311 Citizen Services - CS17 assigned this issue to Landscape Management

The City of Virginia Beach has received your service request and has forwarded it to Parks & Recreation/Landscape Management for research & resolution. For more information or a status update on your request, you can contact them directly at 757-385-4461 or at Landscape@vbgov.com. Please be sure to identify your concern as having come in via SeeClickFix/VB Works any time you call about these requests. Not all departmental personnel are involved in using this system.

Our budgets are dictated by City Council. As such, the mowing frequencies are as follows:
Mowing and landscape maintenance cycles for neighborhood parks are now 14-16 days, medians on major roadways are now every 18-20 days, and schools are every 14 days.
These frequencies reflect services provided not only by Park and Landscape Services, but by contractors and the Sheriff’s workforce. So, this frequency of mowing impacts the appearance of neighborhood parks, roadways and medians. During a normal summer, the impacts of these extended maintenance frequencies may not be readily visible because of hot temperatures and lack of rainfall. But, recent rainfall, warmer daytime temperatures and cooler evenings have caused significant growth of turf grass and weeds, providing an overall poor appearance. In some cases, the frequent rains have kept Park and Landscape Services from being able to mow and have put teams behind schedule, especially for some of the recent cycles. COVID -19 has also impacted our workforce and our teams have been working hard through these challenges to maintain regular maintenance cycles at our parks and facilities. Park and Landscape Services appreciates your patience as we work through this extremely difficult mowing season.

But why can’t you lower the mower decks on your mower so the park does look like it was never mowed within days of you mowing it. You may have to mow it twice on the same day to get the height down but that would look better then the height you cutting it now. We’d appreciate you at least trying something rather than telling us why you can’t cut it outside of the schedule.

Our target mowing height is 3.5 inches. With the different types of terrain and obstacles that we encounter, we have found this to be the most efficient height of cut. When we mow below 3.5 inches we end up with significant damage to our equipment from roots, drain inlets and other hazards. While it sounds like a good solution, it is not sustainable to mow below our 3.5 inch standard.

There is no way that grass is being cut at 3.5” it’s more like 6-6” as it’s already past your ankles when just mowed. Mowing at 3.5” works for a residential yard that’s mowed weekly but doesn’t work for areas bing mowed every 18-21 days. If my yard looked like your parks I’d be written up by housing and neighborhood preservation and charged for a mowing. Maybe we should start having it mowed and bill the city. What’s the use to have the parks if they’re unusable for 2 out of every 3 weeks due to weeds because no up to your knees. If you cannot get the money to maintain the parks as they should be why have them.