--- title: "Landscape Maintenance | Spottedwood Property Co." description: "Landscape maintenance in the south Denver metro. Bed edging, hand weeding, shrub pruning and haul off. I pull weeds by hand and do not spray." canonical: https://spottedwood.com/services/lawn/landscape-maintenance/ source: text/html --- # Landscape Maintenance Landscape maintenance is everything in a yard the mower never touches: beds, shrubs, rock, the strip along the fence, the corner behind the shed. It is hand work, done kneeling, and it is the part of a yard that shows neglect first. Two things decide how it goes: how long the beds have been left, and whether you want one reset or the beds kept up through the season. I pull weeds by hand and I do not spray anything. [Get a quote](https://spottedwood.com/contact/?service=lawn) [See starting prices](https://spottedwood.com/pricing/) **$40 an hour, 1 hour minimum.** Every visit is billed at least one full hour even if the work takes thirty minutes. [Why, and how to get the most out of it](https://spottedwood.com/pricing/). ## What the job involves - Edging the beds. A spade or an edger cuts a clean line and a shallow trench between the lawn and the bed. Bluegrass spreads by underground runners, so that line closes up every year no matter how sharp it looked in May. Recutting it is most of what makes a bed read as kept up. - Weeding by hand and by root. In mulch a lot of it lifts clean. In rock you pull one at a time and you feel for the root, because a stem that snaps off at the crown is back in two weeks. Bindweed and thistle regrow from root regardless. Pulling those is management on a schedule, not a cure. - Pruning on the plant's clock. Lilac, forsythia and the other spring bloomers set next year's flowers the summer before, so shearing them in April cuts the bloom off before it opens. Those get cut right after they finish flowering. Dead, broken and crossing wood can come out any time of year. - Cutting back perennials and ornamental grasses. Grasses come down to a few inches before new green pushes up through the old clump in spring, because once it does you are either cutting the new growth or working around it. Perennials can go in fall or stand through winter. Your call. - Rock beds and weed fabric. Weeds in rock are usually not coming up through the fabric. They sprout in the dirt and broken leaf litter that has worked its way down into the rock on top of it, which is why fabric that held for years suddenly does nothing. Clearing that layer out matters more than the pulling does. - Hauling what comes out. A pruning job makes more volume than people picture, and shrub trimmings do not compact. If it fits in your yard waste bin, that is the cheap way to do it. If it does not, it goes in the truck and gets driven somewhere, and that time is part of the job. ## What changes the price How long since anyone touched it is the biggest factor by far. A bed on a repeat visit takes minutes. A bed nobody has worked in two summers is a reset, and the reset is the expensive visit, not the ones after it. Rock costs more than mulch per square foot because every weed comes out one at a time. Tall shrubs that need a ladder go slower than anything at knee height. Then the dull stuff that adds up: how far the beds are from where I can park, gates and stairs and slope between the two, and whether the debris fits in your bin or rides out in my truck. ## What people usually get wrong The common one is expecting a single cleanup to hold the season. It buys you a reset and a few good weeks. What keeps it looking that way is somebody coming back while the weeds are still small, because a weed pulled at two inches takes a second and the same weed in July takes a tool, a knee and a hole in your mulch. The other one is buying more weed fabric. Fabric does nothing about what sprouts in the dirt sitting on top of it. ## Send me this and I can quote it without coming out There is no trip charge either way, but a remote quote is faster for both of us and it costs you nothing to try. - A photo of each bed taken far enough back that I can see where it starts and stops, plus one shot pointed straight down at the ground. - A close photo of the weeds and the surface they are growing in, mulch, rock or bare dirt, so I can tell what pulls and what fights. - Every shrub you want touched, whole plant in the frame, with a door or a trash can nearby so I can judge the height. - When the beds were last weeded or cut back. If the answer is not since you moved in, say that. It moves the quote more than square footage does. - Whether your yard waste bin can take the debris, plus a photo of the gate and the walk from the driveway to the back. [Send the details](https://spottedwood.com/contact/?service=lawn) [Call or text (720) 681-4380](tel:7206814380) ## When I am the wrong call If what you actually want is spraying, call somebody else. I do not apply herbicide or any other chemical, on any job, and no amount of hand pulling does to bindweed in a rock bed what a spray program does. Same answer for anything I would have to climb a tree to reach, or run a saw above head height. That is arborist work. I also do not design or install. If the beds need to be rebuilt instead of maintained, I can keep them clean in the meantime, but I am not the one who should be redrawing them. ## The rest of lawn care and landscape maintenance - [Mowing and Trimming](https://spottedwood.com/services/lawn/mowing/) - [Sprinkler Blowout](https://spottedwood.com/services/lawn/sprinkler-blowout/) - [Snow Removal](https://spottedwood.com/services/lawn/snow-removal/) - [All of lawn care and landscape maintenance](https://spottedwood.com/services/lawn/) ## Where I do this work - [Denver](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/denver/) - [Glendale](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/glendale/) - [Cherry Hills Village](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/cherry-hills-village/) - [Englewood](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/englewood/) - [Aurora](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/aurora/) - [Greenwood Village](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/greenwood-village/) - [Centennial](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/centennial/) - [Littleton](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/littleton/) - [Lone Tree](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/lone-tree/) - [Highlands Ranch](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/highlands-ranch/) - [Parker](https://spottedwood.com/service-areas/parker/) ## Tell me about the job Describe it in your own words and I will tell you what it costs, when I can get to it, and whether I am honestly the right person for it. [Get a quote](https://spottedwood.com/contact/?service=lawn)