HD Landscape and Maintenance provides seasonal landscape services in Lake Oswego, OR — spring and fall cleanups, cutbacks, bed clearing, gutters, and full debris haul-away. Worth knowing before you start: Lake Oswego City Code prohibits raking, blowing, or depositing leaves onto sidewalks or streets, so there’s no street collection to fall back on here.
By Donavan Hesedahl, Owner/Operator · Last updated July 2026
Seasonal landscape services are the twice-yearly transitions a property needs but a mowing visit doesn’t cover: opening the landscape up in spring and closing it down before winter. They’re scoped by season and property condition rather than by a fixed task list, and they’re distinct from recurring maintenance — which is yard care in Lake Oswego, on a schedule — and from turf-only work, which is lawn care.
Two cleanups a year is the baseline here. Heavily treed or heavily planted properties often need three.
If you’ve lived elsewhere in the Portland metro, this will be the surprise, and it changes how a cleanup has to be executed.
Lake Oswego City Code prohibits blowing, sweeping, raking, or otherwise depositing leaves or debris onto sidewalks or streets. There is no municipal street leaf collection program. Leaves piled in the street clog catch basins, cause localised flooding, damage street sweeping equipment, and carry pollutants into the stormwater system — so the city’s position is that debris stays on your property until it’s hauled or binned.
That’s the opposite of how it works ten miles west. In Hillsboro, residents are actively directed to rake street-tree leaves into the street 18 inches from the curb for city crews to collect twice each season. Same metro, adjacent counties, inverse rules. If you’ve moved from Washington County to Lake Oswego, the habit you brought with you is a code violation here.
You’re also responsible for the sidewalk. Lake Oswego holds property owners responsible for keeping abutting sidewalks clear of leaves, ice, snow, and anything else that could make them hazardous. Wet leaves on a sloped Glenmorrie or Mountain Park sidewalk are a genuine liability, not a cosmetic issue.
What you do have is decent curbside capacity. Lake Oswego residential service through Republic Services includes a 65-gallon yard debris cart collected weekly — noticeably better than the every-other-week service in some neighbouring cities. Additional carts are available for a fee, and Recyclable Kraft paper bags can be set out for extra volume at an additional charge. The city also runs curbside composting, so food waste goes in the same yard debris cart.
But there’s a size limit that trips up anyone doing real pruning. Under the city’s solid waste rules, yard debris means clippings, leaves, and prunings no greater than 4 inches in diameter and 48 inches in length. Anything thicker or longer than that doesn’t qualify for the cart. On a Lake Oswego property with mature laurels, rhododendrons, and overgrown foundation shrubs, a genuine cutback produces a lot of material that exceeds both limits.
And you can’t burn it. Lake Oswego sits within the Portland metro area covered by DEQ’s backyard burning restrictions, where burning yard debris is not permitted. Verify your specific address on the Clackamas Fire District burn restriction map rather than assuming, since the boundary doesn’t follow city limits neatly.
Self-haul options if you’d rather do it yourself. The city lists these drop-off sites for leaves and yard debris:
The city also has a limited number of free drop boxes available through Republic Services for neighbourhood clean-up events, delivered Friday and collected Monday. Worth knowing if your street wants to organise a shared cleanup.
Where we fit: a moderate cleanup on a treed Lake Oswego lot generates well past what a 65-gallon weekly cart absorbs in a reasonable timeframe, and a fair share of it exceeds the 4-inch and 48-inch limits. Everything we cut leaves on our truck the same day and gets composted. That’s the practical value — not the raking, the legal disposal of material that can’t go in the street, can’t be burned, and partly can’t go in the cart.
Late February through April, and earlier in that window is better than later. The goal is to get the property cleared before growth starts, not after.
What spring cleanup addresses in Lake Oswego specifically:
Book spring cleanup in January or February. The last two weeks of March are the busiest fortnight of the year for every landscape company in this metro.
Fall cleanup closes the property down before sustained rain. On a Lake Oswego property that means:
The Lake Oswego timing reality: leaves fall from mid-October into January, not all at once. Big-leaf maple and ash go first, then oak and the ornamental cherries and plums common in the newer subdivisions, then the oaks that hold on until a hard freeze. Douglas fir needle cast runs year-round and loads gutters after the deciduous drop finishes. One cleanup in November leaves gutters full by January — most treed properties need two or three passes.
Both, depending on volume — and in Lake Oswego mulching has extra appeal because you can’t move leaves to the street.
Mulch-mow when the layer is light. Chopping a thin leaf layer into a cool-season lawn returns organic matter and nitrogen to the soil and saves hauling. It genuinely works, and on a lightly treed lot it can handle most of the season.
Remove when the layer is heavy or wet. Mulching only works if the mower can cut leaves fine enough to fall between grass blades. Once you’ve got a thick wet mat — which is most Lake Oswego properties under mature canopy after a November rain — mulching just redistributes the mat. It smothers turf, holds moisture against crowns, and invites snow mold. Big-leaf maple in particular produces too much volume to mulch on a canopied lot.
