Do Commercial Landscaping Companies Use Subcontractors? What Property Managers Should Know

When you hire a commercial landscaping company, you expect experts on your property to handle all your needs, from turf care to irrigation to landscape design to snow removal.

Most of the time, that means in-house landscaping services from the company’s skilled team.

Sometimes, expert vetted subcontractors are on the job.

Why do landscaping companies use subcontractors? Subcontracting is common in commercial landscaping when specialized skills, equipment, or licensing are required.

Here at Level Green we handle most landscaping services in-house with our own skilled crews. But some jobs like large tree work or irrigation require additional expertise.

That’s where subcontractors come in. When customers need a landscaping-related service we don’t offer in-house, we hire an expert company in that field to tackle the job.

Level Green Landscaping regional manager Joey Schneider explains more about subcontractors and in-house landscaping services, including:

• What Landscaping Services Are Subcontracted?

• What In-house Landscaping Services Do We Handle?

• Who Are These Subcontractors?

• Subcontracting: Easy On The Customer 

• Why Subcontractors Can Save You Money

• “We Stand Behind Their Work”

• You’ll Always Have Experts On The Job

• Frequently Asked Questions About Landscaping Subcontractors

What Landscaping Services Are Subcontracted?

Subcontracted services vary from company to company, but Level Green Landscaping partners with subcontractors for these services:

Irrigation

Keeping your lawn and landscaping well watered is crucial to its good health. So we bring in the experts.

Irrigation requires specialized electrical and plumbing knowledge, so bringing in outside irrigation professionals allows us to meet our clients’ important irrigation needs with experts in the field.

Also, many municipalities and states require specific plumbing or irrigation licenses that standard landscaping crews don’t hold.

Large Tree Work

We have skilled certified arborists on staff to deal with tree health needs but trimming or removing large trees is very specialized work.

In Maryland, anyone doing tree trimming higher than 12 feet from the ground has to have special licensing and insurance. So while Level Green crews tackle small trimming below 12 feet, we partner with professionals for jobs involving large trees.

Handling large trees requires a different skill set with specialized equipment, including large bucket trucks, ropes and pulleys.

While we're experts at keeping trees healthy and pruning out frail branches before they become a hazard, we leave the big tree removal projects to the pros with the right expertise and equipment to help ensure your commercial landscape safety.

Snow Removal

Level Green has a comprehensive fleet of snow removal equipment. But we also have a multitude of clients spread over several states and counties. And when customers have slick, snow-covered parking lots, driveways and sidewalks, they need that snow and ice gone fast.

So we bring in subcontractors with big equipment to help, allowing us to get the job done both well and fast. We want to make sure we can service all our valued maintenance customers who need snow removal.

“When you’re mowing grass, you have seven or eight days to get to all your clients’ properties,” Schneider says. “With snow removal, you have one night. We need extra plows and skid steers to get the job done.”

Meanwhile, all the management of Level Green’s snow and ice removal is handled in house, so there's significant hands-on oversight of our snow subcontractors.

Fence Work

We’re horticulture experts, not experienced carpenters, but we know some really great ones. If you need a fence built or repaired, we’ll set you up.

Concrete And Asphalt

“If you need one piece of concrete sidewalk repaired, our crews can do that,” Schneider says. “But if you need an entire parking lot repaved, we call on an expert subcontractor.”

What In-house Landscaping Services Do We Handle?

Everything else. Lawn mowing. Turf care. Fertilizing. Landscape design. Seasonal color rotation. Weed control. Trimming. Fall and spring clean-up. Retaining walls. Stormwater management. Paver patios. Enhancements to boost your property’s appeal.

The fact that we handle our fertilizing services in house is worth noting. Most landscaping companies use subcontractors for this vital turf care service. We believe handling it ourselves gives us a significant quality advantage.

Customers might discover the quality isn't as high with subcontracted turf care. Handling fertilizing services ourselves means that:

• We can formulate fertilizer mixtures for the specific needs of each property.
• We can completely control scheduling, ensuring we’re sending technicians at the precise right time for the best results.
• Communication is better. We can easily let customers know when the turf treatment is occurring.
• Handling fertilizing in house makes any needed follow-up visits easier, as we can easily send our own team member back to a property for any needed followup.

Combine our team’s comprehensive skills and expertise with that of our trusted subcontractor partners and we have all your commercial property’s needs expertly covered.

Who Are These Subcontractors?

They’re our trusted partners, Schneider says.

