PLEASE NOTE – THIS IS AN ARCHIVED ARTICLE AND MAY NOT REPRESENT CURRENT INFORMATION.

Several of our neighbors have noticed the, “less than amazing” look of the landscaping in the common areas of the neighborhood.     Recently several of the board members met with representatives of US Lawns, the current landscaping company used by our HOA, to talk about some of the issues we have noticed. I ended up walking the neighborhood with our account manager and the general manager of US Lawns. During that conversation I talked about some of the key problems we are having, as well as some of the long-term goals for the care of the entryways and other common areas.

One of the issues the board has focused on since being elected in July is the cost of water.  As an HOA we can’t change how much we are charged for water here in Almond Glen, but we can work to lower the amount of water the HOA uses. To that end we are looking at options, which would allow us to transition the grass in the common areas near the front entrance and around the townhomes over to Bermuda. According to our landscapers, we could reduce the amount of water needed, reduce the maintenance needed for the lawns, and actually have better-looking lawns.

As proof of this we can look at the lawns around the newer Lennar townhomes. Lennar used Bermuda around the townhomes and Eastwood used a mix of fescue and wheat.  The Bermuda looks stronger, has fewer weeds, and has filled in the bare patches around the lawn. The fescue/wheat mix is full of difficult to kill weeds, has bare spots throughout it, and must be watered regularly. Even more surprising to some is the lack of an irrigation system on the Lennar side! The Eastwood side has an irrigation system, which runs often, raising the cost of HOA water bills.

For those of you who are not familiar with different types of grass… Bermuda is very aggressive. It moves into an area very easily and over time it will spread to all of the lawns around it like a weed. For that reason we can pretty much do nothing, and eventually the grass will be overrun with Bermuda. In the meantime we will have to continue to maintain the different types of grass.

The guys at US Lawns have stated they are going to examine our current contract and look for cost saving measures within the contract, which can hopefully leave room to get the conversion done more quickly. US Lawns should have a proposal together for the board in a few weeks and we will then discuss our options. We hope to have the landscaping looking much better and the entryways vastly improved by next spring.