Columbia Association Lakefront: Partnering with a Landmark Community for Impressive Pride of Place

Columbia, Md. has been in the public eye ever since the innovative community was founded back in 1967 — a master-planned city with easy access to shops, schools, and open spaces. The goal: a model for cities of the future. 

Christopher Clem, manager of open space operations at the Columbia Association, knows people are still watching. Columbia is often ranked among the best places to live in the U.S. 

So the landscaping at this community of more than 100,000 people, located between Baltimore and Washington D.C., has to be impressive.

“We’re a very large homeowner’s association with high visibility to the general public,” Clem says. “We always want the landscaping to look pristine and beautiful.”

While the association has its own mowing and landscaping team to care for the 27-square-mile community, their task is enormous. The association includes 10 expansive villages, which means it’s like caring for 10 massive HOAs -- an entire city. 

So they partner with Level Green Landscaping, working together to ensure every bit of the renowned community’s landscaping lives up to the association’s impeccable standards.

The bustling lakefront park area is a community highlight, a gathering place that needs special attention. 

Level Green account manager Jesse Ware walks us through what it takes to keep the busy lakefront park landscaping safe and appealing, while Columbia’s Clem shares how Level Green is a dependable landscaping partner for the community’s massive needs. 

Welcome to the Lakefront 

The Columbia Lakefront is centered around the 27-acre man-made Lake Kittamaqundi, surrounded by busy public spaces, pedestrian pathways and a popular outdoor amphitheater. 

”It’s one of our premiere entertainment locations,” Clem says. “It’s kind of like the center of town. In fact, we call it the Town Center Lakefront.”

Block parties, dance parties, Saturday family fun mornings with bubbles, balloons and magicians all happen here. 

“We have movie nights there and concerts,” Clem says. “On the Fourth of July the celebration for all of Howard County is there. It’s important that it’s always looking in tip-top shape.”

The urban park landscaping is always in use. 

“If it’s daylight, there are people there,” Ware says. “You see people walking their dogs and mom groups exercising. There’s a lot of foot traffic.”

The lakefront is also home to a three-day summer festival that draws up to 10,000 people sitting and walking on the grass, Clem says.

The Challenge of Lakefront Turf Care 

All this activity and foot traffic means the lakefront’s 1.5 acres of high-use lawn needs a lot of attention. 

And Clem has high expectations — he used to be a sports field manager. 

“Turf is in my background,” he says. He has very specific requirements for the park landscaping maintenance. 

“I want to have high-quality turf without bombing it with chemicals,” Clem says. 

That means plenty of irrigation and more frequent aeration and overseeding than most lawns get. 

Aeration uses a machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from the lawn, allowing water and oxygen to get to the roots, so they can grow deep for healthy turf. 

Aeration is followed by overseeding, as the holes created are perfect new homes for grass seed.

When you don’t use chemical weed control, aeration and seeding is crucial to encourage grass thick and healthy enough to crowd out weeds.
 
“We do frequent aeration and seeding, at least three times a year,” Ware says. “It’s a challenge. The grass has to be strong in this area. The lawn gets so much use, and we’re trying to fight weeds without chemicals.”

The lakefront lawn gets occasional weed control and fertilizer as part of the park landscaping maintenance, but not at the frequency of a traditional turf care program. 

The special attention works, Clem says. 

“The turf quality has increased,” he says, “and that’s a direct result of this partnership with Level Green. They’ve helped us implement a turf management program that works.”

“The biggest compliment we get is the turf looks so much better now,” Ware says. “There’s grass where there used to be dirt. I think it’s the biggest impact we’ve made in our five years there.”

Weeding While Protecting Pollinators 

Another big challenge for Level Green crews is the landscaping around the association’s man-made lake.

“A long walking path winds all the way around it,” Ware says, “and years ago they planted lots of ornamental grasses and plants like milkweed to attract pollinators. 
We have to keep the weeds down and know what plants to leave and what plants that are weeds that we should pull.”

Crews also make sure there are no weeds sprouting in the cracks between the pavers of the much-used walkway that winds around the lake. 

Flower Power

The Columbia Association decides what flowers they want to install throughout the year in several large beds at the lakefront, Ware says, and Level Green crews install them. In addition to summer and fall installations, the park landscaping beds are planted with a profusion of bright tulips that bloom spectacularly each spring. 

Everybody loves flowers. 

