Landscaping in Houston is drainage first and plants second. Gumbo yards hold a cloudburst in the open and a puddle against the slab for days. St. Augustine will take the shade and the heat only if it is not drowning or sitting in fungus from daily irrigation. Mosquitoes breed in the same low pocket you have been meaning to fill. A hedge against wet brick makes termites feel invited. Move the water, then decorate.
Grade is the design. Soil that slopes into the foundation wets the brick ledge every storm and undermines the idea that a bed of mulch is harmless. A swale or a pop-up that actually daylight away from the house beats another load of soil dumped in a hole. Say where water stands two hours after a hard rain, and where silt settled after the street rose. Flood silt is not topsoil. Turf buried under it is a removal problem, not a fertilizer problem.
Irrigation in this humidity is easy to overdo. Heads that run on a schedule during a rainy week keep the lawn diseased and the soil swollen. Drip can still help a bed that should not be sprayed, but it should not weep onto the foundation. Ask for a system that can be paused, and for coverage that does not stripe the driveway while missing the corner that dries and cracks. Even moisture is the goal. Standing water is the failure.
Trees hold moisture against the roof if the canopy rests on the shingles, and they throw limbs through the ridge when gulf wind arrives. Roots find the lateral in the wet soil. After a flood, do not rush to rip out every brown plant. Some are silt-covered and some are truly dead. Ask what to prune off the roof, what to raise so air can move along the wall, and what should never be planted in the path the water takes out of the yard.
Describe the lot, where water stands, and whether the trouble is grade, sick turf, irrigation, or limbs on the roof. Say if flood silt is still on the grass. Ask for a plan that gets water away from the slab and keeps the lawn from living wet. Call the number on this page.