Landscaping in Amherst
Design, planting, mulch, edging and hardscape touches that give your property a finished look.
Amherst is about 53 square miles and roughly 129,000 people, and almost none of it looks alike. A tight lot on an Eggertsville side street needs a different plan than a half acre out toward Hopkins Road, where the town code still lists the frontage as rural in character. We work both, week in and week out.
Illos Property Care runs out of Casey Road, inside the town line. The same crew that mows your lawn in July rakes it out in November and clears your driveway in February, so you are not auditioning a stranger every season. Estimates are free and somebody actually picks up the phone.
What working in Amherst actually involves
Amherst is split by geology most residents never think about. The Onondaga Escarpment, a ridge of harder Devonian limestone and dolomite, runs roughly east to west through the south of town, and Ellicott Creek drops about thirty feet over it at Glen Falls in Williamsville. North of that ridge the town sits on the flat floor of glacial Lake Tonawanda, the meltwater lake that stood here at the end of the last ice age. The fine sediment it left behind is why houses settling into the old lakebed have been a long-running headache in this town, and it is why water sits on a lawn here instead of running off.
The town calendar shapes the rest. Curbside yard waste is collected separately from April 1 through November 30, and from December 1 through March 31 it goes out with the garbage instead. Nothing in plastic bags, and nothing bound with plastic or wire. It has to be a garbage can with the lid removed, a bushel basket with a solid bottom and two handles, or a two-ply paper yard waste bag, and no container over 60 pounds or 40 gallons.
Brush, limbs and branches up to six inches across cannot run longer than four feet unless they are securely bundled with a biodegradable material, and soil, sod, stumps and root balls are not accepted at the curb at all. Residents can also haul yard waste themselves to the CJ Krantz Compost Facility at 560 Smith Road, which opens to Amherst residents on April 1.
Winter has its own rulebook. The town code puts the abutting sidewalk on the owner or occupant, who has to keep it free and clear of snow, ice, dirt or other obstruction. Amherst does run a Sidewalk Snow Relief Program, but it reaches only two special districts, so on most streets the walk is yours. The overnight parking ban holds from November 1 through March 31, 1:00 to 7:00 a.m.
Services
What we do in Amherst
We cover the seven things an Amherst property needs across a year. Weekly lawn care through the growing season, beds and plantings, fresh sod when a lawn is past saving, spring and fall cleanups, junk hauling, and snow plowing once lake-effect season opens. Residential driveways and small commercial lots both. It is the same crew in January that you saw in June, which matters more than it sounds when somebody has to find your walkway under eight inches of snow.
Lawn Care in Amherst
Weekly and bi-weekly mowing, trimming, edging and blow-off on a schedule you can set your watch by.
Snow Plowing in Amherst
Seasonal and per-push plowing, shoveling and salting for Western New York winters.
Fall Cleanups in Amherst
Leaf removal, bed cutbacks and gutter-line clearing so your lawn goes into winter healthy.
Spring Cleanups in Amherst
Dethatching, bed re-edging, fresh mulch and debris haul-off to reset the yard after winter.
Sodding in Amherst
Grading, prep and fresh-cut sod that turns bare or damaged ground into instant lawn.
Junk Removal in Amherst
Yard waste, brush piles, old furniture and construction debris loaded and hauled away.
Lawn care on Amherst clay and old lake bed
Most Amherst lawns sit on difficult ground. North of the escarpment you are on old lake bottom, clay and silt that holds water for days after a storm and then bakes hard in August. South of it, in the older and tighter neighborhoods, mature maples pull out whatever moisture is left. Either way the answer is the same three things: cut high, cut often, and stay off saturated turf in April.
What we watch for here:
- Snow mold on shaded lawns in Snyder and Eggertsville, where fences and mature canopy keep the spring sun off the grass
- Salt burn on the tree lawns along Sheridan Drive, Maple Road and Millersport Highway, arterials the state and county keep treated all winter while the town lays down about 14,000 tons of its own
- Crabgrass in the thin strip between sidewalk and curb, which dries out first on every street in town
- Compaction on lots that were graded once when the house went up and never touched since
Amherst sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b, so the growing window is short and there are not many second chances in a season. When a lawn is too far gone to nurse back, laying fresh sod beats another year of patching, and we will tell you straight which side of that line yours is on. We would rather say it in April than in July.
