10 Tips for Choosing the Right Landscape Services for your HOA in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia

Choosing the right landscaping services for your HOA can be confusing. Just like when you’re pondering a buffet of ice cream toppings, they all sound good. 

Not all HOA communities are the same. Your landscaping needs might be different from the HOA across town. Some HOAs have crews do all the mowing. Some just have them mow the common areas. Some need extensive work done on mature trees. Some are just getting lawns established. 

But all HOAs need expert commercial landscape services. 

“Great landscaping at an HOA makes residents happy, encourages new people to come in and buy homes, and it cuts down on homeowner complaints,” says Caitlin Cross, a business development manager at Level Green Landscaping.

How to choose the right HOA landscaping services to make your community shine? 

Cross offers some tips, including: 

Start with the Must Haves

Prioritize Safety

How Old is Your HOA Community? 

Enhancements Go Beyond the Pretty Stuff 

Use Your Landscaping Company for Snow Removal

Budget for Tree Care

Take Advantage of Budget Worksheets

Does Your Signage Need a Boost? 

Consider Perennials for Seasonal Color

If There’s Room in the Budget…

How to Select HOA Landscapers

1. Start with the Must Haves

A few key commercial landscape services are essential to keep your HOA community safe and appealing for residents and potential residents. Cross lists your must haves: 

Weekly Maintenance

Weekly mowing is a must to keep your community looking tidy and well maintained. Everybody notices the lawn.
Other landscaping tasks happen during these mowing visits, too, including trimming, edging, and weeding.

Turf Care 

A four-application fertilization and weed control program as part of your HOA landscape maintenance keeps your community’s lawns healthy and thriving, with visits spaced out spring through fall.

Spring and Fall Clean-up

Nature can really make a mess, from fallen leaves and debris to perennials past their prime.

Landscaping spring cleanup crews remove leaves and debris, pull weeds, and get the community ready for the growing season, including fresh mulch. 

You’ll need two or three clean-up visits in the fall, too, to clear leaves and debris — one visit before Thanksgiving and one before Christmas. That strategic timing makes sure your HOA community looks its holiday best before family and friends arrive on the doorstep. 

Aeration and Overseeding

Don’t skip aeration. Aeration and overseeding can work wonders on a HOA property lawn that needs a boost.

This key commercial landscape services task uses a machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from your lawn, allowing water and oxygen to get to the roots. High-traffic areas can especially benefit from aeration, since they‘re more prone to soil compaction.

Aeration is usually followed by overseeding, as the holes created by aeration are perfect new homes for that grass seed. This important one-two punch allows your lawn’s roots to  grow nice and deep, producing a lush, healthy carpet of green.

Rejuvenation Pruning

This is a crucial service when it comes to your all-important curb appeal. 
HOA landscape companies skillfully remove old, overgrown limbs so your shrubs can grow new, vigorous branches in their place. 

This is a safety issue, too. Trees and shrubs that get too overgrown and gangly can snag pedestrians, obscure your signage, and block your lighting.

Speaking of safety…

2. Prioritize Safety

Anything that jeopardizes the safety of your residents and visitors should move to the top of your HOA landscape maintenance list, Cross says, including dead or dying tree branches that could topple, uneven hardscape that poses a tripping hazard, or low areas of pavement that collect water that will freeze in winter weather. Safety first. 

3. How Old is Your HOA Community? 

“If it’s an aging community, plants might need to be replaced,” Cross says. 

Shrubs don’t last forever — most have a lifespan of 15 years or so. And if your landscaping was installed a couple decades ago, it’s probably dated now, and could use a modern update for contemporary appeal. Say bye to stuffy clipped junipers and welcome graceful drifts of ornamental grasses and pretty perennials.

Replacing aging HOA landscaping can get expensive, but your Level Green account manager will work with you to develop a long-term plan to replace things gradually, making it easier on your budget. 

4. Enhancements Go Beyond Making Things Look Nice 

Drainage isn’t a top dinner party topic, but it might move to the top of your HOA landscape maintenance list. 

“Everybody associates landscape enhancements with pretty things like flowers or redoing the landscaping around monument signage, but drainage and erosion is a huge issue at HOAs,” Cross says.  “Sometimes the grading wasn’t done correctly so water sits for days and days.”

Level Green has solutions, from regrading to French drains. 

