Salem, Utah
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A guide for Salem HOA boards, property managers and owners hiring a commercial installer for grading, hardscape, irrigation and planting on wet clay ground.
“I've poured a few concrete jobs for J&H and there always professional and have things graded and prepped ready to go”
“they will definitely be my go to landscaper for many years!”
Commercial Landscaping Services
Commercial properties in Salem deal with the same ground homes do, just more of it. Clay that holds water sits under most sites, and low areas near the pond and spring flow can stay wet. On top of that, a lot of hard surface, like parking, roofs and walks, sends more water into the landscape than a home yard ever sees.
Water costs matter too. Salem's pressurized irrigation comes from the Strawberry Highline Canal, runs roughly April to October depending on canal water, and has been metered since 2023. An HOA common area or an office site with an old, leaky system now has a meter counting every gallon that misses the plants. That puts irrigation design on the budget sheet.
This page is for Salem HOA boards, property managers and owners of offices, retail and multifamily properties. It covers what to look for in an installer for grading, hardscape, irrigation and planting, plus the habits that cost properties money. We do this install work, and you can use the list to check our bid as hard as anyone's.
What to look for
Ask how runoff from parking and roofs will be handled. On Salem clay, it needs drains, swales or planted areas built to take it. A contractor who skips this leaves the property with ice at the entrance in winter and dead plants at the low end in summer.
Ask for separate zones by plant type and sun, drip on shrub beds, and a controller the manager can check easily. On a metered system, a broken head or a zone running long costs money every day nobody notices. The design should make problems easy to spot.
Commercial walls often hold up parking, drives or slopes, which Salem's code treats as a surcharge. Ask whether the contractor works with an engineer, who pulls the permit, and how any wall over 10 feet will be terraced as the code requires.
Ask for quantities, materials and a schedule in writing, and one person to call. Boards and tenants want to know when walks close and when crews leave for the day. A vague scope is how change orders and finger-pointing get started.
What goes wrong in Salem
Low islands and edges near wet ground get planted with shrubs that hate wet roots. They look fine at the grand opening and are dead a year later. Either the bed needs drainage, or the plant list needs plants that can live in damp clay.
Some systems still go in with spray heads in narrow strips and every zone on the same schedule. On a metered Salem system, that design waters the asphalt. It is cheaper to install and costs the property more every season after.
A short wall along a parking lot can still need a permit and engineered plans in Salem because of the load behind it. When a bid prices that wall like a garden border, ask why. A wall that fails next to parked cars is a much bigger problem than one in a backyard.
Why Salem picks J&H
What homeowners say
"We had a really big project (full lot project) and a crazy timeline, and Jackson and his team were awesome. They are very efficient, work hard to get things done quick, and the quality of their work is top-notch. Great company. Great guys. I would highly recommend them for any landscaping needs."
"Jackson and his crew did a phenomenal job on our back yard. I had a vision and they brought it to life. We had them do a retaining wall, grading, underground trampoline, sprinkler system, and sod. They met deadlines, communication was on point, and the whole crew was friendly.…"
"…The job was completed quickly without sacrificing quality, and the results exceeded our expectations. We would absolutely hire this team again and recommend them to anyone looking for landscaping help."
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