Rooftopia’s Garden Maintenance Team Adds Curb Appeal For Every Season

One side of Rooftopia focuses on the design and construction of new rooftop decks, landscapes, patios, outdoor kitchens and custom made pergolas, however many of our clients also rely on our seasonal maintenance visits to ensure that each of their spaces are kept looking beautiful, lush and tidy so they can entertain guests or relax and enjoy their outdoor oasis after a long day. Rooftopia’s seasonal maintenance teams are continuously planning and organizing our upcoming calendar to perform maintenance for a range of gardens both large and small on a regular schedule between mid-March and mid-December, during Chicago’s growing season.

For inspiration and enjoyment we wanted to share a few photos of our seasonal planter boxes and container gardens from spring, summer, fall and winter.

Seasonal Containers: We love designing and installing new seasonal planter boxes with a range of styles to reflect our clients goals. We love colorful flowers and show stopping foliage for bold and dramatic entry ways, but we also love minimal and modern arrangements with classic greenery. No matter what your preference we’ve got you covered! We hand select all of our plants and decor to match our clients aesthetics or add curb appeal to a front stoop, a rooftop deck or a backyard patio. Garden boxes, urns, planters and containers range in size, shape, color and material and we help select the best option to match the architecture of your home or building and your style. We also select planters and plants that are best suited for your location which ranges from sun drenched windy rooftops, busy parkways, or tucked neatly under a shade tree in a backyard, we have lots of options. Your account manager will coordinate regular service visits to swap out the plants and decor based on what works best for the season and your budget.

In April our spring planters bring a much needed pop of color after a long winter. Spring containers may include cool season flowers like pansies, tulips, lupine, hyacinth, ranunculus and sweetly fragrant purple or white stock. Spring accents and decor may also include willow branches, small evergreens or forsythia branches.

Around Mother’s Day, after the threat of frost has passed in May, we start installing our Summer flowers and foliage. In Summer we enjoy curating planter boxes with a wider range of flowers like petunias, begonia, impatiens, cosmos, zinnia as well as tropical foliage, coleus, cordyline and ornamental grasses that will fill out and flourish for the longest hottest stretch of the year. If you also love to cook or want to get your kiddos involved with gardening, we can also add some vegetables like patio tomatoes, kale, climbing green beans or add herbs like basil, chives, parsley, oregano and rosemary to fill in a kitchen garden box for the summer.

Fall planter rotations are installed in late September and may include chrysanthemums, ornamental cabbages, kale, ornamental peppers and pumpkins. Fall clean up also keeps us quite busy as we work hard to wrangle the leaves during those brisk and windy days. In the fall our teams are responsible for removing several tons of leaves that get turned into compost!

To round out the year, usually around Thanksgiving, our teams install fresh cut winter evergreens like cedar, fir, pine boughs, eucalyptus, boxwood, and accents such as pine cones, red berries, birch poles & red twig dogwood. We design an array of traditional and non-traditional holiday planters and install decor including garland, Christmas lights and wreaths. These fresh greens smell terrific and have lasting greenery through the holidays and well into the new year. Winter containers provide a lovely lush texture during the cold winter months and even as they turn bronze and fade from green to brown, the textures are enchanting in our snowy winter wonderland.

Seasonal Clean up: Along with designing & installing beautiful planters for every season, we keep our maintenance crews very busy with the care and upkeep of landscapes and rooftops around Chicagoland. Our maintenance offerings range from the care of annual plants, ornamental trees, shrubs, native perennials, automatic watering systems, and outdoor lighting systems. We also provide pruning, fertilizing, and mulch applications for planter boxes, vegetable gardens, landscapes, and raised beds. If you’re hosting an outdoor party this year, be sure to reach out to get on our schedule, so our team can spruce up your patio or rooftop to impress your guests.

Automatic Watering Systems / Irrigation Maintenance: Most of our gardens have been designed with an automatic watering system, or drip irrigation system that requires annual care. Each summer before the weather gets too hot we schedule a visit to hook up and reprogram all of our client’s irrigation timers and test the system to ensure there are no leaks or damaged lines. All plants thrive if they have means to consistent water at the appropriate rate. If Chicago experiences extreme heat or drought the irrigation may be increased or if we experience a very rainy season we may suggest decreasing the run times. Our irrigation systems help conserve water usage and benefit our clients by saving time, energy and resources. Before the weather is consistently freezing the exterior water lines and access need to be winterized and shut down. Our teams send out annual reminders to all of our clients to ensure the systems are set up at the beginning of the season and properly winterized in the late fall.

We know everyone has a busy schedule, so please reach out to us if you need help maintaining your outdoor space this year. We look forward to working with you.