Snow plowing, and the rules that come with it
The Amherst Highway Department salts and plows more than 320 miles of town and county road, and clearing the whole town, municipal lots and sidewalk districts included, takes about six to eight hours. Your street gets opened, and then a ridge of it lands back across the end of your driveway. That ridge is our department.
Two local rules shape how we work. Depositing snow or ice into the street is illegal here, so everything comes off the driveway and stacks on your own lawn, away from the mailbox and clear of the sightline where you pull out. And the sidewalk in front of your house is yours to keep free and clear under the town's sidewalk code. The Sidewalk Snow Relief Program covers two special districts and no more, so on a residential street it falls to you.
Routes get set before the season starts, so nobody is measuring your apron in the dark during the first real storm. If you want walkways and steps done along with the drive, say so up front and we build it into the run. Tell us what needs clearing and we will come look at the property while the grass is still green.
Cleanups, sod and what the town will not take
Spring and fall are when an Amherst property makes more material than the curb can absorb. In fall the Highway Department splits the town into five leaf districts and works more than 1,300 streets, collecting loose leaves raked onto the strip between sidewalk and curb. Raking them into the street is both unsafe and illegal, there is no scheduled pickup date, and the goal is simply to finish by November 30. Our fall cleanups end with the material gone, not sitting at the curb waiting on a pass that could be a week out.
Spring runs the other direction: broken limbs, matted turf, salt-chewed bed edges and whatever blew in off the open ground in the north of town. Stumps, logs and unmanageable brush piles are a scheduled Highway Department pickup rather than a normal collection day, they have to be cut under eight feet and free of any dirt or soil, and the town will not collect large piles a contractor generated. Ours leave with us.
Then there is everything the town simply will not collect. Material from renovations, roof work and remodeling is excluded from curbside pickup outright, and ordinary bulky items are capped at eight per week on top of your totes. Junk removal covers the garage, the basement and the shed nobody has opened in years. Down in the village, Williamsville lots have their own quirks and we run those streets too.
Questions & Answers
Amherst property care questions
Do you follow Amherst's yard waste rules when you bag everything up?
Yes. The town takes yard waste in garbage cans with the covers removed, bushel baskets or paper yard waste bags, so nothing we leave at your curb goes out in plastic or gets tied with wire, and no container goes over 60 pounds. Branches come in under four feet or securely bundled with a biodegradable material. Soil, sod, stumps and root balls are not accepted curbside at all, and neither are large piles generated by a contractor, so those ride out with us.
Where does the snow from my driveway go once you have plowed it?
Onto your own property, banked where it will not block the view when you back out. The town is blunt about the alternative: it is illegal to deposit snow or ice into the street, and a property owner or a private plow operator can be given a summons under New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1219 or Amherst Town Ordinance 166-4. On a tight lot we pick the stacking corner with you before the first storm, so there is no argument about it in January.
Can you take the debris the town refuses to collect at the curb?
That is a good share of what we haul. Amherst will not accept material from renovations, roof work or remodeling at the curb at all, and ordinary bulky items are capped at eight a week on top of your totes. Ovens, washers, dryers and other large metal items go by Highway Department appointment only, twice a month. We load, sweep up and take it away, so nothing sits at the end of your driveway waiting on a pickup date.
Do you plow overnight during the town's winter parking ban?
We work Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The ban that runs November 1 through March 31, from 1:00 to 7:00 a.m., is what lets town trucks clear the roads without traffic in the way. Because the full route takes six to eight hours, expect a plow ridge across your apron after the town has been through, and tell us if you want it opened again.
Which parts of Amherst are you actually out in each week?
All of it. Eggertsville and Snyder in the southwest, the Audubon and North Bailey blocks near the university, Willow Ridge, the village streets in Williamsville, and Getzville, Swormville and East Amherst up north. Several of those places have their own page on this site, because the housing stock and lot sizes really are different, but it is one crew covering the whole town.
When can spring cleanup realistically start in Amherst?
Separate yard waste collection resumes April 1, so anything bagged before then goes out with the garbage instead. We start booking for late March and get moving as soon as the ground firms up, since dragging equipment across a soaked clay lawn does more damage than waiting a week. The first dry stretch fills fast, so it pays to be on the list early.
Service Areas
Nearby towns we also serve
We keep a tight radius so we can actually get to everyone, especially when it snows.