Commercial mowing and grounds care in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

The shoreland overlay prohibits commercial storage of herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers beyond household or farm quantities next to Great Pond and the streams that feed it. Across the wider watershed, impervious coverage is limited to 35 percent of a lot, and projects that need site plan review can be required to build phosphorus controls such as wet ponds, sedimentation ponds or swales.

Our maintenance crews run commercial mowing programs with sharp blades and crisp edges, along with spring and fall cleanups, weeding and bed care. On sites with detention ponds or drainage swales, retention pond mowing and trenching can be folded into the same season.

Stormwater is the other regulatory thread. Cape Elizabeth is a designated NPDES Phase II stormwater community working within an interlocal group of 13 municipalities, and the comprehensive plan counts more than 900 catch basins carrying runoff separately from the sanitary sewer. Clippings and leaves blown into parking lot drains end up in that system, so a clean finish on a commercial lot includes keeping debris out of the catch basins.