Sarasota Landscape Maintenance 101: Essential Practices for a Healthy, Beautiful Yard

You won’t believe all the stuff happening out there in your yard.

Sure, you know the grass is growing and the hibiscus is blooming and bees are buzzing. 

But look closely, and you’ll see whiteflies are sucking the sap out of your plant leaves, palm trees are hungry for a nutrient boost and that fertilizer you think is feeding your lawn is really just draining right through to the groundwater. 

It’s kind of a disaster out there. 

Of course, who has time to look that closely, right? 

So, here’s your cheat sheet — the essential things that should be happening out there to keep your landscape free of bugs, weeds, thirst and hunger. Landscape maintenance in Sarasota is a year-round job. Let’s keep your yard beautiful and thriving, right? 

Lots of stuff is happening out there, so let’s get to it. 

Table of Contents:

1. Understanding Sarasota’s Landscape Challenges​
2. Essential Sarasota Landscape Maintenance Practices
3. Lawn Care Basics: Keeping It Green
4. Plant, Tree and Shrub Care Basics
5. How to Maintain a Yard in Florida Like a Pro
6. Why Hiring a Professional for Sarasota Landscape Maintenance is Worth It
7. Why Choose Tropical Gardens for Sarasota Landscape Maintenance?

First, Understanding Sarasota’s Landscape Challenges

Florida doesn’t make it easy on yard lovers. 

It tosses out challenges like it’s some kind of fun game: here’s some torrential downpour! That’s not fun enough? How about some super hungry mealybugs, aphids and mites?
 
What? You’re still here? Try to deal with this super sandy soil that makes all the good stuff your lawn needs drain right through!

Then, in an attempt to really break you: How about those hurricane-force winds, woo hoo! 

Heavy rain, pest problems, soil challenges, hurricane season: it’s enough to make you give up and make your whole yard one giant paver patio, right?

Not on our watch.

Yes, the sunshine state doesn’t always offer the sunniest landscaping conditions. The trick is to partner with a Sarasota landscape maintenance company with smart solutions.

How to take care of your landscape when nature gets crazy? We’re happy you asked.

Let’s start with the basics: 

Essential Sarasota Landscape Maintenance Practices

Water everything. Keep the bugs away. Fertilize. 

Sounds simple enough. But if everybody could do it, we’d all be Sarasota landscape maintenance pros. And chances are, you aren’t — no offense. 

How to take care of your landscape? Here’s a look at the basics — and why there’s more to it than you might think. 

Lawn Care Basics: Keeping It Green

We could write a whole guide just about lawn care. In fact, we did.

And there are even more tips just about keeping it green. 

But for now, let’s review the basics — and a few reasons why this lawn care stuff is trickier than it looks: 

Fertilizer Frustration 

Your lawn needs fertilizer to give it the nutrients it needs to thrive. Easy, right? 

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

Our sandy soil here in Sarasota doesn’t hold on to that nutritious fertilizer you feed your lawn — it’s porous, so it drains right through. Frustrating, right? 

That means you need smaller, more frequent fertilizer applications so the tasty fertilizer can actually feed your lawn’s roots instead of just draining wastefully right through into the groundwater. 

Most Sarasota lawn care services offer four visits a year for Florida lawn care. 

Sorry, that’s not enough. Tropical Gardens visits once a month for 8-10 months of the season, visiting more often and applying smaller amounts of nutrients so they can really take hold.

Yes, it might seem like we’re at your place more often than your in-laws, but these more frequent visits allow closer attention to other issues, too, from weed control to banishing bugs. 

Mowing Matters

Your lawn needs mowing. Seems simple enough. Get a riding mower and pretend it’s fun. 

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

That lovely St. Augustine grass so popular here in Florida is kind of a diva. 

It needs to be kept at 4.5 to 5 inches tall, higher than other types of grass.

If you mow it at 3.5 inches, the grass blades aren’t tall enough to shade the soil. You want your lawn’s root system to stay cool and shaded on hot sunny days. Yard maintenance in Florida means catering to picky grass. 

Water Woes

Your lawn needs water to survive. If it could tell you exactly what it wants, it would say three separate watering sessions each week, please, (you’ve raised it to be polite) that deliver one inch of water each time. It’s happy with two days a week in winter months.

