Landscaping questions, answered

Outfront Landscaping serves 26 cities across Palm Beach County and northern Broward County, from Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens in the north down through Lake Worth, Wellington, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton, and into Deerfield Beach, Coral Springs, Parkland, Pompano Beach, Coconut Creek and Fort Lauderdale.

Yes. Estimates are free and there is no obligation. Call or text (561) 877-9154 — sending a photo of the area you are concerned about is often the fastest way to get a useful answer.

No long-term contract. Weekly lawn maintenance is billed monthly and you can cancel at any time. Larger installation and hardscape projects are quoted and scheduled individually.

Yes. We maintain executive office buildings, multifamily and HOA communities, retail centers and corporate offices, and we provide certificates of insurance naming the property or association before work begins.

Call or text (561) 877-9154. We do not use contact forms — a phone call or a text with a photo gets you a real answer faster than a form submission sitting in an inbox.

Outfront Landscaping LLC has operated out of Lake Worth, Florida since 2016. We are family-owned and owner-operated, hold an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and a 5.0 rating on Google.

Through the April-to-November growing season, weekly is the right interval for St. Augustine and Zoysia in Palm Beach County. Cutting more than about a third of the blade at once stresses the turf, and a two-week gap in July almost always means removing more than that. In the cooler, drier months growth slows and some properties move to every ten to fourteen days.

No. St. Augustine — Floratam, Palmetto and Bitter Blue — is healthiest at 3.5 to 4 inches. Taller turf shades the soil, holds moisture and crowds out weeds. Scalping a St. Augustine lawn is one of the fastest ways to invite chinch bugs and weed pressure.

No long-term contract. Weekly lawn maintenance is billed monthly and you can stop at any time. We would rather earn the next visit than lock you into a year.

South Florida afternoon storms are a fact of life. If the turf is too wet to cut without rutting or clumping, we shift you to the next available day that week rather than tear up a soggy lawn.

Generally no, and that is deliberate. Mulched clippings return nitrogen and organic matter to sandy South Florida soil. If a lawn has been let go and the clumping would smother the turf, we will clean it up on that visit.

We are in USDA Zone 10b, so the palette is wide but specific. Reliable performers include clusia, cocoplum, green island ficus, dwarf firebush, croton, ixora, podocarpus, silver buttonwood and muhly grass, alongside royal, foxtail, coconut, Christmas and sabal palms. Salt tolerance becomes the deciding factor east of the Intracoastal.

Most shrub and ground cover installations read as established within six to twelve months. Hedges planted for privacy typically need a full year or two to knit together, which is why spacing at install is worth getting right the first time.

Yes. Many Palm Beach County communities require plan approval before anything goes in the ground. We routinely provide plant lists and layouts in the format ARC boards ask for.

We do — executive office buildings, multifamily and HOA communities, retail centers and corporate offices. Image is critical to the value of a commercial property, and the landscape is the first thing anyone sees.

You can plant almost year-round here, but the sweet spot is the start of the rainy season in late spring, when natural rainfall does most of the establishment watering for you. Planting in the dry months works fine as long as irrigation is dialed in.

Hardscape is the built environment of a landscape design — patios, walls, walkways, fire pits, fountains and outdoor kitchens. Softscape is the grown material: plants, vegetation, flowers and trees. Most landscapes need both, and the balance between them is most of what makes a yard feel designed.

A properly based paver installation lasts decades. Individual pavers can be lifted and reset if a tree root or a settled spot needs attention, which is a real advantage over poured concrete — you repair a section instead of replacing a slab.

It depends on the material. Travertine and light-colored concrete pavers stay noticeably cooler than dark pavers or standard concrete, which is why they dominate pool deck installations in South Florida.

It depends on the municipality, the size, and whether the work changes drainage or sits inside a setback. Palm Beach County and its cities all handle this differently. We will tell you what your specific project needs before we start.

Sometimes. If the slab is sound and the resulting height still works against door thresholds and pool coping, an overlay is a good option. If the slab is cracked or the elevation does not work, tearing it out produces a better result.

A good rule of thumb: if water is still standing 24 hours after the rain stops, you have a drainage problem. St. Augustine will tolerate a brief soaking but starts declining after a day or two submerged, and repeated saturation invites take-all root rot.

