Maintaining an attractive and healthy commercial landscape is never easy. Everywhere you look problems and pitfalls are lurking. Even when things look good on the surface, there may be problems below ground or in the soil just waiting to emerge.
But with the right commercial landscape partner, you need not worry as much about your landscape falling victim to these traps. With experience and a detailed maintenance plan in place, your property can avoid some of these most common pitfalls we find in commercial landscapes.
So here are six of the most common pitfalls to watch out for at your properties, and some of the actions you can take to avoid them.
Greenery and biophilic environments are scientifically proven to reduce stress and speed up healing. That means the world to patients and residents often dealing with chronic stress, which is linked to increased inflammation that can lead to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and cancer.
The first thing that may come to mind is how to enhance the attractiveness of your outdoor areas to gain these benefits. Visual aesthetics are a critical part of the recipe for success. However, it takes several ingredients to make the most positive impacts on landscaping for hospitals and senior living communities.
Despite all the research and best intentions, here are five challenges that can get in the way of creating a more natural, healing environment.
#1 Overwatering & Underwatering
The difference between having a healthy, vibrant landscape and one that’s underwhelming and unhealthy is most often proper watering. It’s too easy to get out of balance by either overwatering or under-watering. Using the correct irrigation techniques come into play as much as monitoring the irrigation volume.
With overwatering, your property’s landscaping will suffer because it leads to shallow root systems and increased chance of disease. Fungal growth is likely to occur with too much moisture. Shallow roots weaken plants to the point they can’t fight off disease. Aggressive irrigation can also wash away quality topsoil and important nutrients found in it.
Overly moist conditions are also a breeding ground for destructive pests. This pitfall is made worse by the other negative consequences that follow.
As for underwatering, plants will become stressed, leading to a droopy, discolored appearance as their growth gets stunted. Foliage falling off the plant is another likely symptom. Plants without enough water are even more threatened during extreme heat waves. Mix in a few weeks of drought, and they’re often doomed.
With all these pitfalls, how can property owners find the ideal irrigation balance? At Yellowstone Landscape here’s a few things we do:
- Tailoring irrigation systems for each property, considering plant types, soil conditions, and localized climate patterns
- Smart irrigation technology for precision watering volume using rain and soil moisture sensors
- Turf, plant, and tree installation choices that reduce irrigation needs
- Regular monitoring to ensure irrigation systems are working efficiently
#2 Inadequate Seasonal Preparation
Commercial landscaping is no different than any other part of life. Failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s why an effective maintenance plan for your property should include seasonal transitions. Lack of seasonal planning puts your valuable landscaping elements at risk for several potential downturns.
One of the most common things that can damage commercial landscapes (if not properly protected) is frost. It happens every year, despite nightly news warnings of quick drops in temperatures in short time frames. The cell damage to plants from sudden temperature free-falls is often impossible to recover from. And those plants end up having to be replaced.
Then you have the problem of weak spring growth due to not having a fall fertilization plan. Building quality soil for springtime growth must begin in the fall. Unfortunately, trees, shrubs, and grass can’t play catch-up once spring pops.
Another major concern for property owners is not having a year-round irrigation system strategy. Simple but regular irrigation check-ups prevent untold expenses from leaks that increase the water bill and frozen pipes that burst.
Two final consequences of inadequate seasonal preparation are soil compaction and pest infestation. The ground endures more foot and equipment traffic in the damp springtime, leading to compacted soil. Pests attack plants that are suffering from the stress of seasonal changes (particularly big changes that happen in short time frames).
We believe in applying early pest control in the spring, paired with soil testing and targeted fertilization as needed. During the summer, we ensure mulch levels are correct to retain moisture and adjust irrigation schedules to battle heat stress. Deep-root fertilization and aeration are often key elements in our fall planning. Finally, during winter, irrigation blow-outs to prevent freezing are performed. We also check for hazardous trees (and limbs) so we can remove them before winter storms take them down, causing property damage.
Some of the benefits of year-round landscape planning for property owners are below:
- Healthier plants
- More resilient turf
- Lower commercial landscape maintenance costs
- Improved curb appeal through all four seasons
- Increased property value
#3 Ignoring Soil Health & Plant Needs
The third maintenance pitfall is especially tricky because it can’t be seen with the naked eye. After all, commercial property owners can’t be expected to know the ins and outs of soil health and the needs of countless plant types. Yet, these factors are critical to avoiding declining visual appeal due to unhealthy plants.
Here are a few things that can go wrong when soil health and plant needs aren’t given proper attention:
- Stunted growth
- Reduced drought tolerance
- Plants can’t absorb nutrients
- Fertilizers are less effective
- Water is wasted through run-off
Yellowstone Landscape takes care of these issues for our clients—before concerns become landscape problems, by using a proven scientific approach. We perform comprehensive soil testing to ensure the pH is balanced and soil nutrients are at precise levels. All our fertilization programs are tailored to optimize the soil based on detailed testing. Deep core aeration is another step toward creating ideal soil conditions for your landscape materials.
Plant selection is vital to our process too. Plants are matched to your specific soil type for optimal growth and visual appeal. Plant grouping maximizes plant health while saving water. We encourage property owners to utilize native plants because they thrive without an abundance of maintenance (plus, they provide unique aesthetics).
This well-rounded approach means our customers save money on commercial landscape maintenance. They also avoid having to replace plants and trees that should never have been installed in the first place.
