Landscaping in Salt Lake City is alkaline clay, a park strip that doubles as snow storage, and secondary water that does not follow the hose bib. Lawns green up, burn in the dry summer, and then take a plow load at the curb. Street trees lift walks and find sewer lines. Fruit trees and shrubs on the benches get desiccated by winter wind even when the soil is not dry. A bed of plants from a milder catalog dies in April snow or in a July afternoon once the irrigation turn is off. The east bench and the valley floor do not share the same wind or the same melt.
Say the job and the water. Mowing, a limb on the roof, a strip destroyed by plows, a grade that sends melt at the basement, or emitters on a secondary line. Ask who maintains the system. Ask who replaces a plant that dies while it is establishing, and whether you are expected to water with culinary water or with the irrigation turn. Those are not interchangeable. Ask whether the new grade traps melt against the foundation. Spring will check your answer in the basement.
Keep limbs out of valleys and off eaves where ice already dams. A branch in a gutter becomes part of the dam. Ask about haul-away so you are not left with a pile the mice will use. Say if the soil has already killed a previous planting. Windburned evergreens on the bench are a winter injury, not a sign you should drown them in August. Mention the season of the damage.
Snow storage is a design fact, not a surprise in February. The park strip that held flowers will hold a plow ridge, and a shrub in that path will not survive the winter in one piece. Say where the snow is pushed before you ask for a new bed on the curb. The bench wind will do the rest if the plant cannot take it.
Name the side of the valley, the water you actually have, and the work. Call the number on this page.