Design and installation across the northwest side. Our office is in Boerne on IH-10 and our crews run into the city every day.
We are not a company that covers the whole metro. We work the northwest side, from Leon Springs and The Dominion across to Stone Oak, Shavano Park and Hollywood Park, and down through Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills. Our office is at 28991 IH-10 W, Suite 104, in Boerne, at the Scenic Loop Road exit, and IH-10 runs straight down into that part of the city.
The reason our service area is a wedge along that highway rather than a circle is that the ground on this side of San Antonio is the same ground we deal with in the Hill Country every day. Thin soil over limestone and caliche, alkaline at a pH of roughly 7.5 to 8.2, water that sheets rather than soaks, and a good deal of the northwest side sitting over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone. A company that mainly works the flatter, deeper soil on the south and east side of the city is solving a different problem.
Crews run in daily. Being 25 minutes up the highway rather than across town also means coming back to look at something is a short drive rather than a scheduling negotiation, which matters more than people expect in the weeks after an install.
Most of the homes we work on here went up between the 1990s and the 2010s, and a large share of them share the same construction history. The lot was cut and filled to make a building pad, the fill was compacted hard because it had to hold a foundation, and then a thin skin of sandy loam was spread over the top and sodded before the house sold.
That veneer looks fine for the first few years while the sod lives on irrigation. Then a hot summer arrives, the roots have nowhere below two inches to go, and the lawn thins in the same places every year. Replacing the sod without addressing the soil buys you another few seasons of the same problem.
Compacted fill under a shallow layer of loam does not drain down. Water travels laterally along the top of the fill until it reaches a low point, which is why the wet corner in these yards is frequently nowhere near where the rain landed and does not look like it should be wet at all.
Pad grading is done to get water off the slab and off the plat. It is not done to make a back yard usable. Add a patio, a pool, a shed or a raised bed later and the original fall is frequently interrupted, which is how a yard that drained acceptably in year one ponds in year eight.
Builder systems are laid out to pass inspection and cover the plat at the lowest cost. Head spacing that just barely overlaps, spray heads watering beds that should be on drip, and one schedule for the whole property are all normal. Under a one day a week rule the margin that used to hide those flaws is gone.
None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to fix things in the right order: grade and drainage, then irrigation, then soil, then whatever you actually wanted in the first place.
Inside SAWS, landscape watering has been restricted to one day a week in the stages the utility has been sitting in, assigned by the last digit of your street address, with the allowed hours varying by stage. Hand watering with a hose end nozzle, drip or a bucket stays allowed any day and any time.
Two consequences we design around on every San Antonio job.
The first is that a landscape which needs more than one day a week will look bad by August, every August. That is not a maintenance failure, it is a design that was drawn for different rules. So plant selection, bed zoning and grass choice all get made against the actual restriction at your address rather than against what would be ideal.
The second is establishment. New sod wants water daily for its first fortnight, which one day a week cannot deliver. SAWS publishes a five week establishment schedule for new turf, and it also grants a new landscape variance, but the variance as written is for new construction meeting WaterSaver requirements and does not cover adding plants to an existing landscape. For most homeowners replacing a lawn, the honest answer is hand watering to bridge the first two weeks, a larger water bill for a month, and an autumn or late spring install rather than a July one.
If you are a SAWS residential customer converting lawn to beds, ask us about the WaterSaver Landscape Coupon. It is real money for exactly that work and most people have never heard of it.
Over 2 to 3 inches of imported soil, not over builder fill.
For the wet corner that is nowhere near where the rain landed.
Rescuing builder systems and setting them to your actual watering day.
Side yards, dog runs and the shaded strip that has never grown grass.
Built on a base deep enough to stay flat on a filled lot.
Fixing the order of operations the builder never had a reason to get right.
Leon Springs and The Dominion. The top of IH-10 and the closest part of the city to us. Hill Country ground, real slope, and lots big enough that drainage and terracing come before planting.
Stone Oak and the 281 corridor. Development sitting on the recharge zone, with thin fill over hard limestone and a great deal of architectural review. There is a dedicated Stone Oak page below.
Shavano Park and Hollywood Park. Older, wooded, larger lots with mature canopy. Deep shade is the defining constraint, which usually means Raleigh St. Augustine, turf, or a shade bed rather than a lawn people keep trying to force.
Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills. A different city entirely in landscaping terms: small lots, enormous heritage oaks, tight access and a tree ordinance with real teeth. There is a dedicated page for that too.
Usually because there is not enough soil under it. A builder pad is compacted fill with a thin layer of sandy loam spread over the top, and once roots reach the fill they stop. Resodding without adding soil buys you a few seasons of the same problem. The fix is stripping, correcting grade and tilling in 2 to 3 inches of a topsoil and compost blend before the new sod goes down.
Because water travels sideways along the top of the compacted fill rather than soaking down. It surfaces at the lowest point it can find, which is frequently a corner that looks like it should be dry.
Hand watering with a hose end nozzle, drip or a bucket is allowed any day and time under SAWS rules, and that is how most existing homes bridge the first two weeks. SAWS also grants a new landscape variance, but as written it covers new construction meeting WaterSaver requirements rather than adding plants to an existing landscape. We will tell you which situation you are in.
Usually parts of it. These systems were laid out to pass inspection at the lowest cost, so head spacing is tight, beds are on spray that should be on drip, and the whole property runs one schedule. Our licensed irrigator tests before recommending replacement, and most of what we find needs setting correctly rather than replacing.
No. We work the northwest side, from Leon Springs and The Dominion across to Stone Oak, Shavano Park and Hollywood Park, and down through Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills. That is the ground we know, and we would rather do it properly than cover the whole metro thinly.
The 281 side, on the recharge zone.
Heritage oaks and a tree ordinance.
Everywhere we work.
No charge and no salesperson. Someone comes out, looks at the yard, and tells you what it needs. We work in Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Helotes and northwest San Antonio, Monday to Friday from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
28991 IH-10 W, Suite 104, Boerne, TX 78006
travislandscapingtx@gmail.com
