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TED LARE

Landscaping Maintenance

After a quality landscape installation, maintenance is the most important aspect of having a beautiful landscape that will thrive for years to come. We offer full service spring, summer, and fall maintenance packages for residents in Des Moines and the surrounding communities.

TED LARE

Landscaping Maintenance

After a quality landscape installation, maintenance is the most important aspect of having a beautiful landscape that will thrive for years to come. We offer full service spring, summer, and fall maintenance packages for residents in Des Moines and the surrounding communities.

Full-Service Landscape Maintenance

Ted Lare has provided full service landscape maintenance for 25 years in the Des Moines metro area. We even travel to several of the satellite communities around the Des Moines area as needed. If you are tired of pulling weeds, or perhaps looking to find a new company to work with, then look no further. We strive to keep your planting beds clean and full of color. Our landscape maintenance team will be happy to put together a custom package to fit your needs, including seasonal color installations.
Outdoor Unilock Paver Patio and Pathway with Perennial Plantings - Uniform Plantings - Shade Perennials and Evergreen Design by Ted Lare

Landscaping Maintenance

After a quality landscape installation, maintenance is the most important aspect of having a beautiful landscape that will thrive for years to come. We offer full service spring, summer, and fall maintenance packages for residents in Des Moines and the surrounding communities. Some of the typical tasks we complete during maintenance stops are: leaf removal, weeding, pruning, dead-heading flowers, fertilizing, insect control, mulching, edging, and watering. Contact our office and we can get you a free quote for any maintenance services you need.

Seasonal Flower Design and Installation

Our annual flower maintenance team handles everything from small planters to large installations—whether in containers or in ground. We offer seasonal planter change-outs, in-ground annual plantings, and bulb installations, all using plants suited to your area and the season and your sizing or color preferences.

We can also maintain your planters throughout the year with deadheading, trellis training, shaping for more blooms, fertilizing, and watering—keeping your annuals neat, healthy, and vibrant all season long. Contact our office and we can get you a free quote for any maintenance services you need.

Water Feature and Fountain Maintenance

We also maintain fountains and water features for clients as needed. Our typical service is a weekly plan that allows us to keep an eye on the water quality and overall health of your artificial streams and ponds. As a part of that service, we also offer a spring water feature opening and fall shutdown. We are happy to develop a personal plan for you needs as well.

What does a Typical Landscape Maintenance Plan Include?

  • Spring Cleanup – trim back any plants needed, leaf removal, weeding, re-edge planting beds, and apply new mulch as needed
  • Routine Summer Stops – Typically from June to September. We can stop at your house or business as little as once a month or stop by several times a week, depending on your needs. Summer stops focus on providing plant care and weed control to keep your planting beds clean and colorful through the summer.
  • Fall Cut-Down and Cleanup – cut back flowers, trim shrubs, and remove fallen leaves from lawn and landscaping beds
  • Seasonal Color Installations – our team will design and plant pots and in-ground planting beds with annual flowers to add pops of color to your front or backyard.
  • Watering Stops – schedule any daily or weekly watering stops needed to keep your flowers looking great through the warmer months.

Frequently Asked Questions About Landscape Maintenance Services in Des Moines

Here are straight answers to what Des Moines homeowners ask us most about landscape maintenance, and how we keep your yard healthy through every Central Iowa season.

Our landscaping maintenance services in Des Moines cover the whole property, not just the grass. A typical stop includes weeding, pruning, dead-heading spent flowers, fresh mulch, and clean edges on every bed. We also fertilize, watch for insect trouble, remove leaves and debris, and water where plants are stressed. The point is simple. Keep your beds clean, your plants healthy, and your yard looking cared for week to week. You can see the full range on our landscaping services page.

That depends on your yard and how many plants you have. Most homeowners do well with weekly or bi-weekly visits through the growing season, plus a heavier cleanup in spring and fall. Big, colorful beds tend to need more frequent stops. A smaller, simpler yard can often run monthly. We build landscape maintenance plans around your actual property, rather than a one-size-fits-all schedule.

Yes, and honestly it is the heart of the work. Seasonal landscape maintenance matters here because Iowa hands your yard four very different jobs across the year. Spring is cleanup, fresh mulch, and getting beds ready to grow. Summer keeps the weeds down and the color coming. Fall is cut-down and leaf removal before the first hard freeze. We run spring, summer, and fall packages, and most clients keep all three going.

Cost comes down to the size of your property, how many beds you have, and how often you want us out. A small bi-weekly bed plan runs far less than weekly full-property care on a large lot. Rather than throw out a guess, we walk the yard and give you a free quote so the number matches the work. Pricing for landscape maintenance in Des Moines stays clear, with no surprise add-ons later. Contact us, and we will set one up.