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

First, county watering restrictions often allow just one watering day a month, which, ugh, means you’ll need to plan on replacing some sod. 

Beyond the complicated Florida lawn watering schedule, the weather can be pretty wacky around here. That means you can’t just set your irrigation controller and forget it — which, let’s face it, is what a lot of people do.

Irrigation systems need adjusting 6-8 times a year, allowing for rainy periods and finicky temperature changes. Sometimes, that actually means three times in one month. 

The same situation is true for watering your tropical plants.

Hello, Florida irrigation services? 

Leave it to us. We’ll stay on top of it. And while we’re at it, we’ll check your whole system over to make sure it’s running in tip top condition. 

Aeration? What Do You Mean Aeration? 

You’re used to sandy soil, which drains so quickly and easily that you maybe never even heard of aeration. 

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

New housing developments are usually built on clay soil brought in to create a more stable foundation for building than our native sandy soil.

That means your Florida yard maintenance might now need to include aeration to break up that thick, compacted clay.

When your soil is compacted, your lawn can't breathe. Its roots can't take in the water and nutrients it needs to thrive.

Lawn aeration uses a cool machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from your lawn, allowing water and oxygen to get to the roots again.

Sandy soil gets an important boost from aeration, too. Yes, sandy soil drains well, but aeration is still beneficial. 

Aerating sod helps break down thatch, a layer of dead grass that sits between the grass blades and the soil. When it gets too thick, thatch blocks air, water, and fertilizer from reaching your lawn’s roots.

After lawn aeration, you have a bunch of little holes in your lawn,  helping your grass breathe. It’s the perfect set-up for lawn topdressing. Topdressing is food for your soil, a nutrient-rich layer of soil or sand blended with compost and other organics.

The blend of sand and compost top soil settles into the holes created by aeration and over time gives your soil a great nutrition boost, whether it’s clay or sand. 

It’s smart to have your Sarasota lawn care service aerate your lawn once a year to keep those grass roots breathing. 

Plant, Tree and Shrub Care Basics

On to the rest of your landscaping — the fantastic plants, shrubs and trees that bring your whole outdoor haven to life. They need stuff, too, and, you guessed it, there’s a trick to some of it: 

Persnickety Pruning 

Your plants, trees and shrubs need pruning, both to keep them looking great and to keep them healthy. 

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

The proper time to prune everything is really important. But you can’t exactly write the dates in your trusty calendar, even if you remember where you put your trusty calendar. 

Here in Sarasota, the temperature and amounts of rain we get help guide plant growth and pruning timing. Bloom cycles aren’t exactly dependable. They fluctuate. 

Plus, pruning is actually a near constant task here. You can’t just prune in the winter or spring. Things grow too fast. 

If there’s one reason to partner with Sarasota landscape maintenance pros, pruning is it. 

Bug Battlegrounds

Your plants, trees and shrubs need protection from hungry Florida landscaping pests that are happy to munch them right down to the ground. 


Bugs are out there chowing down on your poor plants in so many ways, it’s actually pretty impressive. Then they lay eggs and their babies start to feast. 

It’s tempting to head out there with a flame thrower and toast the whole hungry bunch. But the neighbors will talk.

There are bug killing potions for this, right? Yes, but here’s where it gets tricky:

Different dastardly pests eat in different ways — some eat the leaves, others feed through the plant’s vascular system.

Tropical Gardens crews use an insecticide that works both ways, targeting bugs that eat through a plant’s roots and through contact with the leaves. Bye, bugs.

Palm Tree Protection

Palm trees — those majestic queens of your landscaping — need a granular, slow-release fertilizer applied to the ground around their trunks four times a year to ensure they get a constant supply of nutrients over time. That gives them the nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium they need to thrive. No problem. 

Here’s where it gets tricky: 

Many palm tree species need larger amounts of magnesium, manganese, potassium, sulfur and iron. They’re big, you know, so they need stuff. Without enough of these vital nutrients your palms can become yellowish and unhealthy looking. And nobody wants to make a postcard out of that. 

That means they need extra nutrients directly injected into the trunk, so
the beneficial stuff gets to work right away, resulting in a green, healthy palm much faster than regular fertilizer. 

