Landscaping in New Jersey is a small lot, a close neighbor, and a climate that is humid, then freezing. Shore yards take salt spray, sand, and wind that burn evergreens. Inland yards take clay or rock in some towns and a real lawn that heaves. Dense blocks may offer only a rear patch, a side alley, and a tree pit. Water that pitches at the foundation will find the basement, which is the most common reason a yard call is actually a house call.
Grade and leaders come before plants. A downspout dumping at the stoop, a bed piled against siding, and a neighbor's patio pitched your way will keep the cellar damp no matter what you plant. Say where rain goes and where snowmelt goes. Irrigation has to be put away for winter in most of the state or it becomes a burst line. A shore system also has to live with salt and with sand in the heads. Say if you are near the water.
Trees on small lots touch roofs and service drops. That is a roof conversation as much as a yard conversation. Summer lawns grow fast in the humidity and then stop when a dry spell hits. Salt along the walk kills the strip of grass people keep trying to replace. Shade from the next house is the light you actually have. A weekly mow means one thing on a suburban lot and almost nothing in a rear court. Say which surface is yours.
Say mow, cleanup, beds, trees, or drainage. Say whether equipment can reach the back without going through the house. If the job is only containers on a balcony or a shore deck, say that and do not ask for a lawn plan. If the basement takes water, say so in the first minute. Plant names can wait until the water path is settled.
Do not treat a bay-front yard, a brick-block court, and a subdivision lawn as the same job. Landscaping in New Jersey is drainage, salt or freeze, and the size of the lot you really have. Call the number on this page.