Commercial Landscaping

The Penderbrook Communities

Penderbrook is a planned community in Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. This diversified community consists of condominiums, townhouses, single-family homes and apartments and is built surrounding Penderbrook Golf Course - an amenity owned by the community. It has been said that community associations are becoming the basic form of government representing resident needs and concerns on the front line community level. Within Penderbrook there are 7 separate community associations representing the individual homeowners and an apartment management agent. Within a Community Association, there is an elected Board of Directors who make decisions regarding financial and operational issues affecting the community. Each Board operates as an independent body making decisions regarding their individual community and looking out for their own best interests.

Serving as a unifying element within this diversified group is the Penderbrook Master Association of which each individual community is a member. The Master Association is responsible for the community common elements including golf course, common rights of way, community center and other amenities common to all owners.

Professional Grounds, Inc. manages the landscape of 6 of the 8 communities; 5 community associations and the master association. The remaining communities are cared for by other landscape companies. This results in a competitive environment where the residents can critique each firm’s work on a daily basis. The intensity of this competition can not be over estimated when you remember that Boards routinely bid out their landscape maintenance work on an annual basis offering the recurring potential to loose any of these contracts. An important part of this story is our success in pleasing not only the Boards of Directors but the property managers of competing firms who manage these associations. Testimony to this is our retaining this customer base for over 10 years!

Managing such a large and diversified site offers many opportunities that are not normally available when a firm provides landscape maintenance services to the typical community association. Obviously there are economies of scale that offer efficient execution of services mowing efficiencies, supervisory efficiencies and the benefits of reduced travel time between jobs to name a few.

Another program we put to use at this community is our Beneficial Insect Program. This program embraces the IPM concept of retaining a natural balance between destructive and beneficial insects in the landscape. By putting this system to use, we actually release beneficial insects such as ladybugs, preying mantis and parasitic wasps into the landscape to serve as natural predators of destructive insect species. On the large scale that this site represents, we can be assured that these insects will largely remain within the Penderbrook community and not be subject to careless pesticide usage that upsets the natural balance we are working to establish. Our success can be measured by a 75% reduction in pesticide usage since implementing our Integrated Pest Management Program including the use of Beneficial Insects. Community residents who appreciate our concern for the environment and the reduced exposure to conventional pesticides have warmly welcomed this. It has also established our company as above the competition in the eyes of those who review our work on a daily basis!

Though part of an overall community, each association wants to establish their own sense of identity. The neighborhood spirit is strong and reinforced by the landscape. Our Landscape Division works closely with each association identifying their individual needs, creating long range plans that can be incrementally implemented and designing signature landscapes that are unique to each association. Examples of these are in-fill plantings to soften large wall areas and trash enclosure screening associated with condominium construction, entrance portal bed design to provide signature identity to townhouse communities, community center beautification for this key amenity and low-maintenance screening plantings to separate different use areas such as between golf course fairways and adjacent residential areas.

Serving this allied community base has enabled Professional Grounds to "raise the bar" of community appearance. A landscape beautification project undertaken by one community is soon noticed by their neighbors. Not wanting to be left behind or "outdone", they too want to perform improvement projects of their own. This friendly competitive spirit between communities has improved the landscape appearance and quality of life for all community residents.

The general maintenance responsibilities are similar across all communities. Mowing and edging every 7 to 10 days, bed definition and mulching in the spring, a comprehensive turf program including weed control, fertilization, pH correction, insect control and seeding, ornamental plant care utilizing the principles of Integrated Pest Management, pruning and fall leaf collection.

During the summer months we offer supplemental watering of ornamental plantings. Key entrance features and some right of way areas are within coverage of the automatic irrigation system, however for the most part this is a non-irrigated site. When watering is required it must be done with a water truck due to the distance from water spigots. Within bed and other areas where watering is to be performed soaker hoses are installed prior to mulching which are utilized to make this operation more efficient. This allows one person to set up and monitor multiple water distribution points, we also feel less water is lost to run off or evaporation.

In the Washington, D. C. area we also receive our share of snow. As is common in the industry, we perform snow plowing services. Within Penderbrook this is especially challenging, but it also presents opportunities. The challenge is keeping the snow plowing operations at the same level of completion and thoroughness at each community. Complaints are sure to arise if one community sees that their snow plowing does not measure up to that of their neighbors. The topography of the site is hilly, requiring application of sand to improve traction. Being a suburban community with many residents commuting by automobile to work, we endeavor to have all roads open and passable by 7:00AM. Our efforts in this regard often exceed that of the state road plows our communities are plowed but the roadways maintained by the state remain impassable.

Following winter weather, spring sweeping of parking lots and roadways becomes the next area of focus. The challenge here is that the parking lots are never totally empty. Utilizing a sweeping truck, blowers and hand sweeping we clean the parking lots working carefully to avoid damaging nearby vehicles and to avoid dirt and debris to accumulate on them.

As spring weather arrives the bulbs planted as part of the long-range beatification plan emerge and bloom; soon thereafter we install typically over 1,000 seasonal summer annuals with a similar number of winter flowers such as pansies. Being limited due to irrigation requirements (and to keep on-going maintenance costs low) we have turned to ornamental grasses and perennials to provide color and interest where traditionally summer seasonal flowers would be installed. Assorted daylilies, coreopsis, verbena and bishops weed are among the pallet of plants we recommend for this site.

Our high visibility and presence on this site leads to many opportunities that might not normally be offered to a landscape contractor. As with most golf courses, Penderbrook Golf Course has its own golf course superintendent. The course has a number of extensive ornamental plantings at the Club House and other locations. Seeing our success within the community we were invited to maintain the ornamental plantings at the Golf Course. This has led to other work; for example one of the ponds on the course had a problem with excessive algae growth. The expertise within Professional Grounds was drawn upon to design and install an aeration fountain that reduces the algae and offers an interesting feature to the homes that abut this area of the course.

For more information about the Penderbrook Communities or
The Penderbrook Golf Club please visit them at:
www.penderbrook.com
www.penderbrookgolf.com

Landscaping Your Lifestyle…Since 1974.