While there are a number of important factors to consider – your property’s budget, recommendations from peers, communication, safety practices, experience with similar properties – there is nothing more important than understanding the landscape company’s capabilities. Does the prospective landscape company offer integrated landscape services? In other words, are they equipped to handle your property’s irrigation and fertilization program in addition to performing the regular maintenance services like mowing and trimming?
Here’s why an integrated landscape service program is essential to deliver the results you are looking for in your property’s landscaping.
A landscaping company that offers “mow, blow, and go” service is only addressing one-third of what’s necessary for a healthy and beautiful landscape. This leaves you responsible for the other two essential elements – irrigation and fertilization. An integrated service program addresses the week-to-week maintenance needs that keep the landscape looking manicured, while planning for the long-term health of your property’s landscaping. Healthy-looking, thriving, and vibrant landscaping is dependent on reliable and regular access to water and regular fertilization and pest management applications. Landscaping companies that neglect irrigation and fertilization are not as invested in your property’s success as a company that develops and delivers an integrated landscape service plan.
Integrated landscape services require a landscaping company to be accountable for everything that grows on your property. When your landscaper is responsible for maintenance, irrigation, and fertilization, there’s no one else to blame when the results don’t meet expectations. If your landscape company is performing maintenance, you have another contractor handling the irrigation system, and then a third that is responsible for fertilization and chemical applications, where do you point the finger when something goes wrong? Was the turf cut too short? Was there an irrigation zone that wasn’t working? Wrong chemical applied? Most property managers I know don’t have the time to mediate a problem like that, they just need it fixed, and fixed quickly.
The capabilities required of a landscape contractor that delivers integrated services are far greater than those of a maintenance-only company, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that to find a capable landscape company you have to look for the largest landscape company in your area. Many commercial landscape companies include irrigation and fertilization specialists among their staff. During your landscape maintenance proposal process, ask about the contractor’s capabilities beyond mowing. If they don’t offer irrigation and fertilization, or they are subcontracting those essential services, be very wary of the results that they will be able to deliver for your property’s landscape.
Interested in seeing what an integrated landscape service plan could do for your property? Find Your Local AO and speak with one of our landscape professionals today.
