Lisa's Landscape & Design

Is Your Landscaper Killing Your Landscape?

Lisa's Landscape & Design ♦ 03/29/2025 ♦ 1 Comment

You’d be unpleasantly surprised by how often I’m called to a clients home for consulting only to inform them that the service they hired to care for it is the reason for their problems. More times than not, your landscaper is killing your landscape. 

Unnecessary Trimming is Ruining Your Landscape

One of many reasons is bad and unnecessary trimming. It may not seem like proper trimming is a big deal overall, but it’s actually a lot more serious than you may realize. The first, and perhaps the least concerning would be the aesthetic of the landscape. Shaped plants are completely out of style and my running statement is “the 90s called and they want their shrubs back”. Secondly, it’s completely unnecessary. If you’re using native plants they should be able to grow to their mature size and shape without you needing to intervene, I mean who’s out in the woods trimming them back? 

Another reason you don’t trim plants is it can make them look crazy. The trees above are Yaupon and they have a beautiful natural shape that is destroyed by shaping them this way. Trees and plants are shaped the way they are for a reason. Cropping trees like Crepe Myrtles (or any tree) destroys the structural integrity of the tree and leaves them with weird knuckles and stringy stems that can’t hold the weight of their own flowers. Additionally, this natural growth allows them to have flowers, berries, a particular leaf coverage of their stems, roots and branches, and allows wildlife to find refuge.

Constantly trimming plants and trees is disruptive to the ecosystem in the way of noise, pollution, and disruption of habitat. In some cases, however, it can be deadly. Trimming back plants at the wrong time of year can cause leaf loss that forces the plant into dormancy, food deprivation or sun exposure, which ultimately kills the plant. 

Lawn Chemicals and Synthetic Fertilizers are Killing Your Landscape and The Planet

Another crime they commit is chemical use and poisoning of the soil. Chemicals are almost completely unnecessary in the landscape. There are very few reasons for your landscaper to apply chemicals on your lawn or garden. Conversely, they cause far more harm than good in general and cause planetary damage from the runoff that flows into our ponds, lakes, streams, and eventually the ocean. The lies we’ve been sold by big Chem are for profit, not for practicality. The only thing your landscaper should be adding to your landscape is compost. Remember that compost will save the world and chemicals will kill it.

There is an entire world of information that supports this knowledge and it is each homeowners responsibility to find the resolve that’s needed to negate the use of chemical sprays, pellets, or broadcast applications of any kind. Weed and Feed not only kills all the weeds on your property, but it also kills your trees and shrubs (says so right on the bag) and eventually humanity. We cannot continue to poison our earth and think that it won’t affect everyone when millions of pounds of  poison is applied each year. Stop buying these products, tell your landscaper not to use it and why, and they will stop selling it.

Your soil is a living ecosystem. Your lawn and garden begin in the soil, so when you have a healthy soil, you have a healthy landscape and planet. The soil is filled with mycorrhizal fungi and healthy bacteria that become a “wood wide web” of food and mineral resources for your plants to exchange, but chemicals of any kind destroy that process.

Leaf Blowers are Killing Your Landscape 

The chemical problem is only exacerbated by the dreaded blowers. This is a particular area that I get really angry about because blowers are virtually unnecessary with exception of patios, rock areas and maybe occasionally your driveway if it’s over run with leaf litter. Leaf blowers being used by your landscaper in the landscape beds is absolutely criminal because they blow all of the top soil and mulch, deprive the soil of necessary nutrients, and remove the compost and mulch that’s added for the soils protection. The bed above was freshly mulched in spring, and this was what was left by the end of summer.

The obnoxious practice of blowing away every leaf and stem that hits the ground exposes the tree and plant roots, allowing the crowns of the plants to dry out in our brutal Texas heat. Leaves drop in the fall for a reason and it’s important that each gardener and homeowner understand their value. The messy look you may be trying to avoid only increases the messy look of dying plants in the summer heat because you have removed the layer of compost and hummus that is created by the decay of leaves over the winter months.

If you must blow the leaves from your lawn, (which is also unnecessary unless you have live oak trees), then they need to be blown into your landscape beds and left alone until the spring. They should then be covered with compost and mulch and will become food for your plants in the inclement temperatures. During the summer months, beds should never be blown under any circumstances and this is a waste of your money, it’s a poor use of the landscape companies time, it adds to environmental and noise pollution, as well as being detrimental to the health of your soil. 

