The Boro: Meticulous Landscape Services for a Bustling Urban Development

If you need something and The Boro doesn’t have it, you probably don’t really need it.

The premier mixed-use development in Tysons, Va. has everything: luxury high-rise apartments; sleek glass office towers; intriguing restaurants and shops; and a vibrant urban park. 

“Everybody knows The Boro,” says Caitlin Cross, a business development manager at Level Green Landscaping. “It’s such a big deal in Tysons. And it’s a big deal to us to get to work with them. It’s a great opportunity for people to see our work and see their trust in us.”

What does it take to keep this vibrant multi-use community’s landscaping healthy and beautiful? 

Level Green account manager Addie Swisher, who works with the property managers there, walks us through it. 

Welcome to The Boro

The Boro is a premier multi-phase development that brings together a thriving community in the heart of Tysons, Virginia. 

Steps from the Greensboro Metro Station, this 18-acre residential, retail, entertainment and office environment is a vibrant and popular pedestrian-oriented community.

The 22-building development has banks and shops and medical spas. A 14-screen movie theater and the region’s largest Whole Foods Market call The Boro home.  

Plenty of activities beckon, too, from Latin dance classes to outdoor yoga to stroller fitness outings for moms and kids. 

Maintaining the Green Space 

Level Green’s landscaping contract with The Boro includes a bit of everything, Swisher says, from meticulous weekly maintenance to vibrant seasonal color flowers to dependable irrigation services and snow removal. 

A five-person crew tends to the landscaping, including areas of turf, trees, large beds of flowers and shrubs, and a multitude of raised planting beds that keep flowers and shrubs contained and tidy.

Towers of shimmering glass and hard concrete are softened by drifts of cascading ornamental grasses and fluffy mounds of bright pink begonias.

Crisp white Adirondack chairs and picnic tables nestled on expanses of soft green grass offer a place to relax or enjoy lunch beneath cooling shade trees.

Tall sleek planters wow with combinations of spiky purple yucca leaves, hot pink and green caladium and the cascading softness of chartreuse creeping Jenny spilling over the sides.

“There’s a beautiful roundabout with assorted grasses and flowers, and a picnic area the size of a tennis court,” Swisher says. 

Level Green crews cover the property, mowing, trimming, weeding, edging, pruning, deadheading, and looking out for potential safety issues.

Spring and fall cleanup visits are crucial, to remove leaves and debris, trim back spent perennials, prune shrubs, edge beds and add fresh mulch. 

Top-notch Turf Care 

Four applications of fertilizer and weed control throughout the year keep The Boro’s turf healthy, green, and impressive. 

Crews visit in July or August to spot spray only for any broadleaf weeds that have popped up. Spot spray is better for the environment, but still targets weeds. 

Healthy turf needs water, and Level Green handles the property’s irrigation maintenance, including spring start-up and fall shut-down procedures and monthly service checks to make sure The Boro’s system covers every inch of the landscaping and is running just right — without wasting water.

Wowing with Vibrant Seasonal Color

The Boro gets new seasonal color flowers twice a year, in spring and fall.
 
It’s a big deal — crews planted 9,500 flowers and plants there this spring, Swisher says, including coleus, creeping Jenny, palms and an explosion of pink begonias, many in those raised planting beds. 

The hot pink begonias are impossible to ignore, planted in masses that stretch in front of storefronts and restaurants in long raised planters for huge impact. 

A perfect flower to plant in large numbers, begonias grow into impressive mounding masses, do well in various light conditions and look spectacular all summer long. 

Borders of bright lime green creeping Jenny create an eye-catching contrast against the vivid pink.

Tall, sleek creative planters of annual plants make a big statement throughout the property, too, packed with tall, spiky purple yucca that offer intriguing texture against the softer cascading bright green creeping Jenny. The hot pink detail in the planters’ tropical caladium leaves matches the begonias — an artistic touch. 

The displays are a perfect example of what a huge impact annual seasonal color can make. 

Prioritizing Proactivity 

Swisher walks the property weekly with an eagle eye. 

“There’s great attention to detail,” Swisher says. “We really look for things. I evaluate everything. Are there dead plants? Weeds? Low-hanging branches? Fallen signs? 

“I check the mulch,” she says. “How do the trees look? Are they healthy? If anything is dying, we remove it and replace it.”

