Landscaping & Lawn Care in Solon, OH

Solon is a harder city to landscape for than it looks on paper, because it’s really two different cities stitched together. Sixty-one of its subdivisions predate 1980; fifty-seven were platted after it. A house near SOM Center Road with mature silver maples and acidic, root-bound soil calls for a completely different plan than a newer lot out toward the western edge of town, where the builders cleared the trees and the canopy is still filling in. DG Picture Perfect treats those as two different jobs, because they are.

Solon’s own numbers back this up: 63.7% of all housing in the city was built in 1970 or later, but that leaves a genuine older core, not just a rounding error. The city is a certified Tree City USA and carries 41.9% tree canopy — on par with much older suburbs like Shaker Heights — largely because Solon Woods State Nature Preserve protects 130 acres of old-growth mixed hardwood forest inside city limits. Around the SOM Center Road corridor and Solon Community Park, you’re dealing with established shade trees and the turf problems that come with them. Head toward the newer subdivisions and it’s the opposite problem: full sun, compacted construction-grade soil, and lawns still trying to establish real root depth.

The terrain adds a third variable. Solon splits across two watersheds — the Chagrin River on the east side, Tinkers Creek (the largest tributary of the Cuyahoga) on the west — with roughly 57 miles of streams and tributaries running through the city. Elevation ranges from 884 feet near the Chagrin River up to 1,244 feet by Mount Hope Cemetery, so drainage and grading genuinely vary by which side of town you’re on.

Landscaping Challenges in Solon

The split personality of Solon’s housing stock is the real story here. Older neighborhoods near the city center — the ones shaded by silver maple, Norway maple, elm, and oak that have been growing since the 1960s and 70s — deal with shade-starved turf, root competition, and acidic soil that needs correcting before grass seed will take. It’s a renovation problem: aeration, dethatching, and overseeding, not a quick reseed. Newer subdivisions on the west side have the opposite problem: builders stripped the original trees for construction, so canopy is still establishing and lawns are often on compacted subsoil that was never properly graded for turf in the first place.

The city’s Curbside Leaf Collection Program runs mid-October through mid-December (the 2025 season ran October 13 to December 12), weather permitting, with bagged yard waste collected year-round on your regular refuse day and a residential drop-off available Monday through Friday. Any landscaping or hardscape work — patios, retaining walls, larger bed installations — requires a Building Department permit with a site plan showing distances from property lines, which matters more here than in older, already-established neighborhoods where most major hardscaping happened decades ago.

Our Services in Solon

Because Solon genuinely splits between mature and newer neighborhoods, these three cover the range we see most:

• Aeration, Dethatching & Overseeding — the standard fix for shade-starved, root-competing turf in Solon’s older, tree-lined neighborhoods near the city center.
• Lawn Installation, Sod & Hydroseeding — for newer construction lots on the west side still establishing their first real lawn on compacted, cleared soil.
• Hedge & Tree Trimming — upkeep for the mature canopy that puts Solon’s tree cover on par with much older suburbs.

We also handle the rest of what a Solon property needs across the season:

• Mowing & Edging
• Weed Control
• Lawn Care Programs
• Spring & Fall Cleanups
• Mulching
• Planting Services
• Garden Bed Creation
• Landscape Design
• Fire Pits

Nearby Areas We Serve

We also serve the Chagrin Valley and eastern suburbs nearby: Chagrin Falls, Beachwood, and Pepper Pike.