THISTLE & STONELANDSCAPE

Services & pricing

Everything on one property, split two ways.

Prices below are what work like this normally runs on a Tampa Bay lot. The number on your quote comes off a walkthrough — measured turf, a counted set of irrigation heads, and a look at where the water goes.

Soft

The recurring side

Lawn, beds, irrigation, and canopy. Everything here runs on the twelve-month calendar and is billed as one monthly number, with treatments and repairs quoted before they happen.

Mowing & maintenance

Weekly April through October. Every other week the rest of the year.

Cut at the height your grass actually wants, edged along every bed and hard surface, trimmed, and blown clean — off the driveway and the walk, not into the storm drain. Clippings get dispersed rather than bagged; they are free nitrogen and they belong on your lawn.

Weekly service, Apr–Oct
in the monthly plan
Every other week, Nov–Mar
in the monthly plan
Bed edge re-cut
twice a season, included
One-off cleanup cut
from $95

Fertilization & weed control

Six applications a year, keyed to soil temperature.

Pre-emergent in February and again in October, granular feed once the turf is green in April and again in September, spot post-emergent where something got through, and a potassium-heavy last feed in November. Nitrogen goes down when the grass can use it — not in the middle of a July fungus run, which is how you feed the disease instead of the lawn.

Six-step annual program
from $58 per application
Pre-emergent, Feb & Oct
in the program
Spot post-emergent
in the program
Soil test
$65

Pest & disease

Treated where it is, not everywhere.

Chinch bugs work the hot edges along driveways and south walls in St. Augustine. Sod webworm shows up in late summer as notched, ragged blades. Gray leaf spot and take-all root rot arrive with the rain. We identify it, then treat the affected area — blanket-spraying a whole lawn for a 200-square-foot problem costs you money and kills the beneficials that were helping.

Inspection & identification
in the monthly plan
Chinch bug treatment
from $110
Fungicide application
from $135
Sod webworm / grub treatment
from $120

Irrigation

The most expensive thing on a Florida property to ignore.

A full zone-by-zone audit each March: catch cups out, run times measured, heads straightened, re-aimed, and unblocked, and the controller reset for the watering days your address is actually allowed. Then it gets turned down in July when the sky is doing the work, and back up in October when it stops.

Spring zone audit
$145
Head replacement
from $28 each
Valve or solenoid repair
from $135
Controller replacement
from $290

Beds, mulch & planting

October is the planting month. Everything else is a compromise.

Florida planting works when the soil is still warm and the air has cooled, which is October into early November — roots get four months to establish before spring asks anything of them. Beds get re-edged, mulched to three inches, and never volcano-mulched up against a trunk.

Mulch, installed
from $78 per yard
Bed re-edge
from $1.85 per ft
Shrub install
from $42 each
Seasonal color changeout
from $220

Trees & palms

Thinned before storm season, not cleaned up after it.

Oaks get their canopies thinned in winter so wind passes through instead of pushing. Palms get cleaned and fed with a palm-specific fertilizer — frizzle top is a potassium deficiency, not a haircut problem. We do not hurricane-cut palms; stripping one back to a pencil makes it weaker in wind, not stronger.

Palm trim & clean
from $95 each
Palm fertilization
from $48 each
Oak canopy thinning
quoted after a look
Storm limb clearance
from $180

Hard

The build side

Pavers, walls, walkways, drainage, and lighting. Quoted flat off a measured plan, scheduled as a project, and mostly built between November and April when the ground is dry enough to work.

Paver patios & pool decks

Six inches of compacted base, or we do not build it.

Excavated to firm subgrade, geotextile down, six inches of crushed concrete compacted in two-inch lifts, one inch of screeded bedding sand, then pavers, edge restraint spiked every eight inches, and polymeric sand in the joints. Two percent fall away from the house so water leaves.

Patio, installed
from $22 per sq ft
Pool deck remodel
from $26 per sq ft
Existing patio re-lay
from $12 per sq ft
Layout & material selection
in the quote

Retaining & seat walls

Drained behind, not just stacked in front.

Walls fail from water pressure behind them, so ours get washed gravel backfill, a wrapped drain pipe with a real outfall, and geogrid where the height calls for it. Seat walls finish at eighteen inches with a capped edge you can actually sit on without catching a leg.

Seat wall, to 24″
from $58 per ft
Retaining wall, to 4′
from $84 per ft
Wall cap
from $18 per ft
Steps
from $340 each

Walkways, steps & aprons

Where the concrete cracked, and why it cracked.

Paver walks flex where a slab cracks, and a single sunken paver is a twenty-minute fix instead of a demolition. Driveway aprons get a thicker base and a heavier paver because a car is not a person. Risers kept consistent, treads kept level, no surprise half-step at the bottom.

Walkway, installed
from $24 per sq ft
Driveway apron
from $28 per sq ft
Front entry steps
from $1,450
Paver repair / re-set
from $340

Drainage & grading

Water leaves, or none of the rest matters.

We walk it after a real rain, because that is the only time a yard tells the truth. French drains get fabric-wrapped stone and an outfall that actually daylights. Catch basins go where water collects, dry wells go where there is nowhere to send it, and sometimes the honest answer is that the grade runs at the house and has to be rebuilt.

French drain
from $34 per ft
Catch basin
from $340 each
Dry well
from $1,150
Regrading
quoted after a rain

Lighting & fire features

Low-voltage, brass fixtures, buried properly.

Path and uplighting on a transformer sized with headroom so the run does not dim at the far end. Brass and copper fixtures rather than the cast aluminum that pits out in two Florida summers. Fire pits built on the same base spec as a patio, with a steel ring and a proper air gap.

Lighting, per fixture
from $145 installed
Transformer & timer
from $420
Fire pit, 42″ round
from $2,400
Annual lighting service
from $180

Know your turf

Three grasses, three different jobs.

Half the arguments about a lawn go away once you know which one you have. Mow height, water, and pest pressure are not preferences — they are properties of the grass.

St. Augustine

Floratam

Mow height
3½–4″
Water need
High
Shade
Poor in Floratam
Chinch bugs
Very susceptible

The default across Tampa Bay. Coarse, fast, and thirsty — and the reason chinch bug treatment is a line item on so many invoices.

Zoysia

Empire

Mow height
1½–2½″
Water need
Moderate
Shade
Fair
Chinch bugs
Low

Finer blade, denser mat, handles traffic well and looks better up close. Wants a sharper mower and more attention to thatch.

Bahia

Argentine

Mow height
3–4″
Water need
Low
Shade
Poor
Chinch bugs
Low

Cheap and drought-tough, and it throws seed stalks a week after every cut. Right for acreage and pasture edges, wrong for a front yard you care about.

Not sure which side of the list you need?

Most properties need some of both, and the order matters — grading and drainage before sod, hardscape before the beds go in around it.

(813) 555-0163Book a walkthrough