Landscape Maintenance: (or groundskeeping) is the art and vocation of keeping a landscape healthy, clean, safe and attractive, typically in a garden, yard, park, Institutional setting or estate. Using tools, supplies, knowledge, physical exertion and skills, a groundskeeper may plan or carry out annual plantings and harvestings, periodic weeding and fertilizing, other gardening, lawn care, snow removal, driveway and path maintenance, shrub pruning, topiary, lighting, fencing, swimming pool care, runoff drainage, and irrigation, and other jobs for protecting and improving the topsoil, plants, and garden accessories.
Mowing: To cut down grass or other growth.
Edging: An edger (also known as a lawn edger or stick edger) is a garden tool used to cleanly separate a lawn from a walkway or other paved surface, such as a concrete sidewalk or asphalt path. Edgers may be manual or automated, typically employing a small two-stroke gasoline motor or an electric motor. An edger enables a user to create a clear separation between the lawn and the walkway. It helps to impart a finished appearance that is neater than can be achieved by merely mowing over the border of the lawn and walkway (which frequently permits tufts of low-growing grass to hang over onto the walkway, resulting in an irregular or ragged appearance).
Instant Sod Lawn: Sod or turf is grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots, or a piece of thin material. Sod can create an instant lawn or sod can be used to repair a small area of lawn that has died.
Plugging: A plug is a 2×2-inch piece of sod of a spreading grass variety. Plugs are planted individually 12 inches apart during the warm season. With proper care, the plugs take root and rapidly spread by rhizomes or stolons.
Sowing Lawns (New & Existing): In seeding, little if any soil is placed over the seeds. More precisely, seeds can be generally sown into the soil by maintaining a planting depth of about 2-3 times the size of the seed.
Over Seeding: is a method of seeding that involves scattering seed, by hand or mechanically, over a relatively large area.
Fertilizer: is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin (other than liming materials) that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants
Annuals: annual often refers to a plant grown outdoors in the spring and summer and surviving just for one growing season. Summer annuals sprout, flower, produce seed, and die during the warmer months of the year. Winter annuals germinate in autumn or winter, live through the winter, then bloom in winter or spring.
Perennials: A perennial plant or simply perennial (Latin per, “through”, annus, “year”) is a plant that lives for more than two years. Perennials, especially small flowering plants, that grow and bloom over the spring and summer, die back every autumn and winter, and then return in the spring from their root-stock, are known as herbaceous perennials. However, depending on the rigors of local climate, a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, or in a milder garden, may be treated by a gardener as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings or from divisions.
Biennials: A biennial plant is a flowering plant that takes two years to complete its biological lifecycle.[1] In the first year the plant grows leaves, stems, and roots (vegetative structures), then it enters a period of dormancy over the colder months. Usually the stem remains very short and the leaves are low to the ground, forming a rosette. Many biennials require a cold treatment, or vernalization, before they will flower. During the next spring or summer, the stem of the biennial plant elongates greatly, or “bolts”. The plant then flowers, producing fruits and seeds before it finally dies. There are far fewer biennials than either perennial plants or annual plants
Pine Needling: Pine Needles are typically used as a mulching material in the landscape industry in flower beds, around tree beds and around frontage signs. Pine Needles are a good substitute for mulch.
Mulching: A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of an area of soil. Its purpose is any or all of the following:- to conserve moisture, to improve the fertility and health of the soil, to reduce weed growth and to enhance the visual appeal of the area. A mulch is usually but not exclusively organic in nature. It may be permanent (e.g. bark chips) or temporary (e.g. plastic sheeting). It may be applied to bare soil, or around existing plants. Mulches of manure or compost will be incorporated naturally into the soil by the activity of worms and other organisms. The process is used both in commercial crop production and in gardening, and when applied correctly can dramatically improve soil productivity.
Hedge Trimming: Prunning and shaping bushes as well as removing over growth .
Tree Trimming/Topping: Removal of low hanging branches. Topping is rounding out the top of an existing tree.
Tree Removal: Remove a unwanted Tree.
Stump Grinding: A stump grinder or stump cutter is a power tool or equipment attachment that removes tree stumps by means of a rotating cutting disk that chips away the wood. Stump grinders can be the size of a lawn mower or as large as truck. Most accomplish their task by means of a high-speed disk with teeth that grind the stump and roots into small chips.
Leaf removal: The removal of Leaves from a turf area and walkways.
Snow Removal: is the job of removing snow after a snowfall to make travel easier and safer. This is done by both individual households and by governments and institutions.
Pressure Washing: A pressure washer is a high pressure mechanical sprayer that can be used to remove loose paint, mold, grime, dust, mud, and dirt from surfaces and objects such as buildings, vehicles, concrete surfaces, etc. The volume of a pressure washer is expressed in either gallons or litres per minute, often designed into the pump and not variable. A pump’s pressure, expressed in pounds per square inch, pascals, or bars (depreciated), is also designed into the pump but can be varied by adjusting the unloader valve.
Underground Irrigation: Irrigation is the artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall.
Sprinker Systems: Irrigation sprinklers are sprinklers providing water to vegetation, or for recreation, as a cooling system, or for the control of airborne dust.
Gutter Cleaning: Blowing debris out of gutter areas; so that water can flow freely without damaging structure
Cement Work & Walkways: a walkway is a composite or umbrella term for all engineered surfaces or structures which support the use of trails. These include sidewalks, footbridges, stiles, stairs, ramps, paseos or tunnels.
Retaining Walls: Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to unnatural slopes. They are used to bound soils between two different elevations often in areas of terrain possessing undesirable slopes or in areas where the landscape needs to be shaped severely
Hardscape: in the practice of landscaping, refers to the paved areas like streets & sidewalks, large business complexes & housing developments, and other industrial areas where the upper soil profile is no longer exposed to the actual surface of the Earth. The term is especially used in heavily urbanized or suburban areas with little bare soil.
Pavers: Interlocking concrete pavements or pavers are a special dry mix pre-cast piece of concrete commonly used in exterior hardscaping pavement applications. Unit Pavements or block paving, nicknamed pavers in the United States were developed prior to WWII by the Dutch and introduced into the United States in the early 1970s.
Water Features: is one or more items from a range of fountains, pools, ponds, cascades, waterfalls, and streams.
Play Areas: is a place with a specific design for children to be able to play there. Modern playgrounds often have recreational equipment such as the seesaw, merry-go-round, swingset, slide, jungle gym, chin-up bars, sandbox, spring rider, monkey bars, overhead ladder, trapeze rings, playhouses, and mazes, many of which help children develop physical coordination, strength, and flexibility, as well as providing recreation and enjoyment. Common in modern playgrounds are play structures that link many different pieces of equipment.
Topsoil: Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 2 inches (5.1 cm) to 8 inches (20 cm). It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth’s biological soil activity occurs.
Compost: is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At the simplest level, the process of composting simply requires making a heap of wetted organic matter (leaves, “green” food waste) and waiting for the materials to break down into humus after a period of weeks or months. Modern, methodical composting is a multi-step, closely monitored process with measured inputs of water, air and carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials.
Fences: are freestanding structures designed to restrict or prevent movement across a boundary. Fences are generally distinguished from walls by the lightness of their construction and their purpose. Walls are usually barriers made from solid brick or concrete, blocking vision as well as passage, while fences are used more frequently to provide visual sectioning of spaces.
Gravel: is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments.