How to Choose the Right-Size Commercial Landscaping Partner for Your Property or HOA

One of the questions you ponder when choosing a commercial landscaping company is the same one you hear at the fast food drive-through window: do you want small, medium or large?

But when your property’s landscaping is on the line, it’s more than a $4 decision. 

If a personal touch is important to you, you might be tempted to partner with a small landscaping company. If you’re a huge HOA with a multitude of needs, you might assume a large company is the only type that can handle all your needs. 

When it comes to choosing the right size commercial landscaping company in DC, Maryland or Virginia, what size is best? 

Paul Wisniewski, vice president of operations at Level Green Landscaping, answers some typical client questions about size — and sizing up a company.

Let’s learn more about what to look for in a landscaping vendor, including: 

• Landscaping Vendor Size: Do They Have the Capacity to Meet Your Needs?
• What to Look for in a Landscaping Vendor: Are They Nearby?
• Is the Landscaping Company Owned Locally, or by a Private Equity Firm?
• The Beauty of a Mid-size Landscaping Company
• Do They Value Customer Relationships?

Landscaping Vendor Size: Do They Have the Capacity to Meet Your Needs?

You need a landscaping company with enough team members and equipment to meet your property’s needs. 

About 375 employees work at Level Green during peak season, Wisniewski says, with 182 production vehicles on the road and 220 mowers out on the job serving 1,000 properties.
 
Quality team members are crucial when it comes to landscaping company capacity and reliability.

“We’re always looking for quality employees,” Wisniewski says. “We look year-round, not just when we need them, so we always have high quality people on board.

“One of our mottos, written right on the wall, is ‘A Great Place to Be,’” he says. “We look out for our employees. We treat them well. We create an enjoyable atmosphere. That’s why people stay.”

When it comes to choosing landscaper vendor size, you need a commercial landscaping company that can meet all your needs, from design to installation to maintenance. Can they handle your irrigation? Your snow removal? All your enhancement needs? 

You name it, Level Green can handle it. Lawn mowing. Irrigation. Weed control. Fertilization. Trimming. Fall clean-up. Snow removal. Ice control. Landscape design. Enhancements to boost your property’s appeal.

“We can do anything related to landscaping,” Wisniewski says. “If it’s a service we don’t offer ourselves, like irrigation, we have great subcontractors who work with us. So, the client doesn’t have to do the legwork to hire other services.

“We stand behind all our subcontractors, and handle any issues or questions that arise,” he says. “The customer doesn’t have to worry about a thing.”

What to Look for in a Landscaping Vendor: Are They Nearby? 

If you have a landscaping emergency, you don’t want to wait 90 minutes while crew members drive across several counties to get to you. 

If the landscaping company’s headquarters isn’t nearby, do they have branches or satellite sites that are?  
Level Green’s main office is in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, but we have several branches throughout the region:

• Our BWI Branch serves Baltimore and its suburbs as well as Anne Arundel County, including Annapolis.
• Our DC Branch serves all of Washington DC.
• The Burtonsville Branch, formerly called our North Branch, serves Montgomery County, Md.
• Our Howard County Branch serves Howard County, including Columbia Md., and some of the Western Baltimore suburbs.
• The Southern Maryland Branch serves Prince George’s County, Charles County and Calvert County. A satellite branch is located in St. Mary’s County to serve that area.
• Our Dulles Branch serves the western Northern Virginia suburbs, including Tysons Corner, Reston, Herndon, Leesburg and Ashburn.
• Alexandria will be our newest branch, opening in January 2027, serving the Virginia suburbs of Arlington, Alexandria, Springfield, Woodbridge and Fairfax.

Chances are, we’re pretty close to you.

 
“All of this allows us to get to jobs quicker,” Wisniewski says. “We have a quicker response time, whether it’s to jobs in the metropolitan DC area, Northern Virginia, Prince George’s County, southern Maryland or the northern Baltimore suburbs.