If anything is amiss, she’s on it, pouncing on potential problems before they get worse. Just a few examples:  

• “They had bark mulch that kept washing out from the rain in one area, so we’re replacing that with river rocks that won’t wash out,” Swisher says.
• “Crape Myrtle branches were touching a building, so we took care of that.”
• “Some benches were dirty, so I proposed power washing them.”
• “They have huge beds of liriope, which is susceptible to weeds growing up through it,” Swisher says. “The guys were out there the other day hand pulling all the weeds. 

“I look for anything that people walking by would notice,” Swisher says. “But I want to see it first. I go to them with any problems, but I always offer a solution.”

Property managers are busy, dealing with a multitude of issues every day that go behind landscaping. Anything that Swisher can handle proactively and take off their plate makes their job easier, she says.  

Overcoming Challenges

There are always landscaping challenges at a property with so much going on: 

Pedestrian Traffic

 “There’s a lot of foot traffic there so we have to be careful about blowing debris,” Swisher says. “There’s a restaurant with outdoor seating. We can’t blow debris while people are eating. There are offices where people are having meetings and they don’t want to see or hear us. So, we get there really early in the morning so we’re not disturbing the businesses around us. We did tree work on a Saturday. We accommodate their needs.”

Reviving a Rooftop Oasis 

A rooftop retreat shared by apartment buildings was designed as a high-end haven, with a grilling area, outdoor TV, and green turf area.

“It’s a place to hang out, sit outside, have a drink, enjoy yourself,” Swisher says. 

But it really needed some attention. 

Mulch was blowing off the roof, Swisher says. The property’s last landscaping company put deer netting over the mulch to keep it from blowing away, but that strategy failed, Swisher says, and it looked bad.

“Many of the plants were old and dying,” she says. “Some of the seating was arranged in a way that had peoples’ feet in the planting beds. And a stepping stone walkway is a big tripping hazard because of the big spaces between each stone. They need gravel installed between the stones.”

A substantial renovation is in the works. 

“We’ll install all new plants and we’ll use mulch glue to help keep the mulch intact up there,” Swisher says. Mulch glue is a landscape adhesive designed to bind mulch, wood chips, gravel, and other loose landscaping materials together so they’re not scattered by wind, rain, or foot traffic. 
“We’ll plant trees and fill in some big gaps in the landscaping.”

A few challenges await Level Green crews, who will have to use the elevator to transport all their plants, tools and materials to the rooftop retreat. 

Level Green crews will install shrubs and perennials like yew, liriope, privet and woodland sage. 

Creeping phlox and vinca minor will act as stable ground covers to help anchor the wayward mulch. Rooftop sculptures will be dressed up with pretty trumpet vine. 

“It’s been a very neglected area up there because they didn’t know what to do with it,” Swisher says. “They didn’t get straight answers from their past landscaping companies. Now they’re excited about us fixing it up.”

Mulch Madness 

“Parking is at a premium here, so finding parking when it’s time to mulch is a challenge,” Swisher says. “We can’t leave a huge pile of mulch just anywhere, so we decided to keep the mulch off site and we hauled it to the property.”

Snow and Ice Management 

While The Boro’s past landscaping companies haven’t offered snow and ice management, Level Green does, and property managers were happy to take business development manager Cross up on the offer when she worked on their contract. 

“We’ll do everything from hand shoveling to hauling,” Cross says. An important part of the plan is the use of brine to help prevent ice, she says. 

“Ice is a big concern for them,” Cross says. “A lot of the businesses there, like the movie theater and restaurants, stay open during snow.”

Pre-treating the property with brine, a liquid mixture of water and salt, helps prevent snow and ice from sticking and is kinder to the environment than straight salt. 

Landscaping is Crucial for Big Impact

“The landscaping here has to appeal to people, to bring them in,” Swisher says. “They’re trying to lease office space and they want it to look nice for potential buyers. These companies can’t make money if people don’t want to show up.

“We want people to feel comfortable and confident there, to draw them in so they want to see more,” she says. “The landscaping is the first thing they see.”

Making Life Easier for Property Managers

The Boro is so big it needs more than one property manager, so Swisher has regular communication with several, in addition to their assistants and the occasional engineer. 

“My job is to make their jobs easier,” she says. “I walk through with them once a month to look at everything and suggest any changes or improvements. 

“My biggest thing is I don’t like surprises,” Swisher says. “I don’t want them to be surprised, either.”

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