There are a number of ways to reduce the amount of time spent on commercial and industrial landscape maintenance. There are also a variety of ways to reduce these costs. However, sometimes it requires some upfront investment of time and/or money to renovate a landscape in order to reduce the amount of maintenance. Below are a few ideas and suggestions.
Lawn
The lawn is the highest maintenance part of the landscape because it requires weekly mowing most of the year plus fertilization, weed control, and sometimes pest control. In order to keep lawns green during July and August, they also must be irrigated regularly.
Raising mowing height to 1 ½ to 2 inches will reduce maintenance costs by reducing weed invasion and pest problems. Lawn cycling known as mulching the clippings is the equivalent of one fertilization per year. Mulching can also helps save and reduce labor and disposal costs.
Granular weed and feed and liquid lawn weed killers are very effective on broad leaf weeds, but do not control grassy weeds. Synthetic turf is a good choice in some applications as well; this will also reduce maintenance costs associated with watering, fertilizing and weekly mowing.
Pruning and Hedge trimming
Pruning is the second most time consuming task in maintenance with lawn being on top of the list. Trimming can be reduced by replacing overgrown shrubs and trees with dwarf varieties which fit the allocated space. Sometimes removing crowded plants will leave enough room for natural growth of adjoining plants. Shrubs and trees can seldom be reduced by more than 1/3 of their normal height. And even this requires yearly pruning by a skilled pruner. Never “top” or stub off large branches of trees and shrubs.
Ground Covers
Groundcovers can be planted in areas where it is difficult to grow grass (shady areas, slopes, unusual shape areas. Ground covers can completely replace lawns with low growing plants which do not require mowing. There are some ground covers which will take some foot traffic; however, none will take the amount of wear given by active foot traffic. Ground covers are more expensive to establish than lawns. In some cases removing small patches or sparse areas of ground cover adjacent to narrow strip planters can reduce the time of routine edging, shearing and clearing in and around other plant material.
Trees and Shrubs
Creating beds around trees and shrubs not only reduces grass trimming costs, but reduces mower and trimmer damage. In light of commercial tree pruning and maintenance, two inches of bark mulch will reduce weeds by 90% or more. Weed barrier fabric (porous woven fabric) is almost 100% effective until weed seeds blow in on of the bark or other mulch placed on the fabric. Weed barrier fabric can be applied to already existing plantings as well as new ones.
Weed herbicides
Herbicides such as glyphosate (Roundup and other brands) can be used to kill existing weeds under and around trees and shrubs as long as you keep them off leaves of desirable plants. Pre-emergent is a granular weed preventer used in commercial landscaping which can be applied around plants and groundcovers. It lasts for about 3-6 months. Corn gluten is a natural weed preventer which reduces about 80% of weeds
Annual Flowers Beds
Flowers require the most intense maintenance because of the repeated pinching, removing dead flowers, pesticide application, hand watering pots and regular fertilization. Low maintenance landscaping includes replacing annual flowers with perennials that will reduce your commercial landscaping service labor and will reduce the installation cost of planting annual beds by 3-5 times per year. Since perennial flowers not needing to be planted regularly, adding mulch will significantly lessen the weed maintenance. Effective mulches include ground fir bark, organic compost and organic green waste.
Simple designs with one or
two kinds of annual or perennial flowers are easier to maintain.
Commercial Landscape Maintenance
FloraTerra provides commercial office landscaping , multi-residential landscape management services, retail landscaping in and around the south san francisco bay area. Our industrial landscape maintenance includes a complete range of services appropriate for sustainable landscape design, landscape water management , Retail Mall Landscape Management, R & D Landscape Development, Luxury Apartment and Condominium Landscaping, Residential Estate Landscaping, HOA Community Landscaping Services for Multi-Building Developments, Commercial Office Park Landscaping and Corporate Campus Landscaping. Our landscape service territory extends throughout the greater South San Francisco Bay Area.
ABOUT FloraTerra Landscape Management
FloraTerra of Silicon Valley and its affiliates, are based in San Jose, California. As a leading commercial landscape maintenance service for office and multi-residential properties.Since its origin the company and its affiliates have installed and maintain some of the most prestigious properties throughout the san jose and greater bay area. For more information about FloraTerra please visit us at: http://www.floraterra.com.
San Jose | Santa Clara | San Francisco Bay Area | Fremont | Sunnyvale | Milpitas | South Bay
