which turned out to be a black box with no circulation, a set of gates which blew down within a month of being erected (and which took them a year to mend), a large gaping hole where they removed a non-functioning spa on the first floor deck which they left for over six months barely covered by bits of plywood. This was particularly worrying as they knew her two-year-old granddaughter visited the property every week. They also left nails strewn over all the place. Other issues include their fixing of a balustrade that has now been deemed unsafe, the requested refurbishing of a small pool where now only half the jets work, the flooding of the garage 3 times due to their hard landscaping which had never been an issue in the past as the previous owners of 10 years can attest. I could easily go on and have photographic evidence to back all of this up. Bananalama never denied any of these issues at mediation, however despite being given over a year to rectify them they barely made any attempt to do so, and most of these issues remain or have had to be outsourced at my mother’s expense.With regards to their terms of trade and guarantees, by their own admission in mediation they breeched the Building Act by not issuing a written contract for the work, and they failed to give the statutory guarantees under the Consumer Guarantees Act. All of this has taken an extreme toll on my mother. She came to New Zealand in the hope of spending more time with her children and grandchild. Her only mistake, for which she has paid dearly, was wanting a nice garden to see her through old age and putting trust and faith in professionals who were said to be experienced with a good reputation.Written by Cate Barrington-Ward

Poor communication and average workmanship seem to be the motto here. Concreting good sure. But the landscaping? Below par and of poor quality.Don't respond to emails and don't give you any indication of how the final product will look.My best advice is to stay away!

EDITED: We were planningon cancelling our project after waiting over 7 months for work to begin. We understood delays were possible because of the effects of COVID, but the communication was so poor that we often had to email/call ourselves for updates on a project start date. Anytime there was a further delay, we were given excuses that ranged from staffing issues, COVID disruptions, misunderstanding of certain dates etc. The latter was the biggest red flag for us -Originally we were told verbally that work would begin in February/March, then this was apparently a misunderstanding, and it was corrected to April/May. They finally give a start date of May 23rd, but did not show the entire week. We asked what happened, and they said sorry, they thought that was a different week. This is not a good enough excuse - we expect you to mean what you say and after confusion and lack of communication around start dates, our confidence was lost at this point.Each time we called to complain, it always became a pity party for the company, with no consideration of how this affected the client and their lives. We lost confidence in their ability to do the work and in a time frame that was manageable for us.We adjusted oue original project to only include a retaining wall, which unfortunately was done incorrectly and is needing to be fixed now. Thankfully it looks as if this will be rectified quickly, but we are unlikely to use their services in the future.

Bananalama was a dream team.Thank you guys.Very hardworking, good communication.Great job, know what they are doing, friendly guys.Obliging and so polite and nice !Good with the details.We are So pleased with the results.Highly recommend.Thanks guysRob and CeciliaXx

They were the cheapest, but they took all the topsoil even though they were specifically told not to remove any soil and they built a wall in the wrong spt even though they had plans of where the wall was supposed to go. Avoid

They were supposed to turn up for a quote but never bothered to turn up or made contact.

Bananalama have done work for us in the past, putting down aggregate concrete in our side yard. They did an excellent job and we then contacted them to rebuild a retaining wall in 2018. The team have been fabulous to work with; they were very flexible as the design for the wall changed several times - they were very happy to accommodate us. The final result has been stunning. In 2019, we have again hired them to completely overhaul our back yard and build a new shed out the front of the house. Their ideas and designs have been great and the quality of the work excellent. They are great at keeping us informed. We highly recommend them.

Good communication and fantastic quality landscaping especially concrete and wood work! Thanks guys!