Every price below is a basis, not a quote; the number gets fixed once we've walked your lot.
Six services, six different ways of pricing them, because a mowing program and a French drain trench don't scale the same way. Nothing here is a cart or a checkout. Call the office or send an inquiry from the contact page and we'll set a time to look at the property.
- Coverage
- Residential and small commercial, Pittsburgh area
- Not offered
- Lawn chemicals, tree removal, hardscape or masonry
Grounds Maintenance Program
Priced per visit on a seasonal contract, April through October.
The program runs on a fourteen-day cycle from the first cut in April through the last one in October, not whenever a truck happens to have room on the route. Every visit includes the mow, a pass of the string trimmer along fence lines and beds, and a blower pass to clear clippings off walkways and driveways. Nothing gets left for the homeowner to sweep up.
Why fourteen days and not seven
A seven-day cycle is overkill on most residential lots and it prices itself out of a seasonal contract fast. A twenty-one or twenty-eight-day cycle, which is what a lot of crews default to once they're overbooked, scalps the lawn on the first pass after a wet stretch and leaves clumped clippings sitting on the grass. Fourteen days is the interval where the mower is never taking more than a third of the blade height off in a single pass during normal Pittsburgh rainfall.
What the crew checks along the way
The same two crew leads run your route all season, so they notice a drainage low spot forming, a bed edge growing over, or a shrub that's struggling, and they'll mention it on the visit instead of waiting for a call. That's part of the fixed-crew structure, not a separate inspection service billed on top.
| Basis | Per-visit rate, seasonal contract |
|---|---|
| Season | April through October |
| Cycle | 14 days, fixed |
| Included | Mow, edging, blow-off |
| Crew | Same two leads all season |
Ornamental Plantings
Priced per bed, by plant count and container size.
This is shrub and perennial bed design and installation, from a single foundation planting to a full slope of mixed beds. Every plant, container-grown or balled-and-burlapped, gets its wire basket cut and its root ball scored with a few vertical passes before it goes into the hole. That takes maybe two extra minutes per plant. Skipping it is the single biggest reason we get called to replace something another crew installed the year before.
Why root-bound stock fails on its own schedule
A shrub grown too long in a container or wire basket forms roots that circle the shape of the pot instead of spreading outward. Planted whole, those roots keep circling in the ground. The plant looks fine through spring and early summer because it's still running on stored energy, then it stalls and browns out by late summer or the following year once the girdled roots can't keep up with the canopy. It's a slow failure, which is exactly why it gets blamed on drought or a bad summer instead of on the install.
Timing and soil
We plant in spring and fall when soil temperatures favor root growth over top growth, and we hold off on new plantings in August heat unless there's already an irrigation plan and a water source on-site, because a freshly scored root ball needs consistent moisture for the first several weeks and August in Pittsburgh doesn't reliably provide it. Beds get amended based on what a hand test of the existing soil shows, not a default bag count.
| Basis | By plant count and container size |
|---|---|
| Season | Spring and fall preferred |
| Root prep | Wire basket cut, ball scored, every plant |
| August rule | Requires irrigation plan first |
Pruning & Shaping
Priced per hour, per tree or shrub group.
Structural pruning happens in the dormant season, roughly late fall through early spring, when a plant's branch architecture is visible without leaves in the way and cuts heal before the growth push begins. Summer visits are for shaping: keeping a hedge line or a formal shrub at the size and outline it's supposed to hold rather than letting it balloon and then hacking it back hard once a year.
Hand tools on ornamentals
We use hand pruners and loppers on ornamental shrubs rather than gas hedge trimmers, because a powered blade tears rather than cuts on anything thicker than a pencil and leaves a ragged wound that's slower to callus over and more open to disease. It's slower work. On a boxwood or a hydrangea group that matters more than the time saved.
What gets cut and what doesn't
Structural cuts remove crossing branches, dead wood, and anything growing back into the center of the plant, aimed at a shape the shrub can hold on its own without repeat hard shearing. We won't top a tree or flush-cut a large limb against the trunk; both are common requests and both set up decay problems that show up years later.
| Basis | Per hour, per tree or shrub group |
|---|---|
| Structural window | Late fall through early spring |
| Shaping window | Summer, as-needed |
| Tools | Hand pruners and loppers on ornamentals |
Mulch & Bed Edging
Priced per cubic yard installed.
We use double-shredded hardwood mulch, spread two to three inches deep and pulled back from the base of every trunk and stem so it isn't piled against the bark. Bed lines get cut fresh with a steel edging tool every spring rather than sprayed with a chemical edge-killer, which gives a crisp line that holds its shape through a full season of mowing instead of blurring by July.
