Landscape Maintenance
Landscape maintenance for homes and HOAs
The same crew every visit, pruning done to the plant rather than to the hedge trimmer, and your irrigation checked every time.
The same crew, every visit
You get one crew and one foreman who know your property, your dog and which gate sticks. Not whoever was available that morning.
Irrigation checked every visit
Heads, leaks and coverage checked at each service and reported. Most of our customers' water savings come from this, not from the mowing.
Pruned to the plant
Natural-form shrubs are hand-pruned, not sheared. Trees are pruned to ANSI A300 standards. No topping, no crape murder.
There is a reason the phrase mow and blow exists. A crew arrives, cuts everything at the same height, runs a hedge trimmer over shrubs that were never meant to be hedges, blows the debris into the street and leaves in eleven minutes. Two years later the shrubs are woody shells with green only on the outside, the roses have not been pruned properly since they went in, and nobody has looked at the irrigation once.
Maintenance done properly is horticulture on a schedule. It costs somewhat more per visit and considerably less over five years, because you are not replacing plant material that was destroyed by the people you were paying to look after it.
What is included in a standard visit
Every residential maintenance visit covers the following, and the crew leaves a service note.
- Mow, edge and line-trim all turf areas; blades kept sharp and height set for the season
- Hand-prune and shape shrubs as each species requires, rather than shearing everything to the same shape
- Weed all beds, hardscape joints and gravel areas by hand
- Blow and clean all hardscape, then remove green waste from the property
- Walk the irrigation: check for broken or misaligned heads, obvious leaks and dry spots, and report anything needing repair
- Seasonal adjustments to the controller as evapotranspiration changes through the year
The North County maintenance calendar
Our seasons do not look like the ones in the maintenance textbooks. The growth peak is spring, the stress peak is late summer, and January is when a lot of the important work happens.
- January – February: dormant pruning for roses and deciduous fruit; the main structural pruning window for most trees; pre-emergent for summer weeds
- March – April: the big growth flush; mowing goes weekly; feed turf and citrus; last window for planting before heat
- May – June: marine layer season, so watch for powdery mildew and rust; raise mowing height; begin stepping irrigation up
- July – September: peak evapotranspiration and peak stress. Deep, infrequent watering, minimal pruning, and vigilance on irrigation faults, because this is when a broken zone kills things in three days
- October – November: Santa Ana season. Fire clearance, thinning cuts on anything wind-catching, and the best planting window of the year as soil is still warm and rain is coming
- December: cut irrigation back hard, clean gutters and drains before the storms, mulch top-up
Residential, HOA and commercial
About two-thirds of our maintenance work is residential: weekly or bi-weekly service on properties from a quarter acre up to five-acre groves in Bonsall and Fallbrook.
The rest is HOA common area and light commercial. That work runs on a written scope, a monthly property walk with the manager or board, a photographed condition report, and a documented irrigation audit each quarter. If you are on a board and mid-way through a bad contract, we can usually take over inside thirty days and we will tell you honestly what condition the site is in before we quote.
What we will not do
Some of this is worth saying plainly, because it is the difference between a landscape that improves and one that slowly degrades.
- We will not shear natural-form shrubs into balls. Westringia, rockrose, sage and ceanothus are hand-pruned to keep interior growth alive.
- We will not top trees or lion-tail palms. Both permanently damage the tree and create hazard.
- We will not blow debris into the street or the storm drain. It is illegal under the county stormwater permit and it ends up in Buena Vista Lagoon.
- We will not scalp the lawn in July to stretch the interval between visits.
How it works
Our maintenance process
- 01
Property walk
We walk the site with you, note plant material and condition, and identify anything needing attention before regular service starts.
- 02
Written scope and price
A flat monthly rate with the visit frequency and the scope in writing. No per-visit surprises.
- 03
Clean-up visit
Most new properties need one catch-up visit to get to a maintainable baseline. Quoted separately and only once.
- 04
Regular service
Same crew, same day of the week, a service note each visit and a photographed condition report each quarter.
Questions
Maintenance FAQs
The questions we get asked most often about landscape maintenance in North County.
How much is landscape maintenance in Vista?
For a typical quarter-acre residential property, bi-weekly service runs about $140 to $260 a month and weekly service about $240 to $480. What moves the number is turf square footage, the density of planting beds, slope and access, and whether green waste has to be hauled or can go in your bin. We quote a flat monthly rate after walking the property, and the rate does not change between the growing season and winter.
Do you require a long contract?
No. Maintenance is month to month with thirty days' notice on either side. We would rather keep the work by doing it well. HOA and commercial agreements are typically annual because the board needs the budget certainty, but they include a termination clause for non-performance.
Do you haul away the clippings?
Yes, all green waste leaves the property with the crew and goes to a green waste recycling facility. If you would rather we use your municipal green bin to keep the price down, we can do that where the volume allows, just tell us at the walkthrough.
Can you take over from our current company?
Regularly. Most properties need one catch-up visit first to get to a maintainable baseline, especially where shrubs have been sheared for years or the irrigation has gone unchecked. We quote that separately and honestly, and it happens once. After that you are on the regular rate.
Do you do one-time clean-ups?
Yes: overgrown property clean-ups, pre-sale tidy-ups, fire clearance and post-storm work. There is no obligation to sign up for ongoing service afterwards, though most people do.
What about fire clearance and defensible space?
We do defensible space clearing for properties on the wildland edge in Vista, Bonsall, Fallbrook and Valley Center, to the standard the fire district inspects against. Best done in late spring once the annual grasses have cured but before the first red flag warnings.
Often paired with
Related services
Irrigation & Drainage
Leak diagnosis, drip conversion, smart controllers, and drainage that keeps winter storms out of your foundation.
Learn moreDrought-Tolerant & Native Landscaping
Turf removal done properly, a California native and Mediterranean plant palette, and the rebate paperwork filed for you.
Learn moreLandscape Design & Installation
Measured plans, a real budget before you commit, and one licensed crew that stays on your property from grading through the final plant.
Learn more
Free on-site estimate
Ready to talk about maintenance?
Free on-site walkthrough, a line-item estimate, and an honest answer about whether you need all of it.