It gives subsurface water an easier path than the surrounding soil. Perforated pipe sits in a gravel-filled trench wrapped in filter fabric; water enters along the whole length and is carried by gravity to an outlet. The critical detail is that the outlet has to be lower than the inlet, which is not always easy on a flat South Florida lot.

Any buried system requires a trench, but the disruption is temporary and narrower than most people expect. We replace sod over the trench line and within a few weeks it knits back together.

Usually grade or soil. Older neighborhoods in Lake Worth and Lantana were platted before modern stormwater standards, and a single regraded lot next door can redirect sheet flow onto yours. We look at the whole drainage path, not just the puddle.

Yes, meaningfully. Standing water is where mosquitoes breed. Eliminating the puddles that persist for more than a few days removes the habitat.

Floratam St. Augustine is the default across Palm Beach County — it is vigorous, widely available and handles our heat and rain. It needs at least six hours of sun and is the variety chinch bugs target first. For shadier lots, Palmetto or Bitter Blue St. Augustine perform better. Empire Zoysia gives a finer, denser lawn at higher cost, and Bahia is the economical choice for large unirrigated areas.

Keep traffic off for about two weeks while the roots knit into the soil. Give it a gentle tug at the two-week mark — if it resists lifting, it has rooted. Normal use is fine after three to four weeks.

Heavily and often at first: roughly twice a day for the first week to ten days, then tapering to once a day, then to a normal deep-and-infrequent schedule by week four. New sod fails from drying out far more often than from anything else.

Once it has rooted, usually around two to three weeks. Let it grow a little taller than normal for that first cut and make sure the mower blades are sharp so the new turf is cut cleanly rather than pulled.

We do not recommend it. Sod laid over old turf sits on a layer of decaying organic material instead of soil, roots poorly, and buries whatever weeds and pests were already there. Removing the old material is the difference between a lawn that lasts and one that thins out in a year.

In Palm Beach County the usual culprit is iron or manganese deficiency, not water. Our soil and irrigation water are alkaline, which chemically locks up those micronutrients even when they are present. The tell is yellowing between the leaf veins while the veins themselves stay green. It is corrected with a micronutrient application, not more nitrogen and not more water.

Almost always that the lawn is getting too much water. Dollarweed thrives in consistently wet soil, so it clusters in low spots, along downspout discharge and in zones the irrigation overwaters. Killing it without fixing the moisture just means it comes back.

Yes. Palm Beach County and several of its municipalities have fertilizer ordinances restricting nitrogen and phosphorus applications during the summer rainy season to protect waterways, along with rules about application near water bodies and cleanup of granules on hard surfaces. Our program is built to stay inside those rules.

Chinch bug damage shows up as expanding yellow-to-brown patches in the sunniest, hottest parts of the lawn — usually along driveways, sidewalks and south-facing edges — during the warm months. It looks like drought stress, but watering does not bring it back. Floratam St. Augustine is their preferred target.

Products are applied at label rates, and the label specifies the re-entry interval — typically staying off the treated area until it has dried or been watered in. We will tell you what applies to your specific application before we leave.

About 2 to 3 inches. Thinner than that and weeds push through and moisture escapes. Much thicker and you start to restrict oxygen to the root zone and encourage roots to grow up into the mulch layer instead of down into the soil.

Our heat, humidity and rainfall break mulch down faster than in most of the country. Most properties look best on a once or twice a year refresh. If you can see soil through the mulch, it is time.

No. Mulch piled against a trunk holds moisture against the bark and invites rot and pests. Pull it back a few inches from trunks and stems so there is an open collar at the base.

Melaleuca and eucalyptus are good South Florida choices — both are sourced regionally and melaleuca has the advantage of using up an invasive species. Pine bark breaks down more slowly. Cypress is common but has sustainability concerns. Dyed mulches hold color longest, which matters on commercial properties on a fixed refresh schedule.

Mulch itself is not a significant termite draw, but any wood product held wet against a structure is worth being careful about. Keep mulch a few inches back from the foundation and stem walls and you have addressed the real risk.

