Landscaping

All landscaping and maintenance vendors in one place.

Three landscaping proposals written against three different acreage numbers cannot be compared. Publish your mapped scope here once and every vendor prices the same ground.

Start your landscaping RFP See your common areas

6 common areas, each on its own schedule
34 visits on the accepted year
10.9 ac on the example contract below

A landscaping crew mowing and string-trimming a community common area

Common areas

See every area, how often it is cut, and what is late.

The acreage the map arrives at is the acreage the contract is written on.

VendoRFP · My Community

Example data

Willow Creek HOA

1284 Willow Creek Dr

Services · Landscaping

Common area on contract

10.9ac

Areas on schedule

5 of 6

Visits a year, accepted

Areas overdue

Common areas, and what each is on

Open the wing

Area

Frequency

Acres

Last visit

Front entrance & monument
Weekly · 1.6 ac
Weekly
1.6
2 days ago
Boulevard medians
Weekly · 2.4 ac
Weekly
2.4
2 days ago
Pond perimeter & path
Weekly · 2.8 ac
Weekly
2.8
3 days ago
Pool lawn
Weekly · 1.2 ac
Weekly
1.2
3 days ago
Playground & open turf
Every two weeks · 1.5 ac
Every two weeks
1.5
4 days past schedule
Perimeter strips & fence line
Every two weeks · 1.4 ac
Every two weeks
1.4
5 days ago

6 common areas on the contract

10.9acres of mapped grounds

Your landscaping company invoices against this record, at the price in the proposal your board signed. Sales tax and payment processing are their own line items. Six companies, six invoices. You pay each one. They all land here on the same terms, so nothing has to be chased through email.

Last visit — mow and edge

2 days ago, 7:40 AM

Acreage serviced: 10.9 ac
Mow height: 3.5 in
Irrigation zones checked: 12
Debris bags removed: 9

Areas mowed: Front entrance & monument · Boulevard medians · Pond perimeter & path · Pool lawn

Acreage serviced and areas mowed are both required to close a landscaping visit, so the 10.9 acres on this record sit beside the 10.9 acres the contract was written on and either match or do not.

Check the acreage

The common-area acreage this community published, carried onto the contract as the thing being priced.

Check the schedule

Areas keep their own schedules, so a weekly bed is not judged against a biweekly lawn.

See what is late

An area past its schedule says so, in days, before anybody has to ask the vendor.

Service schedule

A July cut and a December cleanup are different work.

Grounds care is the one service whose frequency moves with the calendar. Write the scope as a whole year and vendors price the whole year.

A year on an accepted schedule

11mulch refresh24seasonal color change444443leaf haul-off21

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Dormant Jan–MarGrowing season Apr–SepDormant Oct–Dec

Example schedule. Your community sets how often. Through peak growth a vendor can propose a tighter schedule. Its price is in front of you before you agree.

Peak growth

Jul

4visits

Weekly cut at mowing height. Irrigation zones walked.

Dormant

Dec

1visit

One cleanup. The grass has stopped.

The whole year

Jan–Dec

34visits

Plus mulch in March, seasonal color in May and leaf haul-off in November.

Every visit covers the same 10.9 acres of common-area grounds, the figure this example community published with its scope. The map on this page produces that one figure for your own community. Publish it alongside the year, once, and every landscaping company is pricing the same document, which is what makes the proposals you get back comparable line for line.

The three seasonal jobs

A grounds crew spreading fresh mulch into a planted median bed

March · mulch refresh

Beds topped up before the growing season starts.

A community entrance median planted out with seasonal annuals

May · seasonal color

Annuals changed out in the entrance and median beds.

A community street under fallen leaves along the curb line

November · leaf haul-off

Leaves cleared off the common turf and the curb line.

Service reports

See what the landscaping crew records to close out a visit.

Acreage serviced and the areas mowed are both required fields. Without them, and without a photo of the finished work, the visit will not close.

VendoRFP · Vendor dashboard

Example data

Active jobs

Completed this month

Compliance

Active

Dispatch Board

Open board

Pending1

Landscaping — bed refreshCedar Hollow

Dispatched1

Lawn mow & edge — common areasWillow Creek HOA

In Progress2

Landscaping — common areasStonebridge Ranch HOAIrrigation zone checkLakeside Commons

Completed2Awaiting community approval

Turf treatment — spring pre-emergentWillow Creek HOATree & shrub trim — entranceCedar Hollow

Every job on this board belongs to the landscaping company that opened it. A community and its landscaper agree the schedule between them, and it lands on the community calendar.

