Landscaping in Kansas is wind, hail, and a grade that has to keep water out of basements. Tallgrass and limestone mark the Flint Hills. Buffalo grass and bare distance mark the west. Shelterbelts are the signature: rows planted to cut the wind that also drop limbs, hold snow, and shade a wall you wanted dry. Town lawns sit in a transition, fescue in the shade and tougher grass in the sun, and both of them look ruined the afternoon hail strips them to stubble.
Say what the yard is doing to the building. Soil above the foundation line, a downspout that ends at the basement window, a shelterbelt limb over the ridge, a sump that runs because the grade slopes the wrong way. A mowing schedule is a fair call if that is truly the job. It is not a substitute for saying the house is taking water. Plants are the surface. The slope toward the basement is the work.
Trees need plains judgment. A windbreak too close to the wall is a ladder for mice and a source of ice-loaded limbs. A lone tree on the south may be the only shade and also the hail-scarred thing now resting on the gutter. If wood is on the roof, keep people clear and lead with that. If you want pruning, say how the canopy sits relative to the ridge and the service drop. Do not invent a height. Pace it off or simply say it overhangs.
Irrigation is uneven. Some town lots have zones that overshoot onto the siding and into window wells. A lot of country places have none, and a planting plan copied from a wetter region will die in a hot wind after you notice everything except August. If you have a system, say whether it should be blown out before winter or whether a head is flooding the well. If you do not, say that, so nobody designs a bed that needs a drink every morning.
Kansas hail and north wind will test the yard after anyone leaves. Call with the town and the real task: cut, grade, trees, or water at the foundation. Walk the basement side of the house before you dial. Call the number on this page.