You have just had your dream landscape installed, and your beds are packed full with flowers that will delight you through all the seasons, fall is coming…so now what in the world are you to do with all of these new plants? What needs to be cut back? What do you leave for the winter?

Or maybe you just moved into your home and have absolutely no idea what is even in those landscape beds. Your lawn is seriously overgrown and filled with weeds. Why are some areas totally bare and some so overgrown? Is that going to bloom into a beautiful plant or is it a weed?

Have you lived at your home for a while, but have things just grown a little ‘out of control’? Or are you so overwhelmed with the day-to-day inside your business, that the outside of it has seen better days? We have all been there…the time got away from us and we just couldn’t keep up with mowing the lawn AND maintaining all of the plantings on our property. Where do you even begin?

Landscape maintenance is the key to having a yard that your neighbors envy or a curb appeal that impresses your clients. Whether you have an expertly installed outdoor living space, a simple business entrance landscape, or a modest backyard, if it is maintained well, your property will shine. Unfortunately, all that maintenance takes a whole lot of time and sometimes expertise and equipment. Landscaping companies provide a laundry list of services to their clients, so if you select a company to do it for you, what services do you actually need?

The ‘Bronze’ Level of Service

Great curb appeal really begins with the appearance of your lawn. Everyone longs for a lush, weed-free, green turf, but it is not easy to achieve on your own. Mowing a lawn can be a headache for both homeowners and property managers, as it not only consumes a good chunk of time each week, but it requires a person and the equipment to complete the job. The foundation of a maintenance program begins with first addressing the health of your turf.

What we would consider the bronze level of services includes weekly lawn mowing and line trimming, bi-weekly turf edging, 5 turf fertilizations, and seasonal property clean-ups. If your property does not have a whole lot of landscape beds or plantings, these few services should give your lawn and outdoor space the boost it needs. It will cut down on the time you need to spend working outdoors and allow for an expert to assess the health of your turf and address it with a fertilization program. This level of service is really focused on keeping your turf simply healthy and able to thrive. When hiring a landscape company to complete outdoor maintenance for you, these items are really necessary for you to reap the rewards of a lush landscape.

The ‘Silver’ Level of Service

No matter what your situation, one major key to having a landscape that looks neat and tidy is maintaining all of your plantings. This can be tricky as there are hundreds of thousands of plants and varieties on the market today. Why does your peony have brown spots on its leaves? Why won’t your roses grow larger? What is that gross bug on your bushes?

Plant and landscape care encompass everything on your property except for the lawn. Horticulture services such as trimming, weeding, and pruning really make the silver level of service a full property maintenance contract. If you have very few plantings on your property, you probably do not need a company to maintain them, the few minutes of pruning, trimming, or weeding you need to do may be worth it to save a bit of money.

However, if you are struggling with the health of some of your plants or have several landscape beds or plantings, it may be worth it to have a professional offer their expertise and maintain the landscape as well as the turf. The silver level of service combines turf and seasonal services with horticulture services.

The ‘Gold’ Level of Services

Each client and each property is totally unique. If your weekend cottage is on Lake Leelanau, you may need your beach groomed weekly, so that after a long week of work, you can dive right into the water without having to deal with raking away the seaweed, rocks, and shells that have washed up. If you absolutely love annual flowers, but you just don’t have the time in your busy schedule to fill your planters, we are happy to help.

It is such a pain to have to call several different contractors to deal with power washing your deck, raking your beach, or sealing your patio. If a landscape company has a laundry list of services they are pushing at you, they may not be the right fit. Some properties simply do not need all the maintenance services that are offered! Do not hesitate to ask for specifics about what each service being offered to you is and specifically why it would work for your property.

The gold level of maintenance service would include whichever of these services are applicable to your property: hardsurface cleaning and clearing (removal of trash from parking lots, removal of weeds in hard surfaces), annual installation, mulch and compost installation, landscape bed edging, tree circle edging, container garden planting, beach raking and grooming, summer foliage spray, deep root plant fertilization, dormant oil, burlap installation and removal, invasive species removal, pest removal, irrigation start-up and winterization, irrigation repairs, patio sealing, and more. Working with your landscape company of choice to determine which of these services would really enhance your property is important. The gold level of services essentially ensures that you are spending very little time working outside on your property; the maintenance team does the heavy lifting so you have time to relax and enjoy your space!

Ready to have the best-looking property on the block in Grand Traverse or Leelanau County, MI? If so, meet with our team of experts, choose a solution to improve your property, and get ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy your beautiful outdoor space.