East Lake is the corridor that runs along East Lake Road on the east side of Lake Tarpon. It is newer than most of Pinellas County: the greater part of it was built out as deed restricted communities from the 1980s onward, on larger and more open lots than the older cities to the west.
Most properties here are on a regular maintenance schedule, weekly through the growing season. Hedge work, tree work and mulch can go onto a scheduled visit or be booked on their own, whichever suits the property.
Cut at a height that suits the grass and the season, so the lawn holds its color and shades out weeds.
DetailsA clean vertical cut along driveways, sidewalks, curbs and bed lines on every visit.
DetailsString trimming around fences, posts, mailboxes, A/C units and everything a mower deck cannot reach.
DetailsDriveway, walkways, entry and lanai blown clean at the end of the visit, with the clippings kept out of the street.
DetailsNewer construction and open irrigated lawns give this corridor its own set of conditions, and they are not the ones the older parts of the county have.
On newer construction the ground under the lawn is largely what the builder left behind: sand, with the topsoil graded around and compacted in places. Sand drains fast and holds very little, so a lawn on it leans on its irrigation and on carrying enough leaf to shade its own roots.
St. Augustine on sand should be cut at the top of its range. A taller blade shades the soil, slows evaporation and carries deeper roots, which is the difference between a lawn that rides out a dry April and one that goes off color between watering days. Scalping it on sand is how it is lost.
The communities along the corridor were platted with deed restrictions, so there are standards for the lawn and for the beds. The lots are larger and the front lawns are more open than in the older parts of the county, which means more grass to cut, less to hand trim, and nothing hidden from the street.
We cut high here, and we change the direction of the cut between visits so the grass is not pushed the same way every week and the wheels do not run in the same line twice. Sprinkler heads sit out in the open grass on these lots, and the crew learns where yours are.
How often we come follows the rain. Through the wet season, June to September, an irrigated lawn on sand grows fast enough to want cutting every week. Once the rain stops and the days get shorter, the interval can go out to every other week without the lawn getting ahead of us.
The 34685 ZIP code is the East Lake Road corridor itself, from Keystone Road and the Tarpon Springs line at the north end down to Tampa Road and the Oldsmar line at the south, with Lake Tarpon on one side of it and Brooker Creek Preserve on the other.
The useful thing about this corridor is that it reads as one run. Tarpon Springs is at the top of it, Palm Harbor is over the lake to the west and Oldsmar is at the bottom, so a street here fits into a weekly schedule without much trouble. Ask on the call and we can tell you which day we are usually on your side of the road.
Call us with the address and we will come out, walk the lot and put together a plan for the lawn and the beds along with a schedule to hold it. There is no obligation once you have it.
Seven days a week, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Email cjackc.inc@gmail.com.