What we do
The whole trade, on one calendar
Prices below are what a typical south-east Portland garden pays. Yours might be less — we measure before we quote, and the quote is fixed for the season.
Fortnightly lawn maintenance
Mow, edge, blow. Same crew, same day of the week, all season, with clippings hauled out rather than left to mat.
We cut at 3 inches through spring and drop to 2.5 in October so the grass carries less moisture into the wet months. Blades are sharpened every 14 hours of run time — a torn leaf tip is what turns a lawn grey a week after mowing.
Every visit includes
- Mow with alternating stripe direction each visit
- Hard-edge along walks, beds and driveway
- Trim around posts, trees and downspouts
- Blow down and haul off all clippings
Bed & border keeping
Hand weeding, deadheading, dividing and cutting back so a planted border still reads as a border in year five.
Borders fail slowly. We keep a planting record for every garden so the hellebores get cut in February and the hydrangeas are not pruned into next summer flowers by mistake.
Every visit includes
- Hand weeding — no glyphosate, ever
- Deadheading and seasonal cut-backs
- Dividing crowded perennials, replanted or potted for you
- Bark or leaf mulch topped to 2 inches
Hedge & shrub pruning
Laurel, boxwood, arborvitae, camellia and old rhododendron cut to a line, on the right calendar for the plant.
Timing matters more than tools. Spring-flowering shrubs get cut straight after flowering; laurel and privet get their hard cut in late June once nesting is finished, then a light dress in September.
Every visit includes
- Nest check before any hedge over 4 feet is touched
- String line set for long runs and formal shapes
- Renovation pruning for neglected shrubs, staged over two years
- All arisings chipped and removed
Lawn renovation & repair
Moss, thatch, compaction and dog patches. Core aeration, overseed with a Pacific Northwest ryegrass blend, top dress.
Most Portland lawns are not dead, they are suffocating. We pull 3-inch cores at 20 holes per square foot, sweep in a compost top dress, then overseed at 6 lb per thousand square feet in mid-September when soil is still warm and the rain is arriving.
Every visit includes
- Core aeration and thatch lift
- Compost top dressing, screened to 3/8 inch
- Overseed with perennial rye and fine fescue
- Six-week watering plan written for your irrigation
Leaf clearance & winter tidy
Three visits between late October and December, because one visit in November is a lie your gutters will notice.
Big-leaf maple and sweetgum drop over about seven weeks. We clear lawn, beds and paths, pull the leaves off crowns where they rot, and shred a share of them into leaf mulch we bring back to your borders in spring.
Every visit includes
- Three timed clearances through leaf fall
- Crowns and rosettes cleared by hand
- Gutter-line and path sweep
- Leaves shredded and returned as mulch in March
Irrigation & drainage
Spring start-up, head alignment, controller programming, autumn blow-out, and honest advice about soggy corners.
We audit run times with catch cups rather than guessing, so most gardens leave the first visit watering less than they did before, with better coverage.
Every visit includes
- Catch-cup audit and schedule rewrite
- Head replacement and arc correction
- Backflow test coordination
- Compressed-air winterisation
A maintenance visit, start to finish
You should barely notice us, except for the result
Step 01
Before we arrive
The crew lead texts the night before. If a gate is locked or a dog is out, that is the moment to tell us.
Step 02
On the day
Two or three people, ninety minutes for a standard garden. Mowing direction alternates from the last visit so the grass never learns to lean.
Step 03
Before we leave
Hard surfaces blown clean, gates latched, clippings loaded. Nothing is left bagged at the kerb.
Step 04
That evening
You get a two-line note of what was done and anything we noticed — a leak, a dying shrub, borer holes in the birch.