“Many of our subcontractors have worked with us for several years,” he says. “Most have had relationships with our owners, Doug and Bill, that started years ago.

“We trust them and they trust us,” Schneider says. “It’s a partnership. They’re just another part of the Level Green family. When I send one of our subcontractors to a site, I know our customer will get the same kind of quality service as if we were sending a Level Green truck.”

If we do need to bring on a new subcontractor, we only hire the best, Schneider says.

“We don’t just send subcontractors out and say, ‘Hope they do a good job,’” Schneider says. “We meet with the company, see examples of their work, make sure their pricing is in line. We check their licensing and insurance. We go on site with them the first time to make sure the work is done right.”

All things you’d have to do, if you hired a company on your own. And, trust us, we’re probably even pickier than you are.

Subcontracting: Easy On The Customer

Level Green customers are welcome to hire an irrigation company, fence builder or tree trimming business on their own, Schneider says. But most don’t want the hassle.

“They say, ‘We already know you. You handle it.’ They already have a relationship with us. They know we can take care of it. Then, they can avoid the whole vetting and bidding process. We’ll do all of that.”

Level Green stands behind the work of all its subcontractors, Schneider says.

“I’ve been using my tree guy for years,” Schneider says. “I let the customer know exactly what’s happening and when, and I make sure the work is done right. It’s one less thing they have to worry about.”

Why Subcontractors Can Save You Money

“The biggest concern customers have about subcontractors is price,” Schneider says. “They worry if we subcontract out the work it will be more expensive than if they hire someone directly.”

In fact, he says, it’s often cheaper.

“We do a volume of work with our subcontractors that’s larger than any one client would do, so we can keep the prices competitive,” Schneider says. “A client may have a $1,000 job, but we might do $100,000 worth of work with that subcontractor over a year. So the price our customer pays is at, or often below, what they’d pay if they hired that company themselves.”

“We Stand Behind Their Work”

“Customers will say, ‘But, it’s not you guys. Will the work be the same quality?’” Schneider says.

Absolutely.

“Our subcontractors are our partners,” Schneider says. “We stand behind their work.”

And, it’s in the subcontractors’ best interest to do top-notch work, Schneider says.

“If they don’t do quality work,” he says, “we won’t hire them.” And if our subcontractors do make a mistake, we take complete responsibility and fix the problem.

You’ll Always Have Experts On The Job

“This is all specialized work,” Schneider says, so whether you get lawn care from Level Green crews or irrigation from one of our trusted subcontractors, you’ll always have skilled experts on the job.

“All the irrigation company does is irrigation,” Schneider says. “That’s their specialty. You wouldn’t have a tree company mow your lawn. You hire us to do that. We spend hours on training and learning best practices. And each of our subcontractors is expert in their own field, too.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Landscaping Subcontractors

Q: Why do landscaping companies use subcontractors?

A: Landscaping companies use subcontractors to efficiently handle specialized tasks like large tree removal and irrigation, or to supplement their own crews for high-volume work like snow removal.

Landscaping companies that use subcontractors can offer a wider array of services for customers, serving as a “one-stop shop” by bringing in vetted partners for specific services.

Landscaping companies sometimes need more crew members for certain jobs than they have on staff. At Level Green Landscaping, we use snow subcontractors in order to safely and efficiently service all our snow removal customers.

Q: What landscaping services are subcontracted?

A: Common landscaping services that are subcontracted include large tree pruning or removal; irrigation; landscape lighting; extensive concrete work and snow removal.

Q: Do customers end up paying more when their landscaping company hires subcontractors?

A: No. In fact, it’s often cheaper. Landscaping companies typically do a volume of work with subcontractors that’s larger than any one client would do, which means they can keep the prices competitive, and often below what the customer would pay if they hired that company themselves.

Trust All Your Landscaping To Level Green

Once you hire Level Green Landscaping to care for your commercial property, you leave everything to us.

Whether we send our trained crews over to mow your lawn or send our trusted irrigation subcontractor to give your sprinkler system a tune-up, you get quality work.

You have our word.

We provide commercial property maintenance for properties throughout Washington DC, Maryland and parts of Virginia. Level Green Landscaping services commercial properties like office buildings, homeowner associations (HOAs), mixed use, condominiums, retail, institutions and government entities.

Contact us today at 202-544-0968 or by filling out our form online to see how we can transform your landscape into a beautiful, sustainable space. You can also schedule a free consultation with one of our team members.

We’d love to hear from you.