Residential landscaping in Windham, Maine.
Most of Windham's houses are young by New England standards. The town's assessing records, summarized in the comprehensive plan, show only about 11 percent of homes built before 1940 and roughly 70 percent built from 1970 onward, most of it single-family homes spreading out from the villages of South Windham, Windham Center and North Windham.
A newer home often means a yard that was graded by the builder and planted with whatever was on the truck. Residential landscaping here tends to be a second pass: design, plantings, new lawn and the cleanups that keep it all tidy, done by one crew. Weekly residential mowing is not part of the offering.
Zone 5b plants on fast-draining ground
The USDA's 2023 hardiness map puts Windham in zone 5b, with average winter lows of minus 15 to minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. That rules in a broad palette of shrubs and perennials, but soil matters as much as cold here. Much of the upland is mapped as Hermon and Windsor soils, which NRCS describes as somewhat excessively to excessively drained. Plantings on that ground need organic matter worked in and mulch to hold moisture through July and August.
Lower spots tell a different story. Scantic and Lamoine soils on glaciomarine deposits stay wet into spring, and plants that sulk in wet feet do poorly there. Walking a yard before choosing plants is how those two conditions get sorted out on one lot.
Yards that drain toward a lake
The Pleasant River and four Windham brooks, Black, Colley Wright, Inkhorn and Otter, are listed by the town as impaired for E. coli and low dissolved oxygen, and five lakes and ponds are on the state's most-at-risk list. Fertilizer and bare soil from yards contribute to both problems.
The Portland Water District keeps watershed protection staff for Windham landowners and runs a Lakescaping program with guidance on lake-friendly yards. Landscaping that follows that approach leans on dense plantings, mulched beds and quickly established grass rather than exposed soil, and on a soil test before any fertilizer goes down.
Hydroseeding is often the fastest way to cover ground after a regrade, and on these lots a new lawn is sized to the area the family actually uses, with the rest left as planted beds or woods that ask for less water and no fertilizer.
Design · Planting · Cleanups
How we handle landscaping
We design and install residential landscapes across Cumberland and Greater Portland: plantings, hydroseeding, cleanups and the hardscape that ties the property together. Weekly residential mowing is not what we sell — full landscape work is.
See the full landscaping service page or everything we do in Windham, Maine.
Landscaping in nearby towns
- Landscaping in Gray
- Landscaping in Cumberland
- Landscaping in Standish
- Landscaping in Gorham
- Landscaping in Westbrook
More services in Windham
- Hardscaping in Windham
- Retaining Walls in Windham
- Landscape Design in Windham
- Planting & Garden Beds in Windham
- Hydroseeding, Sod & Turf in Windham
- Lawn Aeration & Overseeding in Windham
- Fall Cleanup & Leaf Removal in Windham
- Commercial Mowing & Cleanups in Windham
- Excavation & Land Clearing in Windham
- Septic Systems in Windham
- Tree & Shrub Services in Windham
- Tree Removal in Windham
Free Estimates
Landscaping in Windham? Let's talk.
Tell us about your property and we will walk it with you — free estimates, straight answers, stonework guaranteed to hold its lines.
Mon–Sat 7:00am – 5:00pm · Based in Cumberland, Maine