Maintenance Visit - Invasive Removal & Habitat Management
The Green Steeze team goes through extensive training to learn how to work in habitat gardens and are not your typical laboring landscaping crew. Our goal is NOT to move through your garden as quickly as possible, but to do what will be best for the wildlife you're trying to support. Since we are interacting with wildlife, the team is taught to respect the landscape and it's critters, and to recognize when habitat or wildlife support is needed. Our training program requires certification, and the team is taught conservation techniques and invasive plant identification, as well as esthetic landscaping approaches that do not harm the habitat, like limiting soil disturbance and when to trim herbaceous plants for ornamental value if needed.
During maintenance, we are manually removing invasive plants, monitoring the health of the garden/habitat, dividing and replanting as needed, and saving native plants and saplings that come up in places that will not support their growth. These native plants are donated to local non-profit and free community programs including our tree give-away program. We also report the presence of native and non-native species to local monitoring programs to assist in environmental studies. Invasive plants are taken offsite to be hot composted. No herbicides are used without prior agreement.
Most importantly, we are communicating with you about what we witness on your property. This communication is provided as images within your Green Steeze folder. Images are typically uploaded within a few days of the visit. When more direct communication is needed, Steph of Green Steeze will reach out via email, text or phone call. If you have lost access to your Green Steeze folder, please contact our office manager for assistance. (hrgreensteeze@gmail.com)
A maintenance visit is usually a 2-man team and takes up to 3 hours. If we have a call-out, 1 team member may arrive and stay 1.5hrs longer to assure we have provided adequate time in your habitat garden. If more than 2 team members arrive, the time spent in your garden will be less due to the additional hands to assist.
We absolutely can't work around dog feces. Dog feces is a soil and water pollutant and a nightmare for manual plant removal.
Additional materials that could be applied or installed during maintenance, such as compost, mulch or plantings, are invoiced separately.
We do not have set days and times for maintenance. As a small business, supporting such a large area, we work maintenance in within the time allotted, working around environmental changes and weather occurrences, when your garden needs our assistance.
We can’t guarantee the permanent removal of all weeds within 3 hours. Different tasks are performed based upon the season. 30% of seeds are collected from plants that we have installed/confirmed classification to increase population availability and genetic diversity.
Seasonal Activities During Maintenance Include the Following:
March – November – Invasive Herbaceous Plant Removal
December – Invasive Evergreen Removal
January – February Horticultural Pruning
If placing an order online prior to the visit, you will receive an email notification after purchase. We will contact you via email to schedule a maintenance visit within a few days of receiving the notification.
Order a maintenance visit today! (Net 10 days)
Our Environmental Commitment:
Our commitments to the environment stand as guiding principles for each project. We are committed to constantly improving our business activities, to achieve the highest standards of environmental sustainability, by advocating and protecting our local habitats, from your property to the Chesapeake Bay. From the very first visit, we are observing the environment and determining which efforts are needed to best preserve and support its living organisms, resources and long term growth. We suggest and install plants that best support those efforts, and remove invasive plants which have negative impact. Within our process, we minimize, sort, and properly dispose of waste through source reduction, re-use and recycling, and the collection and propagation of native seeds/seedlings/saplings in pursuit of environmental sustainability.