If you can hire the lowest bidder for mowing and blowing, why would you want to look further?
One reason is that it's often cost-effective to pay for a crew that has up-to-date horticultural knowledge. Some cities and public gardens have adopted green gardening strategies that save money and resources, make the gardens safer for the public and healthier for the plants, and, as a bonus, are better for the gardeners' health as well.
Take leaf blowers. Anyone who has taken a basic horticultural class or read about best practices knows that blowers should be used only on hardscape (paths, driveways, etc.). Using a blower on lawns or under plants degrades and compacts the soil and creates unhealthy conditions for plant growth, necessitating remediation and replacement later on. Carrying a blower around all day can give gardeners back problems, which makes everything else they do less efficient, and using it makes fine particulates airborne, contributing to respiratory problems.
Whenever I rake or sweep a path, I notice that within a couple hours the afternoon breezes deposit a new layer of fine debris, so there's no benefit to getting every last bit of organics off the paths.
Under shrubs and trees, a layer of leaf litter returns nutrients to the soil, protects the soil from erosion, and offers many other benefits.
And everyone knows that fertilizing is essential. Or is it? The up-and-coming science of soil biology suggests that the best way to nurture plants is to support the ecosystem around the plants' roots. To do that, add compost, use mulch, and avoid disturbing the soil. Fertilizers, especially nonorganic ones with numbers higher than 10-10-10, will impair the plants' ability to get the nutrients they need from soil critters and make them less resilient, less able to withstand pests and diseases, and less able to survive without regular inputs. Furthermore, the tender new growth on overfertilized plants attracts aphids and other plant-eating insects.
An essential skill for anyone managing a landscape is the ability to identify beneficial insects and pollinators, and know how to welcome them into the garden year-round. Beneficial insects eat the bugs that want to eat your plants. Early in the season, an important strategy for attracting the bug-eaters is to make sure the larder is stocked with food; in other words, let some aphids remain. Of course, that means you will need to tolerate some munched leaves, especially if you want to foster butterflies and their ravenous larvae. Throughout the year, grow tiny-flowered plants that many beneficial insects favor, such as parsley-family and daisy-family plants and native buckwheats.
For a healthy lawn, cut the grass no lower than 3 in. so it can outcompete weeds, and leave the grass clippings on the lawn to fertilize it and help prevent thatch. A grasscycling mower will shred the clippings so they don't clump.
If your yard-care crew is not up on the best management practices, refer them to the Green Gardener program at http://www.mywatershedwatch.org/greengardener.html. Classes are available in Spanish and English.
Homeowners who want to learn why the overly manicured look is unhealthy can take sustainable landscaping classes listed at http://www.mywatershedwatch.org/renewggcard.html. A good summary of best management practices is at http://www.lotusland.org/learn/green-garden-strategies.
© 2011 Tanya Kucak