#4 Avoiding High Maintenance Plants
If we could advise property owners to take only one step that would make their lives easier, what would it be? Avoid installing high-maintenance plants whenever possible. Compared to other low-maintenance options, those requiring lots of upkeep drive your costs up and needlessly consume additional resources. The comparison below tells the tale:
Low-Maintenance Plants:
- Require less frequent watering
- Adapt to various light conditions
- Natural pest and disease resistance
- Need minimal pruning and fertilization
- Often well-adapted to local climate
High-Maintenance Plants:
- Demand specific soil conditions or pH levels
- Require frequent watering or specialized care
- More susceptible to pests and diseases
- Need regular pruning and deadheading
- Struggle in harsher local climates
Low-maintenance plants clearly hold many advantages for property owners. Not only do they save you the money and hassles of replacement, they’re also easier on the environment. Using mostly low-maintenance plants means your property aesthetics will be more consistent throughout your property, too. So, you’ll have great curb appeal from every possible viewpoint.
Three things that Yellowstone Landscape leans into with plant selection are site-specific analysis, pest-resistant varieties, and maximizing aesthetic value. Our highly experienced landscape designers are knowledgeable about native and adaptive species in every region we serve across the United States.
Hopefully, your landscape provider is giving you good guidance on low-maintenance versus high-maintenance plants because the following results are pretty impressive:
- Reduce labor hours and landscape equipment time spent on your property
- Enhanced biodiversity for landscape health and added visual interest
- Overall lift in landscape vibrance
- Eco-friendly
#5 Inconsistent Landscape Service Schedules and Multiple Vendors
What’s worse than having to juggle multiple landscape vendors? The inconsistent results that property managers are left to stress out about! Who’s to blame for lackluster turf, for example? The weed control provider or the mowing crew? Or is the pest control guy not doing a good job?
That’s just one problematic example of the downsides of using multiple landscaping vendors. Too many pitfalls come with using more than one landscaping provider. Primarily, vital information gets lost between service providers, leading to overlapping services and overlooked plant needs. Missed commercial landscape maintenance tasks, along with possible finger-pointing when landscape problems rear their ugly heads.
Other factors that create headaches for property managers include wasting time managing multiple contracts and increased liability risks with more landscape workers from various companies on your property.
For over two decades, Yellowstone Landscape has delivered top-notch results by focusing on being a single-source provider. We provide comprehensive landscape design, installation, and maintenance. Our customers are provided with a dedicated account manager who they know will handle any issues immediately. This keeps property managers from wasting their valuable time tracking down the right person from multiple providers.
Tailored service and scheduling are staples of our dedication to being a reliable one-stop shop for clients. Leaning into integrated pest management, sustainability, and the newest landscaping innovations means there’s no aspect of commercial landscaping we can’t assist you with.
When you only have to deal with one vendor, you benefit in the following ways:
- Consistent quality
- Simplified communication
- Cost and time savings
- Proactive problem-solving
- Simplified contract negotiations
- Cohesive landscape appearance
- Maximized curb appeal
#6 Overlooking Repairs and Replacements in Budgeting
This pitfall shows up entirely too often. It’s a critical oversight, though, to leave repairs and replacement costs out of an annual landscaping budget. It can lead to unexpected costs for property owners and frustrations for the property manager. It’s most common after seasonal wear and tear, but also arises due to storm damage.
What can happen besides additional costs at inopportune times?
- Dying plants detract from a property’s attractiveness
- Hardscape damage causing tripping hazards
- Wasted water from outdated irrigation systems
- Wildlife damage to valuable plants
- Dangerously icy sidewalks due to drainage problems
To avoid these negative outcomes for your property, it’s wise to have your landscape provider perform regular comprehensive evaluations of your softscapes, hardscapes, and irrigation systems. Another proactive step most providers don’t offer is seasonal damage forecasting, which can predict winter damage and plan for repairs needed after the snow season.
Yellowstone Landscape does offer those services to clients, as well as estimates of plant life spans. And our weekly inspections—included in our maintenance programs, often prevent small issues from ballooning into big, expensive landscape problems.
The Best Tool? Regular Walk-Throughs with Your Account Manager
A walk-through after a landscape issue has reached a severe level is a walk-through performed too late. Preventive action means staying ahead of grim scenarios that can typically be prevented by regular walk-throughs with your account manager.
If your account manager is hardly ever on your property they’re not doing these necessary inspections, resulting in more costly repairs over time. Landscape deterioration becomes more visible and increasingly unappealing to guests, visitors, and employees. Landscape managers not being proactive means emergency repairs can rise to premium rates (i.e., weekends and holidays). Emergency repairs can delay other maintenance tasks as well.
Yellowstone Landscape puts full trust in our dedicated account managers to perform regular inspections using our systematic checklists. This leads to early detection of issues like identifying pests before major infestations break out. Spotting irrigation issues early saves money on major parts being damaged or plants dying due to lack of water.
More benefits of regular property walk-throughs include:
- Consistent landscape quality
- Reduced emergency service calls
- More realistic budgets
- Better communication between property managers and landscape teams
- Increased property value through well-kept green spaces
Conclusion: Don't Let Commercial Landscape Maintenance Pitfalls Harm Your Property's Landscape
The key takeaway—proactive landscape maintenance helps you overcome each of these six common pitfalls we discussed. Of course, there are many other concerns we could have included here.
Regardless of the problems facing commercial landscapes, a proactive approach lets property managers rest a bit easier instead of worrying about the problems that might be hiding around the next corner.
To quickly recap the pitfalls most likely to sidetrack your property’s landscaping features one more time:
- Improper watering
- No seasonal preparations
- Poor soil health and plant selection
- Multiple or inconsistent vendors
- Not budgeting for repairs and replacement
- Skipping regular property inspections
If your landscape provider is too busy to plan to prevent a declining landscape, can you depend on them to successfully recover from the negative results of not planning?
Contact Yellowstone Landscape for a comprehensive property assessment. See exactly how your property can benefit from our expertise in maintaining vibrant, healthy landscapes year-round
