Selecting a Landscape Contractor

Unless you have already signed up last year’s contractor, you should be thinking about the new landscape contract for this season. If you don’t have a copy of CAI GAP report #12, “Selecting the Landscape Maintenance Contractor," it may be worth your while to order it. This report includes a large section on The Contract and another section on Bid Selection and Evaluation. It also includes a couple of good appendices containing sample specifications and schedules.

In the introduction to this GAP report, there are six “Key Points” for selecting the landscape contractor. The first two of the six are; 1) The landscape maintenance budget is a major expense in association management, and 2) By properly contracting for landscape maintenance and services, an association can save money and extend the life of planted goods. I suspect few will argue with #1 since one needs only look at the budget line items and find Landscape services as the first or second largest number in the operating budget. I further suspect that many interpret #2 to mean, “By contracting properly, we can feel comfortable in contracting with the lowest bidder and thereby save the association money.”

Here in New England our landscape season is between eight and nine months long. That is a 35 to 40 week season and, if you include all the landscape services, somewhere between 50 to 60 visits to your site by the landscape contractor. Is there any other contractor who is physically on site as often? It would be prudent to consider a few more qualifications than the GAP report considers.

If your association isn’t concerned about quality and the only determining factor is price, then read no farther. Do your best to describe the landscaping tasks and get as many responses as possible so that you are certain to get the low bid. You will get the quality of the lowest bidder and nothing more. I believe there are circumstances that mandate an association seeking the lowest cost and there are contractors who thrive on delivering low cost service. When this match up works, everyone wins.

Ron Kujawa, a green-industry consultant, recently wrote an article in which he described several groups of low price landscape contractors. One of these groups was dubbed as The Cheaters. These are the contractors who cheat by promising a lot and delivering very little. Their customer base is constantly evolving and the contracts they win are by price alone. They have few, if any, long term clients. Another group he described was the Basic Service group. These contractors deliver basic services with minimal quality and minimal price. There are those associations who really want this type of contractor because quality is not so important as price. These contractors do have loyal clients as well as transient clients. It isn’t always so easy to tell these two groups apart during the bidding process.

The Quality contractors however have a set of qualifications that few of the low price contractors can meet. If your association is interested in having a quality contractor, pre-qualify them on these qualifications first. Of those contractors who satisfy some or all of these qualifications, select from their price proposals with more confidence.

References: While most bid packages include a requirement to list references, check out (or request) how long the relationship has existed. This will help to determine whether or not the contractor is able to establish long term relationships with clients. Does the contractor have any multi-year contracts? This often is an indicator of the contractor delivering satisfactory quality at a price that is reasonable over the long term.

Personnel: Request a bio of the key people in the contractor’s company. There should be at least one key employee who has some formal education in the green industry. The remaining organization should have one or more specialists and the crew chiefs should have a minimum three to five years experience in the industry.

Memberships: Low bid contractors rarely participate in organizations and seldom bother to keep up with the latest industry developments. A few of these associations are Associated Landscape Contractors of Massachusetts (ALCM), Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA), Mass Nurseryman and Landscapers Association (MNLA) and Mass Horticultural Society (MHS). All of these organizations sponsor recurring technical workshops and seminars for their membership. Don’t forget CAI and BOMA as appropriate industry associations for landscapers too.

Certifications: Quality landscapers spend time and money in education and certification because that is what enables them to deliver the quality. Most trade associations have certification testing that is designed to pass only 60% of those who take the test. ALCM has the Mass Certified Landscape Professional (MCLP) designation. ALCA has the Certified Landscape Professional (CLP) certification. MNLA has the Mass Certified Horticulturist (MCH) designator. These are comparable to the CPM and CMCA certification for Property Managers from CAI. Just as CAI requires continuing education for CPMs, these professional landscape certifications always require a certain amount of continuing education in order to be re-certified. Certification does not by itself mean the contractor will have a higher quality work product, but it clearly increases the probability of it. Do all your bidders have comparable industry certifications?

Licensing: There are a few landscape tasks that require a license issued by the state. An example of this is the license to apply pesticides. Anyone who applies a pesticide or herbicide is required to be licensed by the state or be under the control of a licensed applicator. Pre-qualify your bidders by having them list any state licenses they hold.

Contractors who exhibit one or more of these qualifications are willing to spend money to educate, certify, license and train their employees. This cost most assuredly is passed on to the client during the bidding process but the cost is returned as higher quality performance and better overall management of the property. Low cost bidders rarely produce curb appeal above the “ordinary” level.