Depth and volume, not a flat bag count
Pricing is per cubic yard installed, calculated from the measured square footage of each bed at the depth it actually needs, since a bed that's never had fresh mulch needs more volume than one that gets topped up annually. We won't stack a new layer three or four inches deep on top of an old, matted layer that's already compacting; that combination holds too much moisture against stems and roots.
Edging as maintenance, not a one-time cut
A bed line cut once and never maintained grows back over within a season on a Pittsburgh lawn's growth rate. Re-cutting it each spring, before the first mulch delivery, is part of this service rather than a separate call.
| Basis | Per cubic yard installed |
|---|---|
| Material | Double-shredded hardwood, undyed |
| Depth | 2 to 3 inches, pulled off stems |
| Edging | Steel-cut lines, re-cut each spring |
Drainage & Slope Correction
Priced per linear foot of drain run.
Clay holds water on a Pittsburgh hillside the way it never does on the sandier soil further out from the city. On any lot running over an 8 percent grade, we correct standing water and washouts with a French drain: a trench cut to grade, a perforated pipe wrapped in filter fabric bedded in gravel, tied into a length of solid, unperforated PVC that carries the water to a real discharge point instead of just to the next low spot in the yard.
Why we won't run gravel over fabric
Gravel spread over a sheet of landscape fabric with no pipe underneath is the fastest, cheapest version of this fix, and it's the one we tear out most often. On a slope, water moving through the gravel washes fine soil down into it over one or two wet seasons, the fabric clogs, and the whole assembly slides downhill as a mat. It looks like a drainage fix on the invoice and functions like nothing for more than about a year.
Getting the fall right
The pipe run is set with a laser level before backfill, checked for a continuous fall to the discharge point with no low spots in the middle. A drain with a dip in it holds standing water at that dip the same way the original problem did, just underground where nobody notices until the yard above it starts sinking.
| Basis | Per linear foot of drain run |
|---|---|
| Applies to | Lots over 8% grade |
| Pipe | Solid PVC discharge, no corrugated |
| Check | Laser-level fall before backfill |
Seasonal Cleanup
Priced per visit, by lot size.
Spring cleanup clears winter debris out of beds, cuts back last year's perennial growth, and gets the lawn ready for the first mow of the season. Fall cleanup is leaf removal, sized to how many mature trees are actually dropping onto the lot rather than a flat per-visit rate that ignores it. Debris gets hauled off the same day in the truck, not bagged and left at the curb for a separate pickup.
Why same-day haul-off matters
A tarp or bag pile left at the curb after a fall cleanup is exposed to wind and rain until the municipal pickup gets to it, and on a sloped lot that pile can wash debris right back into a storm drain or a neighbor's yard. Hauling it off the property the same day the work is done removes that window entirely.
What's scoped in and what isn't
This service covers seasonal debris: leaves, dropped branches under a hand-carry size, and old perennial stalks. It doesn't cover storm damage cleanup involving downed limbs over about four inches in diameter, which is a tree-removal job outside what this crew does.
| Basis | Per visit, by lot size |
|---|---|
| Spring scope | Bed clearing, perennial cutback |
| Fall scope | Leaf removal, sized to tree count |
| Haul-off | Same day, on the truck |
How a price basis turns into an actual number
Every basis above describes how a job gets measured. None of it is a number until someone has stood on the lot.
We look at square footage, grade, plant count and container size, or linear feet of drain run, depending on which service applies, and we walk the property before putting a figure on anything. That visit is where a mowing program becomes a dollar figure per cut, or a drainage job becomes a dollar figure per linear foot.
Nothing on this page, and nothing we say on the phone before that visit, is a binding price. A written estimate signed by both sides is the only thing that is.
Multi-service jobs, like a drainage correction that includes a new planting bed on top of the corrected grade, get priced as the sum of the relevant bases rather than a bundled flat rate that hides which part costs what. You'll see the drainage linear footage and the planting count as separate lines.
Ready to get a number started? The contact page has the inquiry form and every way to reach the office, or call direct.
| Service | Measured by | Set at the visit |
|---|---|---|
| Mowing program | Lot size, obstacles, slope | Per-visit rate, season length |
| Ornamental plantings | Plant count, container size | Per bed total |
| Pruning & shaping | Number and size of plants | Hourly rate, estimated hours |
| Mulch & edging | Bed square footage, depth needed | Cubic yards, delivery count |
| Drainage correction | Trench length, grade, discharge distance | Rate per linear foot |
| Seasonal cleanup | Lot size, tree canopy over the lot | Per-visit rate |
Six services. Six price bases. One number once we've seen the lot.