Environmental Insights

Looking for lawn care or landscape maintenance for your commercial property? There are a lot of reasons to choose a professional landscape management company instead of just a “landscaper.” But once you’ve narrowed it down to a few good companies, how can you know who will best meet your needs?

Every good landscape services provider will have a slightly different approach and personality. Today we’d like to highlight a couple of our competitors and discuss how we are—not necessarily better—but different.

Both Yellowstone and Brightview are well-established commercial landscape companies for whom we have a lot of respect. Let’s start with Yellowstone.

When you need groceries, you head to the store. One grocery store may have marginally better prices over the next, or a nicer produce department, but ultimately it doesn’t matter that much whether you frequent Kroger or the Piggly Wiggly. You’ll still fill your fridge.

Lawn and landscape care, though; that’s a different matter. Your choice of landscape provider can make a huge difference in your experience, and impact the quality, appearance, comfort and even safety of your home and property.

Unlike plumbers and electricians, landscape services providers are not required to complete any kind of certification or training. That means that any Tom, Dick, or Jane with a truck and a lawn mower can hang out their shingle as a landscaper. However, there is a significant difference between such a person—let’s call them a “landscaper”— and a true landscape professional.

How can you tell them apart? A few strategic questions go a long way.

If you had to pick just one landscape plant to symbolize the South, you could do worse than choose the Crepe Myrtle (or “crape myrtle” as it is often spelled.) With its spectacular summer blooms, shapely trunks and stunning fall color, this small tree or shrub simply oozes Southern beauty, hospitality and class. So much so that even though Crepe Myrtles are arguably over-used in the landscape, you just can’t help but love the things.

So why - WHY - did anyone ever get the idea to start willy-nilly decapitating them?

To the uninitiated, landscape maintenance doesn’t seem like rocket science: run a mower over the grass each week, trim the bushes, keep everything watered, and sprinkle a few chemicals over the grass every once in a while. Simple, right? So why pay a professional commercial landscape contractor when you can do it cost-effectively in-house?

Or can you?

You may associate planting time with Spring, but when it comes to trees, Fall and Winter rule - at least in our mild climate. (Just another advantage of Southern living - no need to compress all our planting tasks into a few short weeks in spring!)

The reason for this is that it allows the tree to start establishing roots right away without expending energy into shoots and leaves. Planting while a tree is dormant also helps minimize transplant shock.

Recently we listed some of our favorite trees to plant in lawn areas in Georgia. Since prime tree planting time is upon us, we thought we’d follow up with a few tips to help your new trees off to the very best start possible.

Grasslands punctuated with trees and shrubs: in nature they’re called savannas, and they’re thought to be the original natural habitat of humankind. No wonder the park-like combination of lawn and trees is so popular in landscaping!

Combining trees with turf takes some planning. You can’t plunk just any tree down into your lawn and expect it to work out well

Here are some features to consider when looking for the best trees to plant in a lawn in Georgia and beyond:

As a landscape service provider, it’s just as important to know the needs and habits of your clients as it is to know the varying requirements of different plants for sun, water and soil. A successful approach to landscaping one property might be completely unsuitable for its neighbor, depending on any number of factors. And some types of property demand special attention.

Medical campuses are one of these. Successful medical campus grounds maintenance requires careful planning in order to meet the unique needs of the facility and its occupants.

Let's talk about what goes into properly maintaining a medical campus.

Our landscapes here in Central Georgia are located far enough away from the coast to have escaped the worst of Hurricane Matthew’s rampage earlier this month. But even though we are sheltered from the brunt of nature’s fury when it comes to hurricanes and tropical storms, Middle Georgia landscaping presents its own challenges unique to our area.

A Land Of Contrasts

“Middle Georgia” refers to the area roughly 75-100 miles around Macon, including the communities of Forsyth, Dublin, Milledgeville, Hawkinsville, Perry, Eastman, Fort Valley, and surrounding areas. Despite its relatively small size, this area’s geology and climate are actually extremely diverse.

Our region happens to be located smack dab on the Fall Line, an ancient seashore that extends in a diagonal line right across Georgia. The Fall Line marks the boundary between the Piedmont region of rolling hills east of the Appalachians, and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Conditions above and below the Fall Line can be completely different, which explains in part why middle GA landscaping can be so challenging.

Let’s explore how our geography contributes to some of the common obstacles folks face when it comes to landscaping in the Heart of Georgia.

The state of Georgia encompases 59,425 total square miles. That’s a lot of landscape. In fact, it’s beyond the scope of any one landscaping company to service all that land. There’s plenty of room for friendly competition!

Which is a good thing, because it’s nice to have freedom of choice when it comes to choosing any company, including your landscape provider.

At T.Lake, we pride ourselves on our ability to get along well with and satisfy just about any customer. However, we recognize that tastes differ and we may not always be the perfect fit for everyone who needs landscape services in central Georgia.

With that in mind, we thought we’d highlight a few of the best landscaping companies in middle GA. These are all solid companies we feel are doing a great job for their Georgia customers:

Want to know a simple way to improve patient outcome, reduce staff stress and boost consumer satisfaction for your medical facility? Consider adding landscape features.

It’s true. Studies repeatedly show that gardens, plants and trees have a healing and stress-reducing effect that can significantly improve human experience and outcome in a medical setting. The economic advantages to the health care provider are many, ranging from lowered absenteeism and staff turnover to lowered cost of patient care.

What factors should you consider when planning medical campus landscape amenities? There’s a lot to think about, but here are a few places to start: