How Much Does Landscape Maintenance Cost in Portland?

If you’ve called around to Portland landscapers for quotes, you’ve probably noticed that prices are all over the place. Two companies can look at the same yard and come back with numbers hundreds of dollars apart per month.

There’s usually a reason, and it’s rarely that one company is simply greedy. Here’s what actually drives the price, and some real numbers from us.

What drives the cost

Size and layout of the property. Square footage matters, but so does how the yard is laid out. A wide-open lawn mows fast. A yard with narrow side yards, slopes, lots of beds, and tight gates takes longer, even if it’s smaller on paper.

How often the crew comes. Weekly service costs more per month than every-other-week, but it usually costs less per visit, because the crew is maintaining the yard instead of recovering it. In Portland’s spring growing season, grass can easily outgrow a biweekly schedule. That’s why we offer biweekly maintenance only for properties without lawns, where beds and shrubs don’t need weekly attention.

What’s actually included. This is the big one. Some quotes cover mowing and nothing else. Others include edging, bed weeding, fertilizing, moss treatment, pruning, and debris cleanup. Make sure you’re comparing the same scope before you compare the price.

Condition of the yard. A property that’s been neglected for a season or two needs a cleanup before regular maintenance makes sense. Overgrown beds, heavy weeds, and shrubs that haven’t been cut in years all add labor up front.

Access and debris. If a crew has to carry everything through a side gate or haul debris a long way to the truck, that time shows up in the price.

What “cheap” usually means

The lowest quote you get is often a mow, blow, and go. The crew shows up, cuts the grass, blows clippings around, and leaves in 15 minutes. Beds don’t get weeded, nobody notices the irrigation leak, and the shrubs slowly take over the walkway.

That service isn’t worthless, but it isn’t landscape maintenance either. Six months later, you’re paying for a cleanup to fix what the cheap visits ignored.

How we price it

We’ve been maintaining Portland-area yards since 1997, and we keep pricing simple:

• Flat monthly rate. We figure your annual cost and divide it by 12, so you pay the same amount every month instead of getting slammed in spring and ignored in winter.
• No contracts. You can cancel anytime. We’d rather keep clients by doing good work than by locking them in.
• A lot included. Our weekly Full Service plan covers 44 visits a year, five fertilizer applications, spring moss treatment, two trimming cycles, and debris cleanup on every visit.

What it actually costs: Our average Full Service client pays about $330 a month. Smaller, simpler properties start around $200 a month, and large estates with a lot of beds, lawn, and detail work can run $1,200 a month or more. Where your yard lands depends on the factors above, so we look at the property before we give you a number. The estimate is free.

Cleanup pricing

For one-time cleanups, like getting an overgrown yard back in shape or a seasonal cleanup, we offer hourly packages with a four-person crew:

A four-person crew gets a lot done in an hour. Most small to mid-size yards are done in the one- or two-hour package.

Questions to ask any landscaper before you sign

• What exactly is included in each visit?
• Is fertilizing included, or is that extra?
• Do you haul away debris, or leave it in my yard waste bin?
• Is there a contract, and what does it cost to cancel?
• How fast do you respond when I call?

If a company can’t answer those clearly, that tells you something. For more on this, see what professional landscape maintenance in Portland actually includes.

Get a real number for your yard

We’re rated 4.9 stars across more than 200 Google reviews, and we respond within two hours during business hours. Call (503) 780-3599 or email office@hlmaintenance.com for a free estimate from Hillside Landscape Maintenance.

— The Hillside Team