What Boards and Property Managers Get
Apex Landscaping provides full service HOA landscape and grounds care for homeowners associations, condominium boards, townhome communities, and the property managers who serve them across Chicagoland. One point of contact coordinates mowing, bed and turf care, seasonal color, tree and plant health care, and commercial snow and ice management, so a board is not managing several vendors and schedules.
Apex is licensed and insured, our team includes ISA-Certified Arborists, and we maintain grounds at more than 90 commercial and association properties across Chicagoland, part of our wider commercial landscaping services. We have worked in the north and northwest suburbs, the North Shore, Lake County, and DuPage and Will counties since 1991. If your board is renewing a contract or preparing to solicit bids, this page covers what an association should expect.
HOA Landscape Maintenance and Common Area Care
Common areas are what residents see every day, and what boards hear about when standards slip. Apex maintains entrances, islands, retention areas, turf, and shared open space on a recurring schedule set with the board, so the work is predictable and the community stays presentable.
A typical association program covers mowing and string trimming, bed edging and mulch, spring and fall cleanups, seasonal color at entrances and monument signs, shrub and ornamental pruning, and irrigation activation, adjustment, and winterization. Frequency and scope are set in the contract rather than left open, which is what makes competing proposals comparable when a board reviews bids. Our commercial maintenance guide covers what a maintenance contract should specify and how to compare providers.
HOA Snow and Ice Removal
Apex Landscaping keeps community properties safe and passable through the winter. Our own crews clear and salt private drives, sidewalks, and entrances from the start of a storm through its end, using plows matched to brick, stone, and paver surfaces so shared areas come through the season undamaged.
Tree Care for Community Associations
Mature trees are among the most valuable assets an association owns, and the clearest liability question on the property. Limbs over walks, drives, and parking need clearance pruning on a schedule, and declining or storm damaged trees are far cheaper to identify before they fail than after.
The Apex team includes ISA-Certified Arborists, so an association gets health monitoring, structural and clearance pruning, hazard identification, storm response, and removal and replacement planning from the same team that maintains the grounds. Apex has planted more than 50,000 trees across Chicagoland. Boards budgeting canopy work across several seasons can plan replacements before a removal forces the decision. More detail on our tree care page.
Plant Health Care for Common Areas
Turf and plantings in a community take more traffic than a private yard. Foot paths cut across corners, pets use the same strips of lawn, and salt from winter clearing collects along walks and drives.
Plant health care addresses that directly, with fertilization timed to the season, broadleaf and crabgrass control, disease and insect monitoring on shrubs and ornamentals, and soil correction where turf keeps failing in the same spot. Treating the cause is what ends the recurring complaint about the same brown patch every July. Our plant health care program runs on its own or as part of an association maintenance contract.
How HOA Landscaping Bids and Approvals Work
Association decisions run on a calendar most vendors ignore. Budgets are usually set months before the season they cover, many governing documents require more than one bid above a spending threshold, and a change of any size has to survive a board vote. A proposal that arrives in the wrong month does not get evaluated, it gets deferred to next year.
Apex works to that calendar. We quote from your existing scope so the board can compare like with like, put pricing in writing ahead of budget season rather than after it, and supply a certificate of insurance and references for the board packet without being chased for them.
Where an association has no current documentation of the property, the scope has to be written before it can be bid at all. We can walk the site and put that description together first, so the board has something concrete to send out. More on comparing proposals is in our commercial maintenance guide.
Who Residents Call, and What the Board Hears Back
Most of the friction in an association landscape contract is not the work, it is the reporting. A resident emails the board about a dead shrub, the board emails the manager, the manager emails the contractor, and two weeks later nobody can say whether it was handled.
Apex keeps that loop short. Requests come to one point of contact rather than to whichever crew member happens to be nearest that morning. Work that falls outside the contract gets quoted before it is done rather than appearing later on an invoice. Seasonal work is confirmed as finished, so a manager has something specific to put in a board packet instead of a general reassurance.
Boards that want one can have a property walk through before renewal, so the next contract is written against the property as it stands now rather than as it was when the last one was signed.
HOA Landscaping Questions Boards Ask
Does an HOA need to hire a landscaping company?
Not always, but most do once common areas grow beyond what volunteers can keep to a schedule. The trigger is usually consistency rather than capability. Turf, beds, and trees in shared areas need attention at set intervals, and an association carries liability for the condition of those areas that an individual homeowner does not.
What is included in HOA landscape maintenance?
A typical association program covers mowing and trimming, bed edging and mulch, spring and fall cleanups, shrub and ornamental pruning, seasonal color at entrances, and irrigation activation and winterization. Tree care, plant health care, and commercial snow and ice management are commonly added to the same contract. What matters most is that frequency and scope are written down rather than assumed.
How much does HOA landscaping cost?
Cost is driven by the amount of maintained turf and bed area, how much of it has to be trimmed by hand, the number of entrances and monument beds carried on a color program, irrigation zone count, and whether snow is included. Two communities with the same number of units can differ substantially on those measures, which is why a proposal should be priced from measured area and defined scope rather than unit count.
Who is responsible for landscaping in an HOA, the association or the homeowner?
The governing documents decide it and they vary. Common areas, entrances, and detention or retention areas normally belong to the association. Yards inside a lot line are often the homeowner responsibility in a single family HOA and the association responsibility in a townhome or condominium community. The contract should name the areas it covers so there is no argument mid season.
How often should an HOA rebid its landscaping contract?
Many associations rebid every one to three years, and some governing documents require competitive bids above a spending threshold. Rebidding tests price, but the more useful comparison is scope. Proposals are only comparable when they are written against the same defined areas and the same visit frequency.
Apex Landscaping Commercial Services Videos
communicative and responsive
“Apex is a wonderful company to work with. They are always competitive with their pricing, but more importantly, communicative and responsive! It certainly makes the project easier! I would recommend that you reach out to them for your lawn and snow management needs. You won't be disappointed!”
— May 2018, Heather M.