As spring gives way to summer, the time has come to turn our attention back to the care of our lawns.
This is particularly crucial for commercial properties, where the expanse of landscaping often dwarfs that of residential yards. Diligent maintenance, scrutinizing every inch, is essential to ensuring that your lawn remains lush and vibrant throughout the warmer months.
In this regard, selecting the right lawn service companies with experience maintaining large-scale lawns on commercial properties is essential. These professionals understand the timelines and scope of lawn care and can take proactive measures to keep it green.
In this post, we’ll explore the scope of lawn care on a commercial property and discuss eight tips to help you choose the best law-cleanup services for your commercial property. Read on!
What Is the Scope of Lawn Care on Commercial Properties?
Lawns on commercial properties may be more extensive or numerous than those on domestic properties. As such, the only difference in care that makes a major impact is the scale of lawn maintenance operations.
Commercial property maintenance will begin a little earlier, and additional manpower may be required to complete the project within the season’s window.
The following aspects cover the scope of work for a commercial lawn:
- Lawn Mowing: Commercial properties require a well-manicured and neat look for their lawns. Frequent lawn mowing is necessary to achieve this. Factors like the grass type, growth rate, and seasonal changes determine the frequency.
- Fertilization: Fertilization promotes healthy lawn grass growth and supports its resistance to wilting. The frequency of fertilization, including the type of fertilizer required, may be different to keep commercial lawns green.
- Weed Control: Aesthetic appeal is an important factor in commercial lawns, for which regular weed control is essential. The lawn care professionals may use herbicides or weed removal tools to achieve the desired look for the lawn.
- Aeration: Lawns on commercial properties may experience more soil compaction than average. For this reason, periodic aeration is necessary to allow the lawn to breathe and recuperate. Typically, aeration gets done yearly, but it may be needed frequently for high-traffic areas.
- Overseeding: Thin and bare patches on commercial laws do little to contribute to the aesthetics. For this reason, overseeding may be required to make the grass denser where it is thinning out. This is especially true for the high-traffic areas on commercial properties where the grass wears out quickly.
- Irrigation Management: Irrigation management is a crucial concern on commercial properties because it is essential to avoid water runoff on these busy properties. For this, a detailed irrigation plan and techniques may be required.
- Pest and Disease Management: Commercial lawns are more susceptible to pests and diseases that may ruin the look of the landscape. As such, periodic examination to keep these detrimental factors under control is an essential scope of work for commercial lawn care.
- Seasonal Lawn Clean-up Services: Seasonal clean-up services are the common denominator for all lawn care. They involve removing fallen leaves, debris, and other organic matter from the lawn to keep it neat and aesthetic.
- Landscape Enhancement or Repair: Commercial properties require more landscaping enhancements and repairs than domestic properties. This includes incorporating seasonal flower beds, adding water features, or other aesthetics to the lawn that suit the premises’ theme.
8 Tips to Choose Commercial Property Maintenance Services for Lawns
Selecting the best lawn care service requires some prior homework.
The following factors ensure you enlist the most proficient and professional lawn service companies to oversee commercial property maintenance.
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Understand Climate Dynamics
The first aspect you must consider is how well lawn care professionals understand the link between climate and lawn troubles.
For example, they should be able to tell you how temperature, seasonal weeds, and other climatic aspects can negatively affect your commercial lawns.
The lawn care companies you are considering should be able to give you a detailed picture of what happens to lawns during various seasons. Getting a detailed seasonal lawn care plan with them is vital before commencing work.
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Check for Accreditation
It helps to check whether the agency you select has the proper certifications for the job. For example, the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association certifies various landscaping aspects, such as horticulture, clean plant certification, and more.
This ensures that the practices that the professionals use are beneficial in the long term and promote the health of your landscape overall.
Certifications are a great way to establish the reliability of your lawn care service providers.
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Prioritize Sustainability
Commercial lawn care requires using fertilizers and other treatment products in bulk. In such situations, it is essential to ensure that the materials your lawn care provider uses are sustainably sourced and friendly for the environment and your lawn.
Using too many chemicals may render the soil unhealthy in the long term, whereas opting to use organic fertilizers and natural ways to keep the lawn healthy is more eco-friendly.
Please inquire about the agency’s sustainability practices to ensure they align with your values. Ask about their use of organic or environmentally friendly fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Inquire about their water management practices, such as irrigation systems that minimize water waste.
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Tailor Solutions to Your Needs
Each lawn and landscape is unique, with properties and soil widely different from the next. What works for one commercial lawn may not work for another. This is critical to address with your potential lawn care providers—to understand whether they create customized care plans for commercial lawns.
This includes setting up irrigation needs, using special equipment or fertilizers depending on the type of soil in the area, and measuring sun exposure and drainage conditions to provide the best treatment and solutions for the lawn.
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Communication and Responsiveness
It is best to partner with lawn service companies where professionals are open to communication and are responsive to your queries.
For example, in common emergency situations on commercial lawns, such as rodents tunnelling underneath your turf, your request for contingency services should be promptly answered and taken care of.
It helps to have a proactive lawn care company taking care of the schedules for fertilization, weeding, lawn preparation, etc.
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Prioritize Worker Safety
Although this aspect is a bit indirect, it helps to check whether the commercial lawn service provider has the necessary employee insurance and adequate liability coverage.
Accidents might happen when using lawn care equipment, and the lawn service company’s insurance would protect your commercial establishments from liability.
Especially if heavy equipment is involved in modifying landscaping or even using powered lawn mowers, ensure that all safety precautions are being observed.
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Ensure Reliability
It is important to understand that the lawn service companies you have shortlisted maintain their equipment well. For example, dull mower blades can cause the grass to shear instead of being cut neatly, making it lose its luster and health over time.
A well-maintained set of equipment also ensures that the professionals have the tools they need ready, eliminating delays or disruptions caused by lawn care.
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Seek Clarity
Before finalizing your decision, it is a good idea to ask a few critical questions about the lawn service companies:
- Can they provide services on demand if you require them?
- What are their practices to minimize water and plastic waste (generated from fertilizer packaging)?
- How does the company manage the waste from lawn care (like dry leaves and cut grass)?
Knowing the answers to these questions helps you understand the nature of the services—whether the company is closing the loop on sustainability or just talking about it.
Dependable Lawn: Lush Lawns Made Possible at Scale
When thinking about commercial lawn care at its core, it isn’t different from caring for a domestic lawn. However, the scale of the lawn and operations is more significant, so selecting the best lawn care service is vital.
Use the guide above to narrow your choices to the area’s most suitable lawn service companies. If you are in Oakville, consider Dependable Lawn for commercial lawn care.
The seasoned experts at Dependable Lawn follow the best and most sustainable practices for delivering exemplary results for large lawns on commercial properties. Their niche knowledge comes from their hard yards and long experience in the industry, which gives them a deep understanding of how things work.
To learn more, contact Dependable Lawn today!