“I was there the other day and people were taking pictures of the bees flying around the flowers,” Ware says. “We planted red and yellow lantana this year, and the bees and butterflies love it.”

The summer flower beds include ornamental grasses and tropical canna for height. Fall beds feature hardy violas that bloom right through the first frost. 

“We try to help them maximize efficiency with their flowers,“ Ware says, “to get big impact without spending too much.”

That includes some strategy, he says, like pointing out that while zinnias are planted eight inches apart, lantana are spaced 12 inches apart. So you need fewer lantana to fill the same space. 

Crews also install thousands of festive holiday lights each fall in about 30 trees along pathways lining the lakefront area for a magical display for pedestrians strolling through. 

Beyond the Lakefront: A Hundred Miles of Edging 

While the lakefront park landscaping is a main responsibility of Level Green crews, the company helps the association with other areas too, doing about half of the community’s landscape maintenance. That includes pruning; mowing public areas; portering service every other day to empty public trash cans; and edging all the common area sidewalks —  about 100 miles of edging. 

“It takes a long time and it’s too much to do all at once, so we do the edging in sections throughout the summer,” Ware says. “When they have parades like for the Fourth of July, we have to make sure we’ve done the right sections at the right time, so the high-visibility areas have been edged.”

“Honestly, this is a very large contract,” Clem says. “And we have high standards. We want it to be an inviting space.”

Level Green’s service stands out in several ways, he says: 

• “What’s most important to me is their responsiveness,” Clem says. “If a storm comes through at night, Level Green gets there in the morning and it looks like nothing ever happened. People are always impressed by how quickly we can recover.

          “Some of our sites have a tight schedule, with often just a small window of time when they can be mowed,” Clem says. “Level Green always rises to the occasion.”

• “We have a wedding venue we want to look nice for brides on their wedding day,” he says. “Jesse will drive by it and tell me if it needs a treatment. Or he’ll say, ‘It looks dry —  you might want to turn the irrigation up.’ He knows we have high standards.”
• The community has 23 outdoor swimming pools with lawn areas, and sometimes the Columbia mowing crews need a hand, Clem says.

“Level Green helps us with mowing them when we’re in a crunch,” he says. “The turf gets beat up all summer long, with towels and chairs dragged over it. They’re over there right now aerating and seeding. We just don’t have time to do it.”

Proactivity and Pride

Columbia is a huge place, and Ware works to spot any landscaping problem areas before Clem does. 

“It’s amazing how much pride they take in the community here,” Ware says. “We take a lot of pride in being the ones who take care of it. 

“One of the biggest things that helps them is we have multiple sets of eyes on things,” Ware says. “They’re in the public eye. People can see the property when they drive by.

“We shoot a quick text to them when we see anything that needs attention — we always want to beat them to the punch,” Ware says. “We don’t want them to have to ask us to take care of something.

“There's a lot to stay on top of, making sure nothing is forgotten,” Ware says. “One Level Green operations manager is assigned just to the association, to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.”

Meanwhile, crews also want to be what Ware calls “invisible.” Or at least, close to it, staying out of residents’ way. 

“We work there during the day when the place is active, so we start early at 6 or 7 a.m. and try to be done with at least the mowing and trimming before people are there,” he says. “Then we’re just doing quiet detail work. We try to be as subtle as we can. We use quieter electric blowers and move through as quickly as we can before the crowds arrive.”

Communication is Crucial 

Weekly meetings with Clem are crucial to touch base and go over what needs to be done. 

“It’s an interesting client relationship, since they have their own mowing division and we do about half of their landscaping,” Ware says. “We’re more like coworkers.”

Several Columbia Association landscaping managers and foremen are involved in the communication, too, to keep things running smoothly.

“A line of open communication is key, and we have that with Level Green,” Clem says. “I can place a phone call now and know they’ll respond within 24 hours.”

“A Partnership You Can Rely On”

“Sometimes we have to call in a Hail Mary,” Clem says. “We realize we just don’t have time to do something and I’ll say, ‘Maybe Jesse does.’ I’ll call him and say, ‘Hey, do you happen to have a team available?’ And Jesse will say, ‘We’ll be there by 2 o’clock.’”

Clem said he’s recommended Level Green to other commercial property managers. 

“They’ve improved the overall quality of the landscape,” Clem says. “It’s good to have a partnership you can rely on.”

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