Tricky? Not on our watch
All of this lawn, plant, shrub and tree care can seem pretty daunting. 

Not to us. We love this stuff.

How to Maintain a Yard in Florida Like a Pro

Everybody loves pro tips. You feel like you have top secret info from elite brainy experts. 

Ready for a few of our team’s favorite landscape maintenance tips and tricks? 

Here you go:

Water Plants Before a Freeze 

Watering before a freeze can actually help protect plants from the cold. 

Wet soil will absorb more heat during the day and radiate it during the night. The key is watering early in the day before the expected cold snap, so that wet soil has a chance to soak up heat from the day. 

Act Fast with a Flush After Saltwater Damage

If a storm surge flooded your lawn with saltwater, turn on your irrigation system right away, if possible, to start flushing out the salt. Then run it every day for two weeks.

The fresh water helps push the damaging saltwater deeper into the soil, below the root line. 

Act fast, and this smart strategy might save you from replacing your entire lawn with new sod. 

Don’t Prune Too Late in the Season 

Don’t prune plants too close to chilly weather. When you prune, your plant instinctively puts out a spurt of new growth. If you prune too late in the season, in late summer or early fall, that tender new growth is susceptible to injury from cold. It’s not as tough as the rest of the plant.

Use Oil to Keep Bugs Away

It’s a lot easier to prevent plant-eating pests than to treat them after they show up all hungry and rude. 

Horticultural oil spray is a highly refined petroleum product used as an insecticide to suffocate insects and insect eggs on trees and shrubs.

Instead of poisoning Florida landscaping pests, you’re basically smothering them with the oil. The oil kills any lingering insects as well as their eggs, so they won’t hatch. 

Extra bonus pro tip: Do this at dusk. If you apply the oil during the day the hot sun will sizzle your plant leaves like bacon. Then, in the morning, use a spray bottle of dish soap and water to wash off the oil. 

Give Soil a Secret Boost

The soil here in Sarasota yards isn’t always the perfect environment for plants. It might be too sandy, or thick with sticky clay. Or depleted of important nutrients your plants need to thrive. 

Our pros use a special soil blend — a mix of surface sand and Comand Soil, a specialty compost that helps restore the soil ecosystem by providing all-important organic matter and beneficial microbes crucial to soil health.

This nutritious blend enriches your plants’ soil with great nutrients — and provides the perfect drainage set-up that tropical plants love. 

Adopt These Five Favorite Low-Maintenance Plants 

These beauties don’t need much water. They’re sturdy. They look great without a ton of tending. You’re welcome. 

1. African Iris, a lovely multi-petal flower that actually looks high 
maintenance. 

2. Sago Palm, actually a palm lookalike with long green fronds that’s a cycad, a group of ancient tropical and subtropical plants.

3. Coontie, a cool native Florida plant that looks like a small fern, with stiff, glossy, featherlike leaves. 

4. Ixora, a sun-loving shrub with clusters of tubular flowers in bright red, orange, yellow, pink, or white.

5. Blue Daze wows you with brilliant blue flowers that open in the morning and close up in the evening on this easy-care ground cover that loves the heat and sun.

Why Hiring a Professional for Sarasota Landscape Maintenance is Worth It

Everybody has to decide for themselves whether something is “worth it.” 

If the gourmet dog treat at the pet store is $6, is it worth it? Yes. Your dog is The Best Boy. 

If a super supreme pizza is 20 bucks is it worth it? Yes. It’s pizza. End of discussion. 

What about Sarasota landscape maintenance? Is it worth it? 

No big surprise here that our answer is yes. Ponder these reasons, then decide for yourself: 

Pruning is a Big Pain

Once you find out how persnickety plants here are about pruning and how important it is, you might quickly decide hiring Sarasota landscape maintenance is absolutely worth it. 

Pruning tropical plants is super important here in Florida, with so many 
plants that sport fantastic flowers. The last thing you want to do is prune at the wrong time and risk cutting off all the buds — that means no beautiful blossoms.

So, if you’re doing it yourself, get ready for some homework. You need to know when each shrub sets its flower buds, so the buds don’t get pruned off. Prune at the wrong time and you won’t have those stunning tropical blossoms — the reason you wanted that shrub in the first place. 

