Wildomar landscaping
From Turf to Total Transformation in Wildomar
The city describes itself as a community of old and new, mature homes and acreages with horses mixed with modern housing tracts. On one street you are working a big lot with animals on it, and a mile away a tract front yard the builder finished in a weekend.
Those two yards need different work. The acreage needs water moved a long way, real drainage, and low maintenance planting. The tract yard needs a plan that looks finished and does not eat water. Paul Cortenbach has been licensed since 2004 and handles both, start to finish.
A young city on old ground
Wildomar incorporated on 1 July 2008 with about 28,000 residents, the first new city in Riverside County in over 50 years. By 2020 the population was 36,875, and 72.8 percent of homes are owner occupied. People here stay, and eventually want the yard done properly.
The horse side of town is written into zoning. Horses may be kept noncommercially on lots over 20,000 square feet and at least 100 feet wide, kept 50 feet from any residence. That shapes a lot of back yards, a working part and a living part, and the landscaping respects the line.
On the newer tracts the problem is the opposite: small yards, builder grade sprinklers, and a lawn that costs more to water every year than it is worth. That is the yard we most often rebuild.
What we handle here
What we do most in Wildomar
Artificial Turf Installation
On a tract front yard artificial turf stops the summer water bill, and we still put live planting in the design.
Sod Installation
For real grass for kids or animals, we grade it, prep it and lay new sod so it roots instead of thinning by August.
Irrigation System Installation
Big lots need water carried a long way, so the irrigation system gets zoned properly.
Landscape Maintenance
Acreage needs regular hands on it, and regular maintenance keeps beds and lawn in shape year round.
Why Wildomar calls us
Why Wildomar yards need a plan, not a patch
The weather here is gentler than a lot of the valley: July averages a high around 84 F with roughly 10.6 inches of rain a year, but little of it falls in summer. The yard gets watered, not rained on, for months, and a badly zoned system is just money going into clay.
Eastern Municipal, next door, writes its watering guidance for the heavy clay soils common to the Inland valleys of Riverside County. Clay is why a run long enough to soak in is usually long enough to run off. On a sloped horse property, that runoff lands a wet patch where you do not want one.
California's Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, triggered on new landscape of 500 square feet or more needing a permit, caps turfgrass at 25 percent of a residential landscape, requires 75 percent climate adapted plants, bans turfgrass on slopes steeper than 1 foot of drop per 4 feet, and requires three inches of mulch on exposed soil. If your project is big enough to trip that, you want it designed right the first time.
Old Wildomar and the newer tracts
Drive Wildomar and the history is obvious. Older homes on bigger parcels with fencing, animals and mature trees, then a turn off the main road into a tract built in the last twenty years with matching yards that all have the same problem.
We are based in Menifee, straight up the freeway corridor. Lake Elsinore is on one side, Murrieta on the other, so we are through here constantly.
Where we work
Working across Wildomar
We cover the whole city, the older acreage neighborhoods and the newer housing tracts, plus the properties out toward the edges where lots get bigger again. Residential and commercial both. Paul puts it simply: "We service the Inland Valley Region. The areas along the 15 and 215 freeways. We are located in the City of Menifee, California." Wildomar sits right on the 15, which is why we can get here, look at it and price it without making a project out of the visit.
Ask the contractor
Straight answers to landscaping questions
Do you work on horse properties and larger lots in Wildomar?
Yes. Horses are allowed noncommercially here on lots over 20,000 square feet and at least 100 feet wide, kept 50 feet from any existing residence, so a lot of properties have a working area and a living area. We plan the landscaped side around that, including where the water goes and how the slope drains.
Can my Wildomar HOA stop me from replacing my lawn?
It cannot ban artificial turf or low water plants. California Civil Code 4735 makes any rule void and unenforceable if it prohibits, or has the effect of prohibiting, the use of low water using plants or the use of artificial turf or any other synthetic surface that resembles grass. It can still apply landscaping rules about how the finished yard looks, as long as those rules do not add up to a ban.
Is artificial turf or real sod better for a Wildomar yard?
It depends on what you use the yard for. Turf stops the water bill and stops the mowing, but in full sun any synthetic surface gets hotter than live grass, because real grass cools itself by giving off water and synthetic turf cannot. Real sod stays cooler and feels better underfoot, and it needs water and mowing. We install both and will tell you which one actually fits the spot.
Do you do the sprinklers in Wildomar as well, or do I need somebody else?
We do them. Paul holds C-27 Landscaping plus the related classifications, and irrigation is part of the same job. One contractor, one plan, one finished yard, instead of three trades blaming each other.
Does turf qualify for the water district rebate?
No. The eligibility rules say "No synthetic turf is allowed" and the project cannot include any live turf or turf looking grasses. Only live, low water planting counts, at $2.25 per square foot through EVMWD on up to 5,000 square feet. We can do both parts of the yard in one project so you do not have to pick.
Are you licensed?
Yes. California contractor license 840163, issued 06/07/2004, classification C-27 Landscaping. Bonded with Western Surety for $25,000, workers comp active. Look it up at cslb.ca.gov before you hire anybody, including us.