5. Use Your HOA Landscaping Company for Snow Removal

Not all commercial landscaping companies offer snow and ice management, Cross says, but if yours does, take them up on it. 

“Most of our HOAs who hire snow removal will partner with us for it,”
Cross says. “It’s a lot more convenient to work with one company for both.”

6. Budget for Tree Care

Many HOA communities are aging, built in the 1980s or 1990s. That means your trees have matured and the canopies are much thicker and denser than they were years ago. 

Dead or dying branches can tumble on cars, houses or even people, causing significant damage and liability concerns. Routine tree pruning takes those dangerous branches out before they fall.

What if you have 50 or 100 trees on your HOA property? Pruning them all can get costly. So Level Green account managers work with customers to create a manageable commercial tree pruning plan and budget.

Crews can tend to 20 trees a year over the next five years. That makes the cost much more manageable for your HOA landscape maintenance budget than waiting five years and pruning 100 trees at once.

7. Take Advantage of Budget Worksheets

“Budget worksheets are a lifesaver, especially for big projects,” Cross says.
Level Green account managers prepare annual budget worksheets to help customers plan ahead for their landscaping budgets and prioritize services: Safety concerns first. Utility needs second. Beauty third.

Big-budget projects can often be done in phases, Cross says, to spread out the cost. 

8. Does Your Signage Need a Boost? 

”Redoing the landscaping around monuments is a popular thing for HOAs,” Cross says. “Builders will put in only what’s required. That means plant material might be dying or there’s not enough color.”

Sometimes the landscape design on one side of a monument is different than on the other side, she says, and an HOA board wants to make both sides match. 

Maybe lighting wasn’t included and that needs to be added, she says. 

Improving monument signage makes an important good first impression.

9. Consider Perennials for Seasonal Color

“Annual flowers are beautiful, but a lot of HOAs are moving away from them,” Cross says. “They think it’s wasteful. Annual flowers are very expensive.”

Good commercial landscape services will offer a smart alternative. 

“Move to perennials and native plants,” Cross suggests. They need less care and come back every year.

“We can create a landscape design where things are flowering at different times of the year.”

10. If There’s Room in the Budget…

Beyond the must-have basics and addressing important safety concerns, extra HOA landscaping services can add fun, sparkle or appeal for discriminating residents. 

Think holiday lights and decor that make the whole community sparkle. Maybe a flickering fire pit with cozy seating and festive string lights — instant community hotspot. Outdoor entertainment features like corn hole, a putting green or ping pong tables. A landscaped exercise trail that doubles as a nature escape.  Dog parks for furry family members.

Appealing enhancements offer a high-end touch people love and can set your HOA community above the rest. 

How to Select HOA Landscapers

What makes a commercial landscaping company great fit for your HOA? 

They Should Be Excited to Come See Your Place

“I meet with the HOA property manager and board president and walk around the property with them to talk about their needs and expectations,” Cross says. “Are two leaf removals enough? They might say, ‘Oh, no, we need three.’”

They Should Offer Helpful Info 

“We set clear expectations of when each service will happen,” Cross says. No surprises. 

“A lot of HOA resident complaints are about lack of pruning, but often it’s because it’s not the right time yet to prune those plants,” Cross says. “We put together a guide of when is the right time to prune each plant in our area, so residents know just when to expect it.”

They Should Attend Your Board Meetings 

“It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s not a common thing,” Cross says. “HOA boards often have to pull teeth to get vendors to attend their meetings.

“When we show up at a meeting, we bring a proposal, something to talk about,” she says. “They see us as a partner, not just a vendor.”

Proactivity Makes a Huge Difference

How to select HOA landscapers? Prioritize proactivity. 

Partner with a company that works hard to spot problems before you do — and quickly solves them before they get worse. 

“The more we can take off their plate, the better,” Cross says. 

Just one common HOA example: “Bamboo can be a big problem at the edges of HOA properties,” Cross says. “We keep it from creeping into home owners’ yards.”

Trust Your HOA Landscape Maintenance to Level Green

How to select HOA landscapers? Partner with a company that makes your job easier.

At Level Green Landscaping, our core service is commercial landscape maintenance, and our customers include many HOAs with high expectations. 

Our skilled crews tackle these high-end, discriminating properties with a proactive, precision plan that hits all the hot spots and makes it always feel happily like home. 

We go beyond landscape maintenance to offer construction and landscape design, landscape enhancements, snow and ice management and irrigation management.

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.