Also, as we shared earlier, here in Sarasota, the temperature and amounts of rain we get help determine when plants should be pruned. So now you have to be a weather expert, too. Cool. 

Chances are your yard has a variety of plants and shrubs with different bloom cycles, which means keeping track of lots of different pruning timing. Yay!

Or, let the pros do it and go get pizza. 

Your Rental Property Has to Be Perfect 

If you own rental property here in Central Florida, you know renters expect a lot for their money. Picture-perfect palm trees. A cushy carpet of green grass. Wow-worthy tropical flowers.

Does your rental property landscaping look like a magazine cover? It could, if you stick with us. 

Rental property landscaping has to be perfect to be competitive. That means lots of behind the scenes stuff, like proper painstaking pruning, staying on top of fertilizer and weed control, an irrigation system that’s always happily humming along to keep up with that demanding Florida lawn watering schedule. 

You don’t want to do all that, do you? We didn’t think so. 

#%$! Weeds

Weeds never sleep. If you try to stay on top of all your weeds, neither will you. 

Weed control happens year-round. And it’s a whole big thing.

Different common Florida weeds emerge at different times throughout the year, which, besides driving you crazy, means targeted weed control at just the right times is super important. 

You need both pre- and post-emergent weed control treatments to keep your property weed-free throughout the year. 

All it takes is a few sneaky weeds to ruin the party. 

Your best chance against these dastardly villains? Put pros on the job who know exactly when to apply the crucial pre-emergent herbicides to keep some weeds away, and how to quickly target others when they pop up. 

Problem solved. 

How Much Is Peace of Mind Worth?

Partner with Sarasota landscape maintenance and here’s what they’ll worry about, so you don’t have to: 

Weeds. Pruning. Mowing. Fertilizing. Florida landscaping pests. Lawn and plant diseases. Tree and shrub care. Your Florida lawn watering schedule. Yard cleanup. 

Yard maintenance in Florida is pretty overwhelming.

Is hiring Sarasota landscape maintenance worth it? You’ve already signed up, right?

Why Choose Tropical Gardens for Sarasota Landscape Maintenance?

Ready to relax? Partner with us, then hit the hammock:

• We’re plant nerds, and it shows. Our skilled crews know exactly when each Sarasota shrub sets its flower buds, so they don’t prune off those all-important buds. We know those yellow or white spots on your plant’s leaf is where mites are feeding. We know the sturdiest annuals for winter months here in Sarasota are New Guinea impatiens, pansies and geraniums. You get the idea. We know stuff, so you don’t have to — and we love sharing landscape maintenance tips.
• Protect your investment. You’ve trusted us to help you create an amazing backyard destination, and a front yard that wows. Now make sure your lawn stays green, your plants grow and thrive, your irrigation system keeps chugging away dependably quenching everybody’s thirst. How to take care of your landscape? Skilled maintenance makes it all shine.
• We’re your neighbors, sharing your Sarasota community. That means you get local pros on the job who know your landscaping; experts you can find when you need us; and local community members who are accountable for our work, because our reputation matters to us. We live here, just like you do.
• We’re nice, and you can reach us. When you call us at Tropical Gardens you’ll hear a friendly voice on the other end. It’s rare you’ll get voicemail. If you do, leave a message and we’ll get right back to you. When you email us, we’re on it. You’re our most important customer.
• We’re not going anywhere. We’re invested in the community, here for the long haul to care for your landscaping, answer your questions, figure out why your hibiscus looks weird and only has leaves at the top. (Has anybody ever pruned the poor thing? See – you need us!)
• We make it easy for you, by doing it all. We’ll tailor a Florida yard maintenance plan that covers every inch of your property, from your lawn to your plants to your trees, including painstaking attention to your crucial irrigation system. Nothing falls between the cracks. You rest easy.

Ready for Expert Sarasota Landscape Maintenance? Talk to Us 

Our skilled team has more than 5,000 happy customers, sitting outside enjoying their stunning begonia ‘Alba’ and petite ixora without a single worry about sap-sucking whiteflies. Life is good. 

We’d love to help you be next. 

Give us a call or fill out our form today! Our team of Sarasota landscape maintenance pros can’t wait to take perfect care of your backyard oasis.