Finish grade
Landscaping & hardscaping
River rock, mulch, top soil, grading and transplanting, laid down by the crew that cleared the trees.
Bare ground after the saw is done
Taking a tree out changes more than the skyline. The shade goes, the roots stop drinking, and the ground under it is suddenly bare dirt, worn thin, or sloped just enough to wash out in the next hard rain. Under old shade trees the soil is often compacted and the grass gave up years ago.
That is where landscaping picks up from the tree work. Scott Keen looks at the same property he looked at when he gave his verdicts on the trees, and decides what the ground needs now: grading, cover, a way to hold a slope, or plants that suit the light they will actually get.
River rock dry creek bed with fresh mulch beside a lakeside house and a tall trunk
River rock, landscape cloth, top soil and mulch
Linda Futato described a job where he brought in river rock, landscape cloth, top soil and mulch. He trimmed, graded, brought in a Bobcat to level the dirt, and transplanted some bushes. Cloth goes down before rock or mulch so weeds stay out and the stone does not sink into the soil.
The rest of the work follows the same logic. A dry creek bed of river rock carries runoff down a slope without cutting a gully, as in the lakeside photo. A cream pea-gravel bed around a wooden deck keeps mud off the boards and gives shade-tree roots room. Fresh mulch and new plantings give a front bed its finished edge, and new sod closes a cleared path.
Premier lists custom hardscaping alongside its tree work and excavating, so the stone, the grade and the planting come from one crew with one owner watching.
Beds that hold, and a contractor who answers
A landscape job is only finished when it survives its first wet spring. Mulch settles and thins, rock beds need a rake after storms, and transplanted shrubs need watching through their first summer. Properties around Locust Grove, Lake Anna and Lake of the Woods get hard rain and steep lake lots, so beds are graded to shed water before anything is laid on top.
Linda Futato put the part she valued most plainly: “He returns text messages and keeps you notified!” Scott is on every job the entire time, and that habit keeps a project with several stages from drifting, because you hear where it stands as it goes.
“He returns text messages and keeps you notified!” Linda Futato
