What is a Landscape Maintenance Checklist?
Landscape maintenance is more than just making the lawn or yard pleasing to the eye. It is essential to keep the plants healthy. A poorly maintained lawn becomes a breeding ground for weeds and diseases that can damage the plants and the whole garden.
Pruning and trimming are usually done to maintain plant health. But the tasks can vary depending on each season. For example, spring is the best time to fertilize the lawn, while raking leaves and other debris are the main tasks in fall. Aside from that, other necessary tasks are needed to keep the property in pristine condition, especially commercial lawns, whatever the season is. That is why it is essential to keep a landscaping checklist template to make sure every task has been accomplished.
Landscapers and property managers can also use this property management tool to help them spot mistakes, rectify them, and create quality control programs to ensure the standards are met.
A landscape maintenance checklist will include standard services such as:
- Mowing
- Edging
- Weed control
- Fertilization
- Aeration
- Disease control
- Dethatching
Aside from the services mentioned above, a landscape maintenance schedule template might also include the materials used by the landscaping contractor and recommendations for repairs or upgrades if needed.
Just like any other job, safety is also important in lawn maintenance. So the checklist also includes safety checks to make sure chemical bottles are properly labeled and if a personal protective equipment (PPE) is needed.
In this article, the following points are explained:
1. What needs to be maintained?
2. The importance of quality control in landscape maintenance
3. How to streamline landscape maintenance quality control
What needs to be maintained?
Lawn care maintenance can primarily be divided into 4 categories:
- Lawn Care
- Shrub and Tree Maintenance
- Flower Bed Care
- Water Management
- Safety
Each category has a scheduled task to keep the beauty of the lawn. Keep track of these tasks using a landscaping checklist template:
Lawn Care
Mowing is an essential task in lawn maintenance, especially for commercial landscapes. Other tasks included in lawn care includes:
- Blow away loose clippings and debris
- Trash and debris pickup
- Edging curbs and beds
- Aertion, fertilisation, and seeding
Shrub and Tree Maintenance
Trees and shrubs need to have regular pruning to keep them at a specific size. Aside from giving the lawn a more appealing look, it also ensures that no dry or rotting branches will fall down.
This activity also includes checking the plants and trees for apparent signs of diseases and pests that could destroy them.
Flower Bed Care
Weeds must be checked, so flower beds stay healthy and look beautiful. You also need to remove old regularly, withered flowers regularly to keep the flowers looking fresh. Lastly, regularly watering the plants is essential for the health and growth of the plants.
Water Management
Water is essential to a healthy lawn. In commercial lawns, proper irrigation is needed, so make sure that there are no leaks, so the plants get the amount of water they need. Also, ensure that the spray heads are calibrated. Before winter comes, prepare your irrigation system and make them winter-ready to avoid frozen pipes when the temperature starts to drop.
Safety
When damp leaves build up on the walkway, the surface becomes slippery causing accidents or injuries. Remove them and other debris from the path. Also examine the sidewalks for any damage or cracks because they can be risky during winter.
The importance of quality control in landscape maintenance
Landscaping, especially in commercial properties, is essential because it increases property value and creates an upscale atmosphere that draws people. A good landscaping vendor has policies and procedures that include a series of checks and specifications to keep up with the standards. The following elements should be part of a landscaping quality control process.
Set Standards and Meet Client Expectations
Having a landscape quality control in place sets the standards for operations and outcomes, making sure they are met, and the expected outcome is delivered. This benefits both the client and the contractor because it defines client expectations while providing contractors the knowledge and tools to deliver those expectations.
A property owner or manager would like to partner with landscaping contractors who have a quality control process in place. On the other hand, a contractor should provide solutions for landscaping issues like disease or infestation, erosion, wastewater, overgrowth, and more.
A good quality control process should include different levels of inspection that are properly documented using a landscape maintenance checklist. There should be weekly inspections to ensure that everything is in tip-top shape.
Prevent Safety Risks
Without a quality control program in place, health and safety can become an issue. For example, an overgrown, dead brush can become a breeding ground for pests and rodents. It is also a potential fire hazard. On the other hand, dry or dead limbs can be a safety hazard to people and property. Then, there’s also the danger of disease that can cause extensive damage to the whole property.
Root intrusions of poorly placed trees can also become a safety risk. These roots can destroy walkways and even buildings. Shallow roots, on the other hand, are susceptible to uprooting during strong winds.
Failure to understand soil content can lead to wrong tree placement that could cause erosion or mudslides during heavy rains.
Prioritise Efforts
Not all elements of landscaping need attention during every visit. Each section is serviced rotationally. For example, a property might be divided into four parts, and landscape workers will rotate the service for each area weekly, ensuring the whole property receives the attention it needs.
Regular maintenance primarily focuses on the usual tasks like weeding, edging, mowing, cleaning up debris, and checking the water system. These are things that could get out of hand when not checked regularly.
On the other hand, less frequent maintenance might include fertilization, irrigation repair or modification, fixing drainage issues, checking brow ditches, inspecting trees, and more.
How to streamline landscape maintenance quality control
Digital checklists in landscape maintenance help property managers and landscapers monitor the quality of work as well as schedule it. With Lumiform, the powerful app and desktop software, landscapers and property managers reduce their paperwork by filling out and storing all documents digitally. It also makes it easier for them to communicate and share information.
A digital solution like Lumiform offers many advantages in the daily work of administrators, managers and workers:
- Get started digitally right away with one of our expert-reviewed templates from the Lumiform library.
- Create digital landscape maintenance checklists with our flexible form builder and customize them for internal landscaping quality control measures.
- Streamline the reporting process by eliminating paperwork and automatically generating reports that are sent to key recipients.
- Immediately report detected issues during inspections from the app and assign corrective actions to the process owner.
- A reliable and secure centralized database of all landscaping maintenance performed.
- Establish automated workflows to trigger push notifications for upcoming maintenance schedules.
- Electronic approvals for timely approval of landscaping work performed.
