Commercial Lawn Maintenance for Georgia Properties

A commercial property is a different job

Nobody complains about a homeowner's yard at a board meeting. A commercial property is different. The grounds are the first thing a tenant sees on a tour, the first thing a homeowner photographs when they are upset, and the first line item somebody points at when the assessment goes up. Your job is not to have a beautiful lawn. Your job is to never have to think about the lawn.

That means the work has to be predictable. Same day, same scope, same crew, whether or not anybody is watching. Most of the grounds vendors that get fired in Georgia are not fired for bad mowing. They get fired for showing up on Thursday one week and the following Tuesday the next, for leaving clippings blown across a parking lot, and for going quiet when the property manager calls.

Who we work for

• HOAs and neighborhood associations: entrances, common areas, amenity lots, detention ponds and the strips nobody claims
• Office parks and medical offices: the front approach, islands, walkways and everything visible from a patient's car window
• Retail centers: parking lot islands, curb lines, storefront beds and the litter that collects behind them
• Churches and schools: large open turf, event weeks, and Saturday work when the property has to look right on Sunday morning
• Property managers and rental portfolios: several addresses on one invoice and one point of contact
• Industrial and warehouse sites: fence lines, retention areas and the road frontage

What a grounds contract covers

A commercial scope is written, not assumed. Mowing frequency by season, edging on hard surfaces, string trimming at fence lines, poles and foundations, bed maintenance, shrub work, seasonal mulch or pine straw refresh, leaf management in the fall, litter policing before the mowers run, and a full blow-down of walks and lots before the trucks leave. You get the scope in writing and you know exactly what is in the number and what is extra.

Every property has spots that eat the budget if nobody names them. Detention ponds and steep bank slopes. Islands that get run over by delivery trucks. The strip between the sidewalk and the road that the county mows twice a year and everyone else ignores. We walk them with you before we bid so there is no argument about scope in March.

Insurance, access and liability

Most management companies need proof of insurance on file before a vendor sets foot on the site. We are licensed and insured. Tell Hunter what your management company requires and he will get it handled before the first visit rather than during the first week.

Safety on a commercial property is not just the crew. It is trip hazards on the walks, sight lines at the exits where a shrub has grown into the corner, and blown debris in a lot where somebody is going to slip on it. If we see it, you hear about it, in writing, with the visit.

The Georgia season, on a commercial calendar

Spring pollen coats every surface in March, and on a retail or office property that is a pressure washing and blow-down conversation, not just a mowing one. Growth peaks from April to June, which is when frequency matters most. July and August are drought, so turf goes off color and irrigation problems show up as brown stripes. September through December is leaf drop, and on a wooded HOA that is the single biggest labor line of the year. Winter is dormancy, cleanup, pruning and the right window for hardscape repairs.

One vendor for the grounds and the repairs

The wall at the entrance is failing. The catch basin behind building three is backing up into a unit. The bollards are rotted and the deck at the clubhouse needs framing. Those normally take three more vendors and three more bid packets. We do drainage, hardscape, carpentry and remodeling under the same company as the mowing, so the property has one number and one person answering for it.