Good question, because plenty of companies blur the two. Lawn care usually means mowing and chemical treatments for the turf, and not much past that. Lawn and landscape maintenance in Iowa, the way we handle it, takes in the whole yard. Think beds, plantings, mulch, edging, and seasonal cleanup, on top of basic turf health. We treat the landscape as a designed space that needs real upkeep, where straight lawn care stops at the grass.

Both. Some homeowners want us on a steady schedule all season long. Others just need a single spring or fall visit to reset the yard. We set up recurring care for hands-off landscape upkeep services, or handle one-time work when that fits your budget better. Not sure which makes sense? That is an easy thing to sort out together.

They can, and timing is usually what makes the difference. Professional landscaping maintenance catches small problems early. For instance, a pest moving through a bed, a plant crowding its neighbor, or soil packing down so water pools instead of soaking in. Regular maintenance helps relieve soil compaction, improve water absorption, and support healthier root growth throughout the landscape.

We cover the Des Moines metro and most of Central Iowa. That includes West Des Moines, Waukee, Clive, Urbandale, Johnston, Ankeny, Altoona, Indianola, and Norwalk, plus nearby towns within a reasonable drive. Residential landscape maintenance is the bulk of what we do, and we tailor each plan to the property in front of us. If you are not sure whether you are in range, just ask.

Yes. Garden maintenance services are only part of the picture, so we also keep the hardscape and gathering areas looking sharp. That means clearing debris off patios, tidying the plantings around a fire pit, and maintaining water features and fountains on regular stops. Keeping the built features clean protects the look of the whole yard. You can see more of what we build and care for on our outdoor living page.

These two visits do the heavy lifting. Spring cleanup clears winter debris, cuts back what was left standing, refreshes mulch, and gets beds ready for the growing season. Fall is the cut-down. That means we trim perennials, haul off fallen leaves, and prep the yard before the ground freezes. Our landscape cleanup services bracket the season so your yard starts strong and shuts down clean.

You can absolutely keep up a yard yourself. The question is whether it is worth your Saturdays. A trained crew knows when to prune, what a struggling plant is telling you, and how to spot drainage trouble before it spreads. We also maintain the landscape the way it was designed to grow, which protects what you already paid to put in the ground. For most homeowners, that trade of time and guesswork for steady results pays off.

Getting started is easy. Contact our office and tell us about your needs, whether you are looking for ongoing landscape maintenance, seasonal flower care, water feature maintenance, or a one-time cleanup. We will review your property, discuss the services that make the most sense for your landscape, and provide a free quote based on your goals. From there, we can create a custom maintenance plan designed to keep your landscape healthy, clean, and colorful throughout the year.

When it comes to low maintenance shrubs in Iowa, you have several excellent options that thrive in the state’s variable climate, including cold winters and hot, humid summers. Native and adapted shrubs tend to be the most resilient choices. Knock Out roses are incredibly popular across the Des Moines metro area because they’re disease-resistant, drought-tolerant once established, and bloom repeatedly throughout the season. Spirea, particularly varieties like Goldmound or Little Princess, offers beautiful seasonal color with minimal care. Viburnum is another outstanding choice for Iowa landscapes, providing multi-season interest with spring flowers, summer foliage, fall color, and berries that attract wildlife. For evergreen options, Arborvitae and Inkberry Holly handle Iowa’s clay soils and temperature swings well while providing year-round structure.

Ornamental shrubs like Ninebark, Buttonbush, and Smooth Hydrangea are especially well-suited to Iowa’s conditions and perform beautifully with very little intervention once they’re properly established. Smooth Hydrangea varieties like Annabelle and Incrediball are particularly beloved in Central Iowa for their dramatic white blooms. Dwarf Bush Honeysuckle and native Serviceberry are also excellent lower-maintenance picks that support local pollinators. The key to success with any of these shrubs is proper soil preparation at installation time and appropriate placement based on sun, drainage, and mature size.

Selecting the right shrubs for the right location is genuinely the most important factor in reducing long-term maintenance. Thoughtful placement that accounts for mature size, soil conditions, and sun exposure prevents many common problems. Working with experienced landscape designers familiar with Iowa’s specific growing conditions can make a significant difference in how your plantings perform over time. Proper installation with quality soil amendments and appropriate mulching gets shrubs off to a strong start, which dramatically reduces the care they’ll need in subsequent seasons.

Maintenance Request Form

Fill out the following information about your maintenance needs and we’ll get back to you with 48 hours.

Maintenance Request Form

Fill out the following information about your maintenance needs and we’ll get back to you with 48 hours.