Landscaping & Exterior Services in Medford, MA
Medford runs on two calendars. There is the one the weather keeps, and there is the academic one, and any contractor working here who only knows the first will be caught out every summer.
Tufts sits on the hill at the Somerville line, and its rhythm reaches deep into Medford Hillside and South Medford — leases that all turn over at once, properties that need to look presentable on a schedule set by a university rather than by the grass, and a late-August week when the sidewalks fill with the furniture of departing tenants. Meanwhile West Medford has bigger lots, older trees and owners who have been in the same house for thirty years and want a lawn, not a turnover plan. It is genuinely two different businesses inside one city line.
What ties it together is water and grade. The Mystic River cuts through the middle, the Mystic Lakes sit at the northwest corner, Wrights Pond and the edge of the Middlesex Fells hold down the north end, and the land between them goes up and down more than people expect. Then I-93 runs straight through the whole thing. We have been working every part of it since 2005.
One City, Several Very Different Landscapes
A quote that makes sense in West Medford can be nonsense in South Medford, and the reason is the lot. West Medford yards have room — mature trees, real front lawns, space to bring a machine around the side and space for a design to breathe. South Medford and the blocks below the Hillside are triple-decker country: three units, one small yard, a driveway that is fully occupied by cars, and every square foot spoken for. The work is not the same work, so we do not price it or plan it the same way.
The grade complicates both. Medford climbs from the Mystic River up toward the Fells, and the older neighborhoods were carved into that rise with retaining walls, terraced front yards and stone steps that have now had a century of freeze-thaw working on them. A lot of what we get called for in this city is not a landscape request at all — it is a wall that has started to lean or steps that have shifted, and the planting is what the owner wants once the structure underneath is sound again. We rebuild on a proper base, because a wall rebuilt on the old failing one just fails again on your money.
Near the river and the lakes there is one more layer. Massachusetts wetlands rules put protective buffers around water, and Medford has a Conservation Commission that reviews work inside them. If your project is close to the Mystic, near Wrights Pond, or on a lot that stays wet, we find out during the estimate whether it needs review — that conversation is cheap before the work and expensive during it.
What We Do in Medford
The same crew handles the West Medford single-family and the Hillside three-decker — the plan for each just looks nothing like the other.
- Weekly and bi-weekly mowing for homes, triple-deckers and small multi-unit buildings
- Turnover packages for rental properties — cleanout, mattress removal, cleanup, and a schedule that holds between tenants
- Spring and fall cleanups with debris hauled out and composted, never left bagged at the curb
- Rebuilding leaning retaining walls, shifted stone steps and frost-heaved walkways on bases that hold
- Paver and brick patios sized honestly for small yards, so the hardscape does not eat the whole lot
- Planting and bed work, including salt-hardy choices for the roadside strips that keep dying
- Fencing in wood, vinyl, chain-link and ornamental, with permits handled where required
- Snow plowing, sidewalk clearing and ice management for driveways, multi-unit buildings and commercial lots
Move-Out Season Around the Hillside
Late August in the Tufts-adjacent blocks is its own event. Leases end together, everybody moves the same week, and what does not fit in the car goes to the curb — which since November 2022 is a genuine problem, because Massachusetts has banned mattresses from disposal. A mattress left on a Medford sidewalk is not guaranteed to be collected, and it tends to become the property owner's issue rather than the departing tenant's.
We schedule around that week for landlords and management companies: a booked pickup date, the units cleared, the yard cleaned up, and the mattresses recycled to Massachusetts state standards rather than dumped. Casablanca Services is the City of Boston's contracted mattress recycling vendor — that contract covers Boston, not Medford, but it is the same operation, the same trucks and the same audited recycling process that shows up here.
- Standard pickup: $79.95 per item, collected in 48 hours or more
- Expedited next-business-day pickup: $119.95 — useful when a unit has to show tomorrow
- One item = one mattress or one box spring — a set is two items
- Multiple units on one address collected in a single scheduled visit
The Salt Problem I-93 Gives You
Medford has a highway through the middle of it and major parkways along the water, and every winter those roads get treated. The salt does not stay on the pavement. Plow spray and traffic throw a fine salt mist well past the shoulder, and it lands on whatever is planted there — which is why the roadside hedge on a Medford property so often looks scorched and brown on one side by March while the identical shrub in the back yard is fine.
Owners usually diagnose this as winter kill or disease and replace the plant with the same species, and then it happens again. The actual fix is boring: put salt-tolerant material where the spray reaches, keep the sensitive plants beyond it, and where the exposure is severe, physically screen the bed through the winter. Species tolerant of de-icing salt exist and are not ugly. Choosing them for the first ten feet off a treated road is the difference between replanting once and replanting every three years.
It also affects how we treat your own pavement. More salt is not better ice management — it is just more salt in your soil, your foundation and the storm drain that runs to the Mystic. We are a SIMA member, which in practice means our ice work follows documented rates and timing rather than a shovel-it-on approach, and it means there is a record of what was applied and when if a slip-and-fall claim ever lands on you.
Where We Work in Medford
What We Do in Medford
Medford — Common Questions
I rent to students near Tufts. Can you handle the end-of-August turnover?
Yes, and we book it early because everyone in that pocket of Medford needs the same three days. A typical turnover for us is: scheduled mattress and box spring pickup, cleanout of what got left in the yard and driveway, a full cleanup so the unit shows, and mowing that carries through the gap between tenants. If you own several addresses around the Hillside or South Medford they go on one account and one invoice.
Everything I plant along the parkway dies every winter. What is wrong?
Almost certainly de-icing salt, not disease. Traffic and plows throw salt spray well past the pavement edge, and it lands on the roadside plants all winter — that is why the damage is on the road-facing side and the same shrub in your back yard is untouched. Replacing like with like just repeats it. We put salt-tolerant species in the exposed strip, keep the sensitive material further in, and screen the bed where the exposure is bad enough to warrant it.
My lot is near the Mystic River. Does that affect what I can do?
It can. Massachusetts wetlands law puts protective buffers around rivers and wet areas, and in Medford the Conservation Commission reviews work that falls inside them. Regrading, structures and anything that moves earth get scrutinized more than swapping out a planting bed. We work out during the estimate whether your project triggers a review and tell you straight — a filing found before we start is a schedule item, and one found afterwards is a stop-work order.
Do you plow triple-deckers and small apartment buildings?
A lot of them. It is a different job from a suburban driveway — the parking is tight, the cars do not all move, and there is almost nowhere legal to put the snow you push. We plan the pile locations before the season rather than during the storm, and we treat the abutting sidewalk as part of the contract, because in Medford the property owner is responsible for clearing it and tenants are not going to do it for you.
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Serving Medford Since 2005
Free on-site estimate anywhere in Medford. Call (508) 271-5655 or request one online.