Most palms need attention once or twice a year. Coconut palms often need more because of seed pods and nut fall over walkways, driveways and pool decks — a falling coconut is a real hazard. Self-cleaning palms like royals shed their own fronds and mostly need the dropped material picked up.

A hurricane cut strips a palm back to just a few upright fronds. It is common and it is damaging. The fronds are the palm’s food source and its stored nutrients, so over-pruning weakens the tree, narrows the trunk at that point and actually makes it more likely to snap in wind, not less. Proper practice is to remove only fronds that are dead, dying or hanging well below horizontal.

Do it before June 1. Clearing dead fronds, loose seed pods and dead wood ahead of the season removes what becomes airborne in a storm. Trying to book palm work as a storm approaches is difficult — every crew in the county is doing the same thing.

Through our long growing season, hedges here typically need trimming every six to ten weeks to stay tight. Cutting a hedge slightly wider at the bottom than the top lets light reach the lower branches, which is what keeps the base from going bare and woody.

We handle trimming, shaping, thinning and storm cleanup. Large tree removals and anything requiring climbing or crane work are best handled by a licensed tree service, and we will tell you plainly when a job falls into that category.

Yes — arguably more than most, because St. Augustine’s thick runners build thatch quickly and it is usually growing in compacted, low-organic sand. Aeration is what lets water and fertilizer get past that layer to the roots.

Late spring into early summer, as the turf enters active growth. The lawn recovers and fills the holes quickly at that point in the season. Aerating a dormant or stressed lawn in the cool dry months just opens it up without the growth to close it back in.

No. Leave them. They break down within a couple of weeks and return soil and organic matter to the surface, which is part of the benefit. Raking them up throws away half the value of the job.

Top dressing is the process of adding a fine layer of soil to the lawn surface. It smooths out an uneven lawn, adds organic matter to sand that has almost none, and improves the soil profile a little more each time it is done. It is especially worthwhile on lawns that scalp on the high spots when mowed.

Sometimes, and it is always worth asking before committing to a tear-out. If the turf is thin and tired but the plants are still alive across most of the lawn, aeration, top dressing, slice seeding and a feeding program will often bring it back. If the lawn is more weed than grass or the coverage is genuinely gone, sod is the honest answer.

Not with LED. A full low-voltage LED system typically draws less power than a couple of household light bulbs, and modern fixtures last for years before anything needs replacing.

The good ones will. Salt air near the coast is brutal on cheap fixtures — brass and copper hold up where powder-coated aluminum corrodes. It is worth spending more on the fixture body in coastal Palm Beach County, and less worth it inland.

Yes. Low-voltage cable is buried shallow and routed through beds, so a system can be added to a finished landscape with very little disruption.

A front elevation on a typical Palm Beach County home usually lands somewhere between eight and twenty fixtures depending on width, the number of palms and how much architecture there is to light. Restraint reads better than volume — a few well-aimed lights beat a runway of path lights.

Executive office buildings, multifamily homes and HOA communities, retail centers and corporate offices across Palm Beach County and northern Broward.

Yes. Retail and office sites are usually serviced early so the work is finished before customers and staff arrive, and so crews are not running equipment beside occupied patios or entrances.

Yes, and we will provide a current certificate of insurance naming your property or association before work begins. Most managers ask for it as a matter of course and it is a fair thing to require.

Yes. Transitions are routine. We walk the site, document its condition on day one so there is no argument later about what we inherited, and set the service schedule from there.

Existing maintenance clients get priority after a storm. The first pass clears access — drives, entries, walkways and fire lanes — and the full cleanup follows once the property is safe to move around.

The cool dry season, roughly October through April. That is when petunias, snapdragons, dianthus and geraniums — the annuals most people picture — actually thrive here. The rest of the country gets those in spring; we get them in winter.

Heat and rain lovers: vinca, coleus, salvia, portulaca, torenia and melampodium. They tolerate the humidity and the daily afternoon downpours that rot cool-season annuals within weeks.

Most commercial properties and HOA entries rotate two to four times a year. Residential clients often do two — a cool season planting and a warm season planting.

Usually the soil, not the plants. Annuals are heavy feeders with shallow roots, and unimproved South Florida sand holds almost no water or nutrients. Amending the bed at every rotation is the difference between a display that lasts the season and one that fades in six weeks.