“Having these multiple branches and satellites also reduces our travel expenses,” Wisniewski says, “so we can be more competitive with our bids.”

DC-area traffic is among the worst in the country. You don’t want to pay for landscaping crews to be sitting in a truck in traffic. 

Is the Company Owned Locally, or by a Private Equity Firm? 

This is an increasingly important question as the commercial landscaping industry changes.

Five years ago, most of the medium-sized landscaping companies in this area were locally owned. Now, almost all of them are owned by private equity firms, investment management companies that pool capital from investors to buy private companies, increase their value, then sell them later at a profit.

These investors see landscaping companies as a good investment, with stable, predictable contracts for ongoing maintenance.

Meanwhile, some landscaping company owners are nearing retirement age and are looking for a way to exit the business, which makes them more open to acquisition offers. 

But when private equity owners take over a landscaping company, they don’t typically hold on to the personal touch of a local owner. If that’s important to you, local ownership should be a factor in your decision.

Level Green Landscaping is one of the only landscaping companies of its size in this area to still be family owned and operated. 

Co-founder and managing partner Doug Delano meets with clients, attends HOA board meetings and knows all his company’s managers personally, even though he runs a $43 million company. 

While landscaping companies owned by private equity firms focus on short-term financial goals to make money fast, a locally owned company like Level Green can take a longer-term vision that allows us to put customers first in a way our private equity-owned competitors may no longer do.

Level Green Landscaping is named for Delano’s great-grandfather's family farm on the northern neck of Virginia.
He says the company, like his family’s rich history, is here for the long haul — locally owned. 

“We don't plan on selling Level Green,” Delano says. “We plan on remaining a family business. We're looking to grow it. We're looking to serve our customers better, serve our employees better, and we're trying to do the right thing.

“I think my grandfather, my great grandfather and my parents would be very happy that we've carried on their tradition,” Delano says, “and that the Level Green name lives on in the DC and Baltimore metro area. I hope 100 years from now, Level Green is still held by our family.”

The Beauty of a Mid-size Landscaping Company 

What to look for in a landscaping vendor? A medium-sized company, with capacity to meet your needs and an emphasis on personalized service, might be perfect. 

Level Green has been growing for years, but still considers itself a mid-size company, Wisniewski says.

“We’re not as large as the Brightviews and Rupperts of the world,” he says, “but in this area, we have just as large of a footprint.”

That medium size serves clients well, he says.

“Some don’t want to work with a big corporation — they want to work with a local company,” Wisniewski says. “Some want that big company feel.”

When considering a large vs. small commercial landscaping company, consider that Level Green offers the best of both worlds, he says — local owners, and a company large enough to serve all of a customer’s needs.
 
“We have the capacity for large-scale work,” Wisniewski says, “but we’re still local. Our owners are involved in the day to day business. They come to presentations. They show up at job sites.”

Landscaping Vendor Size: Do They Value Customer Relationships?

A huge landscaping company might not have that personal touch that’s important to many customers.

Here at Level Green, we take pride in relationships — both with our customers and with each other. While we’re big enough to handle any commercial landscaping job, we’re small enough to know our co-workers, and we value that family atmosphere.

Yes, we care about properties — it’s the core of our business. But we also care about people.

“We’re not just about hitting a certain profit margin,” Wisniewski says. “That’s where we stand above the rest. Our owners’ names are on the job. They take it personally.”

Looking for the Perfect Size Landscaping Partner in DC, Maryland, & Virginia? Trust Level Green

Level Green has grown a lot over the years, but we’re still in that mid-size sweet spot that many commercial properties find appealing. We’re big enough to handle even the largest property’s diverse needs. And we still hold tight to the personal attention and family atmosphere that shows we care about our customers. Our owners look forward to meeting you. 

As Delano says: “If we make a commitment to a client or to a vendor, we're going to stand behind it. If we make a mistake, we're going to fix it.”

Pondering what size landscaping company can best meet your property’s needs? We’re happy to tell you more about our local roots and our comprehensive, quality services.

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.