Never mulch into beds as a substitute for clearing them. Leaves matted against shrub crowns and perennial bases over a wet winter cause rot.
Our practical approach: mulch-mow the light early drop, remove the heavy mid-season load, and always clear beds, gutters, and hardscape.
Seasonal cleanups are priced by property condition, not square footage. The drivers are time since the last cleanup, debris volume and moisture, hand work versus equipment work, access and distance to the truck, and total disposal weight.
Time since the last cleanup matters most, because overgrowth compounds — blackberry roots where canes touch ground, ivy gets into canopies, and beds go from weeding to excavation. A property on a twice-yearly cycle costs a fraction of the same property after three neglected seasons.
Quotes are given on site in writing with disposal included in the number rather than added afterward.
In Lake Oswego we work Lake Grove · Waluga · Westlake · Palisades · Mountain Park · Forest Highlands · First Addition · Old Town · Glenmorrie · Hallinan Heights · Oak Creek · Lakewood · McVey–South Shore · North Shore–Country Club · Uplands · Westridge · Evergreen · Rosewood · Birdshill.
Cleanup scope varies with canopy and slope. Glenmorrie, Forest Highlands, and Mountain Park are sloped and heavily treed — high leaf volume, erosion considerations, and slip hazards on steps and sidewalks. First Addition and Old Town have older, densely planted small lots where overgrown foundation shrubs generate cutback material past the 4-inch and 48-inch cart limits. Palisades and Westlake sit flatter on heavy clay, where winter drainage and catch basin clearing matter more than volume.
Across Clackamas County we also serve West Linn, Oregon City, Tualatin, Wilsonville, and Clackamas. Disposal rules differ by city — Lake Oswego’s street-debris prohibition and weekly Republic Services collection aren’t universal, and unincorporated Clackamas County properties have different options again. On the Washington County side, our yard cleanup service in Hillsboro covers a jurisdiction with genuinely opposite leaf rules.
HD Landscape and Maintenance is an Oregon LCB-licensed landscape contracting business, license #9977. Request a free Lake Oswego seasonal cleanup quote →
Late February through April, and earlier in that window is better. The aim is to clear winter debris, treat moss, and knock back blackberry and ivy before growth starts rather than after. Booking in January or February is worth doing, since the last two weeks of March are the busiest period of the year for landscape companies across the metro. Scheduling irrigation startup as part of spring cleanup also gives you months of margin before Lake Oswego’s July 15 backflow testing deadline.
Perennial and ornamental grass cutbacks, clearing beds including the litter packed behind and under shrubs, removing matted leaves from lawns, blowing hardscape and steps clear, clearing gutters and downspouts, clearing debris from the tops of catch basins on your frontage, and hauling everything off site. Because leaves in Lake Oswego fall from mid-October into January rather than all at once, most treed properties need two or three passes rather than a single visit.
Cost is driven by property condition rather than lot size — time since the last cleanup, debris volume and moisture, the balance of hand work to equipment work, access, and total disposal weight. Overgrowth compounds, so a property on a twice-yearly cycle costs substantially less per visit than the same property after several neglected seasons. Disposal should be included in the quoted figure rather than added afterward.
Yes, gutter and downspout clearing is part of our seasonal cleanups. It matters more here than in drier climates: Douglas fir needle cast knits into a mat that holds maple and oak leaves in place, and overflow on Lake Oswego’s heavy clay soils doesn’t drain away from the foundation, it sits. Because conifer needles drop year-round, gutters often need attention after the deciduous leaf drop has finished rather than during it.
Both, depending on volume. Mulch-mowing a light leaf layer into a cool-season lawn returns organic matter and nitrogen to the soil and avoids hauling — it works well on lightly treed lots. But mulching only succeeds if the mower can cut leaves fine enough to drop between grass blades. A thick wet mat, which is typical under mature Lake Oswego canopy after November rain, just gets redistributed: it smothers turf, holds moisture against crowns, and encourages snow mold. Big-leaf maple produces too much volume to mulch on a canopied lot. Beds should always be cleared rather than mulched into, since leaves matted against shrub crowns over a wet winter cause rot. Note also that Lake Oswego City Code prohibits moving leaves onto sidewalks or streets, so removal here means binning, composting, or hauling — not relocating.
HD Landscape and Maintenance LLC 6581 SW 192nd Ave Aloha, OR 97007
Phone: (971) 336-5520
Email: hdlandscapellc@gmail.com
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 7:00 am – 7:00 pm · Sunday closed
Oregon LCB Lic. #9977 · Licensed & Insured
Serving Lake Oswego and surrounding areas including Lake Grove, Palisades, Mountain Park, First Addition, Old Town, and Glenmorrie, plus West Linn, Oregon City, Tualatin, Wilsonville, and Clackamas County.