Lyle Dickey, IHCA Landscape Manager
Landscape: The IHCA landscape crews have been busy all summer with their regular duties, as well as extra tasks. The IHCA in-house crew, along with our contractors, are making improvements to how we manage and maintain our open spaces and trail areas. We realize we might need a different maintenance strategy, now that the community is established and trail plantings and open space areas have reached their majority and growth. As a result, we will do some things more frequently to keep up with the growing plant material. It will take a couple seasons to figure out the exact needs and what changes need to be made. The rest of the site looks good; everything is on a weekly schedule that seems to work well. The weather is really nice this time of year, so get out and enjoy it while it lasts.
Irrigation: The irrigation crew is keeping busy with all the day-to-day repairs that are either reported or found by our staff. Crews will keep on the repair schedule until the fall when this work slows down a little. When it does slow down however, we will go back to making system upgrades and improvements to keep the systems operating at peak efficiency.
Matthew Hendrikse, IHCA Maintenance Manager
Maintenance: Summer is a very busy season for the maintenance department. During this time, you will see us out and about, power washing, painting, and fixing things that are difficult to do in the rain. This summer, our goal is to paint the fire hydrants, work on the Magnolia Park gazebo, and install new mailboxes in some of the neighborhoods.
Summer is also a time when the maintenance team works with our landscape crews to help maintain the community’s hillsides. This means daily maintenance of all the equipment. This is a good reminder for all Issaquah Highlands residents: be sure to check and maintain all your summer equipment to make sure it is operating at its full potential. If you mow or maintain a yard, you need to check, and possibly change, the oil on mowers and service the equipment you use on a regular basis.
Vista Garden shed
Knowing that fall is coming, we also check and maintain community structures to prevent potential water intrusion. For example, we redid the Vista Garden shed roof because it was failing and we wanted to make sure rain would not impact the structure. If you are a homeowner, you will want to do the same: check windows, doors, siding, and trim caulking to make sure you don’t have any chance for water intrusion this coming fall. There are several ways you can do this and if you are unsure, you can contact a local contractor.
For questions or concerns regarding IHCA landscape and maintenance, please call the IHCA at 425-427-9257 or use the Ask the IHCA email form.