This visit’s report

Acreage servicedRequired
Areas mowedRequired
Mow heightOptional
Irrigation zones checkedOptional
Debris bags removedOptional

Acreage is checked against the acreage the contract was priced on, so a mow that records no coverage leaves the board with nothing to check it against.

Closing this visit

1Check in on site
2Photo of the finished work
3Record the readings
4Check out

Arrival and departure are stamped on the board, so a completed visit records who was standing on the ground and the time they were there.

Compliance

General liability COIVerified
Workers compensationVerified
Business licenseUnder review
W-9 formVerified

Insurance is checked the day you propose, so keeping your documents current is what keeps you eligible.

You send your own invoice, under your own name and number, on the same terms as every other company here. The community reads it on one screen with every other invoice it gets, and pays you on the payment details printed on it. Record the payment on your invoices page and the invoice closes.

Your scope

What your scope is priced against.

Each landscaping vendor sets its own price. These are the figures it works from, and the ones you check the finished work against a year later.

69 acres inside the mapped boundary, split four waysWidths are the same figures the map on this page subtracts.

Common area — the estimate basis43.5 ac
Private home lots15.4 ac
Streets8.4 ac
Ponds & parking1.7 ac

What comes out of the green here is the roof footprint. Where a whole lot can come out instead, the green gets smaller.

1Scope of work

43.5acres

Traced from the mapped boundary, with this community’s own private home lots subtracted. Treat it as an upper limit: curb strips and medians inside the boundary are still counted, so a walkthrough may bring it down. Land inside that boundary belonging to neighboring associations was subtracted too. The street surface inside the boundary was measured and subtracted too.

Item	Service	On the map
Pool	Lawn Services	Located
Dog park	Lawn Services	Located
Common area	Lawn Services	Located
Playground	Lawn Services	Located

Writing the scope

Write the scope once and every vendor prices the same work.

A grounds scope is a list, and this one runs to sixteen lines. Each is marked for the scope it belongs in, and you keep the ones your community needs.

Satellite view of one residential community: rows of townhomes and houses on curving streets, with a pool and clubhouse at the center and a pond at one edge.

43.5AC

upper limit · streets out

Common area — the estimate basis
Private home lots
Streets
Ponds & parking, cut out
Outside the community
Community boundary
Amenities already on the map

A landscaping company walks the grounds before it prices them, and writes its line items against what it finds out there — the slopes, the bed edges, the trees a mower has to work around. The green above is where that walk starts.

Priced over the green above

MowingCommon turf, at the height your scope setsMow-and-edge
EdgingWalks, curb line, and drive apronsMow-and-edge
String trimmingAround trees, poles, hydrants, and fence linesMow-and-edge
Blowing offWalks and drives, at the end of the visitMow-and-edge
Clipping removalOff the hard surfaces and out of the bedsMow-and-edge
Bed weedingEntrance, median, and amenity bedsFull service
Mulch refreshBeds topped up before the growing seasonFull service
Seasonal color changeAnnuals in the entrance and median bedsFull service
Shrub and hedge pruningFoundation planting and screening hedgesFull service
Tree workCommon-area trees, to the height your scope setsFull service
Leaf haul-offCommon turf and the curb line, in the fallFull service
Pre-emergentTurf, on the schedule your climate needsFull service
FertilizationTurf and beds, by roundFull service
Weed controlBeds, walks, and cracks in the hard surfacesFull service
Irrigation zone walkEvery zone, monthly, with the count on the reportFull service
Irrigation repair or overhaulValves, heads, and controllersIts own proposal

Whichever lines you publish are the lines every company prices, so the proposals come back comparable. A repair or an overhaul comes back under its own number, and your board approves it before anyone digs.

Mow-and-edge and full service are different scopes.

Mowing, edging, and blowing across the common areas. Or that plus beds, seasonal color, mulch, pruning, and tree work. Whichever you write is what every vendor prices.

Irrigation is two different jobs.

A monthly zone walk belongs in the maintenance scope, and every visit reports how many zones fired. A valve rebuild is priced on its own. Name the one you want and every proposal answers it.

A system overhaul is its own proposal.

It comes back priced under its own number, and your board approves it before anyone digs.

Build your RFP

Multiple phases

Put every phase under one scope.

Phase one was mowed by whoever the developer left behind, phase three by whoever answered the phone in 2019. Publish one scope over all of it and the difference becomes a number.