The Level Green Landscaping Blog

Expert Industry Advice and Property Enhancement Suggestions.

How many landscaping questions could HOA residents possibly ask? Let’s see:

• Can I install a patio out back?
• Are garden ornaments allowed?
• Can I plant 7 hydrangea shrubs?
• What are the rules about fences?
• I want to plant a bamboo hedge — is that OK?
• Can I grow tomatoes and peppers to make salsa? I’ll give you a jar!

You get the idea. Lots of questions.

While HOAs typically hire a landscaping company to care for their common areas, homeowners are often required to care for their own landscaping, following any HOA landscaping rules.

Some trees have to be tougher than others.

Trees growing in commercial property parking lots and other paved areas have to weather some tough conditions.

Heat. Salt. Drought. Compaction.

This isn’t a job for any old tree.

Let’s take a look at five of the best trees for parking lots.

The latest shortage related to Covid-19 hits you right in the landscaping — it’s plants. 

A nationwide shortage of trees, shrubs, and perennials has landscaping companies like Level Green scrambling to meet the supply for customers eager to spruce up properties as the country begins to open up after the shutdowns of Covid-19.

“We’re not the only ones facing a plant shortage — everyone’s facing a shortage,” says Bradley Sarno, operations manager at Level Green Landscaping.

Demand for plants is greater than the supply after a year of brisk plant sales to homebound homeowners who decided to boost their landscaping.

“Everybody is home gardening now,” Sarno says. “Everybody’s at home raising chickens, planting vegetable gardens, and installing landscaping around the house. It has definitely increased demand.”

To meet that demand, growers started selling stock last year that they would have saved for this year.

First off, these are no ordinary cicadas.

Their name even sounds ominous: “Brood X.”

This vast horde of insects will emerge in late April or early May from their 17-year stay underground, and the DC/Maryland/Virginia area is the epicenter of this cicada fest.

Everybody loves saving a few bucks.

Buy one pizza, get one free can actually make your whole day, right?

So when customers suggest cutting a few items from their commercial landscaping contract, we get it.

But unlike that pizza, cutting landscaping services isn’t necessarily a good deal. (Also, there’s no pepperoni involved, which makes things even worse.)

It can actually cost you more in the end.

Here’s how:

JT Hipp is a certified pesticide applicator, which means he’s trained to safely kill insects.

But he loves bees. 

“Bees are one of the best things for landscaping,” says Hipp, an operations manager at Level Green Landscaping. 

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the plight of the little guys. 

Climate change, pesticides, and destruction of habitat by development are a few of the factors threatening the bee population. 

They can use our help. It’s only fair, after all they do for our landscaping.

How are native bees beneficial?

Here’s the buzz.

Sometimes, nature tries to take over.

Invasive plants are an increasing problem in Maryland and Virginia, taking over forests of native trees and plants and slowly killing them.

What are invasive plants? How do you control invasive plants?

Brad Butler, corporate manager at Level Green Landscaping, talks about the problem — and the painstaking, important solution.

If you haven’t jumped on the native plant trend, what are you waiting for?

Natives naturally resist diseases and pests. They’re happier and healthier, needing less water than non-natives.  

And you’ll be helping out a host of wild critters, who love native plants. They offer a free buffet of berries, nuts and seeds. Some native blooms provide nectar for hummingbirds and insects.

Northern Virginia is home to lots of great native plants.

Dear deer: the free lunch is over.

You can’t blame them, really. You plant rows of leafy greens, delectable petals and tender shoots. You fertilize them, keep them watered, line them up in a free buffet, right out in full view with easy access.  

But your beautiful flowers and plants are there to delight your customers, visitors, tenants and employees — not a bunch of rude, uninvited deer.

How to protect your plants from deer? It starts right here, right now, with a look at the best deer damage prevention and control methods.

It's time to close down the salad bar.

If we do our job right, the plants we add to your property look like they’ve always been there, like they perfectly belong.

But of course, first they came from somewhere else. 

We need thousands and thousands of plants, from flats of annuals to potted tropicals to bare root saplings to big established trees.

Where do landscapers get their plants?