How an HOA Board Chooses a Landscaping Company
An HOA’s landscaping is the most visible thing the association spends money on. It is what residents see every day, what prospective buyers judge the community by, and what generates the most correspondence when it is not right.
It is also, for most boards, a decision made by volunteers who do not procure landscape services for a living, on a contract that runs for years. This page is about running that decision well.
Apex Landscaping has worked with community associations across Chicagoland’s north and northwest suburbs since 1991.
Assess what the community actually needs
Before talking to any vendor, establish what you are buying.
Inventory the common areas. Entrances and signage, turf, beds and borders, trees, detention areas, streetscape and parkway planting, amenity spaces, and anything the association is responsible for that residents assume someone else handles.
Separate the recurring from the one-off. Routine grounds care is a different contract from a bed renovation or a tree removal program. Mixing them produces proposals that cannot be compared.
Identify the actual complaints. Pull the last year or two of resident correspondence. The pattern in it is usually more useful than a general sense that things could look better.
Understand your governing documents. What the association is responsible for versus individual owners, and what the declaration or rules require.
Agree the standard. “Well maintained” means different things to different board members. Agreeing what good looks like before you shortlist prevents evaluating proposals against several private standards at once.
Build the shortlist
Look for firms with genuine community-association experience. HOA work differs from single-property commercial work: more stakeholders, published standards, resident interaction, and a board that changes composition.
Ask neighboring associations and your property manager. Confirm each firm is licensed and insured, and that it has capacity for a property of your size within a reasonable service window.
Three to five firms is usually the right shortlist. More than that and the evaluation becomes the project.
Write the RFP and request proposals
The single highest-leverage step. A written RFP means every response prices the same work.
Include: a site map with areas identified, the scope by area and by task, expected frequencies, the standard you agreed on, the contract term, insurance requirements, the reporting you expect, and how proposals will be evaluated.
Ask for work samples on comparable communities, not a general portfolio.
Ask each firm to price your scope. Firms may propose alternatives alongside it, which is often valuable, but the base proposal has to be comparable.
For what belongs in the scope itself, see commercial landscape maintenance.
Do the due diligence
Insurance, verified. Certificates direct from the insurer. General liability and workers’ compensation. Confirm the association is named where your governing documents or counsel require it.
References on comparable associations. Call them. Ask whether the schedule holds, how complaints are handled, whether crews are consistent, and how the relationship changed after year one.
Visit a site they maintain. Ideally unannounced, and ideally one they have held for several years.
Confirm who does the work. Employees or subcontractors, and whether the same crew services the property week to week. Consistency is what makes a crew notice a problem before a resident reports it.
Check credentials. Licensed and insured is the baseline. On communities with mature canopy, arborist qualification matters. Our team includes ISA-Certified Arborists.
Read the contract before you sign
Term and renewal. Length, and whether it auto-renews. Auto-renewal clauses are how associations end up in year six of a contract nobody has reviewed.
Termination. Notice period and grounds.
Scope and frequency, stated per area.
Price adjustment. Whether and how the price can change during the term.
What is excluded. Storm response, plant replacement, irrigation repair, and enhancements are commonly separate.
Response times, particularly for safety items.
Reporting and communication. Who the board contact is, what you receive after visits, and how issues escalate.
Insurance and indemnity.
Snow and ice, if included. Trigger depths, response windows, and where snow is stacked. Stacking location matters, because snow piled on planting kills it. See commercial snow plowing and our snow management page.
What drives the cost
Cost is set by the property and the scope, not by a rate:
- Total maintained area, and how much is turf versus bed versus natural area
- Site complexity, meaning access, obstacles, and how much is trimmed by hand
- Frequency across the season
- Bed detail level, the largest swing factor between two proposals
- Tree inventory, size, and condition
- Irrigation, if the association owns a system
- Detention areas and any associated requirements
- Enhancements and seasonal display
- Snow and ice, and how the season is structured
Where a board needs to reduce spend, the productive moves are reducing frequency in low-visibility areas while holding it at entrances, converting high-input turf to lower-input planting, and phasing renovation across budget years. The unproductive move is cutting scope invisibly and discovering the gap in July.
Apex works with more than 90 commercial and association properties across Chicagoland, including community associations.
Frequently asked questions
How often should an HOA rebid its landscape contract?
Many associations review every three to five years. Rebidding annually is disruptive and discourages firms from investing in the property; never rebidding means no benchmark.
Should the board or the property manager run the process?
Usually the manager runs it and the board decides. Either way one person should own the RFP so responses stay comparable.
What if residents complain about the contractor?
Route complaints through one channel to the board contact rather than directly to crews. Crews cannot act on individual instructions without breaking the contracted scope, and a documented complaint pattern is what a review needs.
Is the cheapest proposal a problem?
Not automatically, and it is worth understanding. Usually it resolves to lower frequency, less bed detail, or an excluded scope, which surfaces mid-season.
Who is responsible for trees, the association or the owner?
Your governing documents decide it, and this is worth confirming before a tree fails rather than after.
Can one company handle grounds, trees, and snow?
Often, and there are advantages: one accountable party, one point of contact, and crews who know the property in all seasons.
Working with Apex Landscaping
Apex Landscaping has worked with community associations across Chicagoland’s north and northwest suburbs and the North Shore since 1991. We handle grounds care, tree care, seasonal display, and snow and ice management, which lets a board hold one company accountable across the whole year. We are licensed and insured, and our team includes ISA-Certified Arborists.
See our HOA services, commercial landscape maintenance, tree care, or start a conversation about your community.