Poor Plant Choice is Killing Your Landscape 

Poor plant choice is another common mistake and many landscape companies or so-called landscape companies make by just purchasing whatever they can get their hands on with a lack of knowledge for your particular lighting and needs. Placing a shade loving plant in the sun is a recipe for disaster, and knock out roses are not the answer to every sunny spot.

Diversity in the landscape is crucial just as it is with humanity. We all bring something unique to the table and this is also true with plants. Using a variety of indigenous plants that are native or highly adapted to your area are also a great value when it comes to wildlife. Native plants will also thrive in our low annual rainfall and extreme summer and winter temperatures. The azalea above is an acid loving plant and we have alkaline soil, sooooo. Google the hardiness zone of each plant you’re interested in. 

You also need to know what type of plants will survive and thrive under a tree canopy or morning shade versus afternoon sun. If you’re landscaper is really just a landscaper and not a professional gardener who is knowledgeable in native and adapted plants, then you’re going to potentially throwing thousands of dollars away after choosing the wrong plant selection and wondering why you cannot find success. 

Dirty and Contaminated Lawnmowers are Killing Your Landscape 

Buy a quality weed popper and mow often to keep new plants at bay. Once they go to seed, you’ve got 99 problems and weeds are one of them.

One of the values of a landscape consultation for me is going over a lot of these details with a homeowner who ultimately had no idea that some of the choices that they were making with their landscape company or lawn person was possibly detrimental to the health of their landscape. One of the big ones is hiring out lawn service and while I understand that not everyone has the time or the inclination to mow their own lawn, it’s really important that you understand the value of even providing your own lawnmower for the service.

This is because every time your lawn person pulls up with their lawnmower every other week or so, they have mowed down potentially 100 lawns since they saw you last and with that service, they have brought you every weed seed and disease they ran over. This means that every piece of dog poo, fungal disease, pest issue and invasive weeded lawn is now making its home on your lawn. 

By providing your own mower, you can at least ensure that the lawn they’re mowing is your own, and you can negate a lot of the damage that’s being done by dragging the same machine over numerous problematic blades of grass. If you chose to so this, consider an electric lawnmower. Electric lawn mowers are incredibly easy to use, self-propelled, leave much less of a carbon footprint and are almost silent when in use. Traditional lawn mowers, put out toxic fumes, noise pollution, and use gasoline powered engines that require oil and maintenance making it a more expensive unless efficient machine.

The final option might just be to ask the landscaper to wash off their mower blades with your hose when they get to your property. This will at least rinse off the weed seeds.  

Poor Quality Soil and Bed Fills are Killing Your Landscape

Poor soil quality, Lisa’s landscape, Austin

One of the most important facts you’ll learn from me or anyone who truly understands the garden or ecosystem of a landscape, is that gardening begins in the soil. If you aren’t working with quality soil, then you’re already at a terrible disadvantage. Adding poor soil to the landscape or raised beds will begin your garden on the side of error. 

Many landscapers will purchase cheap dirt like sandy loam (above) for bed and garden fill and it typically consists of sandy loam which is an orange substance that holds water like a sponge when wet and sets like concrete in the heat. Poor drainage and lack of nutrients is the last thing you want in your planting beds. Quality, living soil includes some loam, but also compost, living organisms, nutrients, minerals and air. So make sure that any soil that is laid beneath your sod, or in your garden beds is a high quality, dark, rich and fertile soil to give your plants a fighting chance at success.

Landscape Fabric is a Lie, and it’s killing Your Landscape

A huge upsell (profit for nothing) is landscape fabric. To be very clear, landscape fabric should never be used beneath mulch or around a tree (above). Landscape fabric is wrong because it increases the temperature of the soil, (which we certainly don’t need in central Texas), prevents the amendments from integrating with the existing soil, prevents adequate moisture absorption and retention in our short bursts of rain and the extreme heat. It also breaks down and tears apart in our heat after a short period of time which makes it unsustainable. Weed fabric only allows weed roots to penetrate the fabric and become more difficult to pull by the roots. If you want better weed prevention, apply a 3” depth of natural hardwood shredded mulch. 

Weed Fabric is for use beneath rock, and not much else. 

Contact Me for a Personal Landscape Consultation to Save Your Landscape!

Now you have a great foundation for what to look for in a landscaper and which questions to ask before you hire, if you’d like more detail on your existing landscape or are looking to make some changes in your plant or tree selection, contact me for a landscape consultation and I can set you in the right direction. 

Lisa LaPaso

Lisa’s Landscape & Design

”Saving the Planet One Yard at a Time”