The largest annual expense in the Grandin Hall HOA budget is landscaping and groundskeeping. Nearly half of the neighborhood’s budget is set aside for weekly seasonal mowing, bush trimming, mulching, fertilization and such. 

 

Your board is charged with acting as good stewards of the HOA’s funds while maintaining the integrity and appearance of the neighborhood. Over the last several months the board has studied ways to reduce the overall annual landscaping expense while providing a visually appealing neighborhood.

 

Many of the neighborhood’s original plantings were tightly positioned in expansive mulch beds, and many of those bushes and plants have now grown past their most attractive lifecycle. In addition to some of the landscaping being past its useful life, our large quantity of annual mulch installation is costly.

 

The board also took into consideration some sizeable but necessary irrigation system repairs and maintenance. In addition to replacing damaged control boxes and a large quantity of damaged sprinkler heads, the scope of work also includes moving heads that had become ineffective because the surrounding landscaping had grown to a point the heads were covered. We anticipate not having to move those heads now. The irrigation system repairs will be addressed in the spring.

 

After working most of the summer with Wesley’s Landscape, the neighborhood’s landscape contractor, to develop a feasible plan, we are now in the midst of removing the most overgrown plantings and returning several large mulch beds to grass. A few dead trees were also removed.

 

Wesley’s will continue this project with the assistance of Xanderbuilt Tree Care over the next few weeks. Once Xanderbuilt has finished removing the largest bushes, dead trees and stump grinding, Wesley’s will finish the project by removing some additional brush along the west side of the main entrance and seeding the mulch beds that are to be returned to grass.

 

Late this fall or early in the winter, Wesley’s will also prune the hydrangeas at the 146th Street entrance to a “dormant pruning” of 36”-48”. The hydrangeas are currently very overgrown and we were presented the choices of removing and replanting them or attempting to prune them. Rather than taking the most extreme step of removing and replanting them – and the associated expense, the board opted to prune. The hydrangea pruning should allow them to grow next spring and the future in a way that fulfills their most promising blooms while managing their growth.