Friday, December 13

Checklist For Landscape Maintenance

Just like the interior of your home, you need landscape maintenance all year-round. Some tasks need to be frequently completed- weekly or bi-weekly- and some that are larger for once a season or once a year. It can be difficult to keep track of everything you need to do for lawn maintenance, so we’ve created this lawn maintenance checklist to keep you on track.

A lawn care checklist helps you to keep track of the following tasks, needed for lawn maintenance.

Lawn Care

  • Weekly Mowing
  • This is an essential activity for any commercial landscape, as an overgrown, neglected lawn will create a negative first impression on the minds of your customers.
  • Blow Away Debris and Loose Clippings
  • Don’t let fallen leaves, loose grass clippings, and stray flower petals make your property look messy. Use professional-grade blowers to keep everything clean.
  • Edging Curbs and Beds
  • Edging will make everything look crisp and sharp and give a neatly trimmed appearance to your lawn.

Shrub and Tree Maintenance

  • Regular Pruning
  • Pruning is when you cut away dead or overgrown branches or stems. Regular pruning helps to keep shrubs and trees at a specific size, that is safe for your visitors and gives your lawn a more appealing look.
  • Pest and Disease Inspection
  • Inspect trees and shrubs for apparent signs of insects and diseases which can cause damage to them.

When spring start up is over, our landscape maintenance season begins. Summer is a time of maintenance including, trimming lawns, maintaining and repairing irrigation, and keeping properties looking great.

During the summer, we provide weekly service. The goal during the summer is to keep properties looking clean and polished as well as ensure plant material is healthy. Our account managers and quality control manager visit properties regularly to ensure nothing is getting missed or needs to be addressed.

We’ve listed the primary landscape maintenance tasks that should be done in summer to keep the landscaping looking great.

  • □ Mow and edge lawn areas
  • □ Clean up debris and garbage
  • □ Maintain and repair irrigation systems
  • □ Adjust irrigation schedules for hotter, drier weather
  • □ Deadhead flowering perennials
  • □ Prune back overgrown plants, as needed
  • □ Hedge shrubs, as needed
  • □ Maintain water features
  • □ Spray and remove weeds, as needed
  • □ Look for and control insect and vertebrate pests
  •  

Have every eye on your commercial property with pops of plant color. These are some of the top things to look at when it comes to maintaining that color, so make sure they are on your checklist:

  • Deadhead: Do the plants need to be deadheaded to encourage blooming?
  • Weeds: Are there weeds surrounding your foliage?
  • Health: Do the plants look healthy, or are they wilting or looking discolored?
  • Moisture: Does the soil or mulch feel damp, or is it dried out?

There are several native and adaptive plant varieties perfect for the DC area that will add visual interest, while also requiring less water. Your commercial landscaper will be able to tell you which plants will and won’t work for your property.

  • Tune Up Lawn Maintenance Equipment

During the time of idleness, it can be hard to start your equipment and tools and you may experience stuck-ups. But, this doesn’t mean that you should replace them with new ones.

The best course of action now is to tune all of your equipment and tools by changing oil, checking oil levels, and filling it, assess spark plug and filter.

  • Put on a Fresh Layer of Mulch

Mulch is a practical and effective way of nourishing your soil and maintaining moisture. But, before you stack them on the ground, make sure to clean the area first and remove the faded mulch. Then, apply weed blockers (if you are using one) and spread fresh mulch on your soil.

  • Pruning and Cutting Shrubs and Excess Tree Branches

Because the New Year is a season of fresh beginnings, you need to be wary of pruning shrubs and trees. Pruning is ideal for general maintenance but be careful of over-pruning. Over-pruning causes stress to your plants.