THE LOWDOWN ON STANDARD LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS

Does your landscape maintenance contract cover everything it should? Do you know what you should be asking your landscape professional to ensure that your property looks great all year round? The following tips will help you understand what to look for in your landscape maintenance contract:

• Make sure your contract includes all necessary maintenance functions. It should include all the services necessary to ensure that your landscape is healthy and looking good, including mowing, lawn fertilization and pest control, spring cleanup, spring mulching, tree and shrub insect treatments, leaf removal and edging and trimming. Some contracts also include aeration and over seeding.
• Know when you will receive various services. Make sure your contract includes a calendar or list of services with a timeline. It should detail approximate times of the year when you will receive each service.
• Make sure you have a detailed contract. Sit down with your landscape contractor and talk through every aspect of the contract. Make sure you understand what is covered and ensure that details are included in the contract, to alleviate questions later.
• Understand what is not covered in your contract. It is just as important to understand what isn’t covered. Most maintenance contracts don’t cover plant replacement, seasonal color, snow removal and special projects and repairs.  If these are services that are important to you, talk with your contractor about what would be involved with adding in additional services.
• Track the costs. It is helpful to have a contract that estimates your costs by line item for each service such as; mowing, spring cleanup, spring mulching, pruning, turf care, leaf removal, tree and shrub pest management, etc. That way it is much easier to stay on budget throughout the year and if there are extra costs, your landscape professional can tell you exactly which services are going over budget. 

Sit down with your landscape contractor to make sure you understand how they operate, who will be serving your account, how often they will be on your property and how they will report out to you. Allow the firm with which you work to serve as your trusted partner to ensure your landscape presents a polished, clean look representative of your business.