Pembroke Pines Lawn Care & Landscape Services

If you own a yard in Pembroke Pines, you are working on the Everglades fringe of west Broward, on limestone-shelf sand fill, in a city where SFWMD year-round watering rules are not a drought policy but the permanent operating environment. This page covers Pembroke Pines lawn care the way a working contractor would brief you: real per-cut pricing tied to BLS wage data for the Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise metropolitan division, the St. Augustine and Zoysia cultivars the University of Florida IFAS recommends for southeast Florida, the South Florida Water Management District 2-day-per-week rule plus the City of Pembroke Pines toilet and aerator rebate program, and the FDACS pesticide credentials every legitimate lawn operator must hold. HMNDP is building a vetted contractor directory for Pembroke Pines and the surrounding metro, launching Q3 2026.

Pembroke Pines lawn care pricing in 2026

The honest baseline for Pembroke Pines pricing starts with what crews actually cost. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2024 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for the Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise metropolitan division (area code 22744, the MD that includes Pembroke Pines) shows landscaping and groundskeeping workers (SOC 37-3011) earning a mean hourly wage in the high $17 range, with first-line supervisors of landscaping crews (SOC 37-1012) running close to $28 an hour. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise, accessible at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_22744.htm. Add payroll tax, workers’ compensation (Florida NCCI class 0042 for landscape gardening runs materially higher than office classifications), trailer-mounted equipment depreciation, fuel, and general liability insurance, and the loaded crew cost lands between $98 and $135 an hour for a two-person team.

That floor drives the per-cut math. Pembroke Pines residential lots in the master-planned communities (Pembroke Falls, SilverLakes, Chapel Trail) typically run 6,000 to 9,000 square feet, but active turf area is usually a fraction of that because most homes carry pool-cage hardscape, paver driveways, and a substantial decorative bed footprint. A typical Pembroke Falls property with 2,500 to 4,000 square feet of St. Augustine turf runs about $55 to $80 per visit on a weekly cycle April through October, with the same crew typically shifting to bi-weekly mid-November once the rainy season ends.

Service tier	Per-visit	Annual program	What’s included
Basic mow and edge (under 5,000 sqft turf)	$50 to $70	$2,200 to $2,800	Weekly summer mow, blow, edge; bi-weekly winter
Standard residential (5,000 to 10,000 sqft turf)	$70 to $100	$2,800 to $3,800	Mow, edge, blow, light shrub trim, quarterly fertilization
Premium full-service (over 10,000 sqft, chinch bug program)	$100 to $170	$3,800 to $5,800	Above plus pest control, palm trim, irrigation audit
Drip irrigation install (bed retrofit)	n/a	$1,600 to $5,800 project	Controller, valves, emitters, mainline tie-in

Chinch bug treatment is the Pembroke Pines line item that surprises out-of-state buyers. Southern chinch bugs (Blissus insularis) hammer St. Augustine through the summer wet season, and most contractors fold a preventive application into the annual program. The University of Florida IFAS publishes the chinch bug biology and treatment thresholds in EDIS publications at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu, and the same library covers the large patch and gray leaf spot fungal pressure that runs from late spring through October.

Why climate shapes everything in Pembroke Pines

The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) station, the National Weather Service climate reference point for the Pembroke Pines area, records a mean annual precipitation in the low-60s of inches, with the bulk of that volume falling between June and October. NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information publishes the full normals at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/. The metro sits in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 10b on the western edges and 11a along the eastern coastal blocks under the 2023 revised map released by the USDA Agricultural Research Service; verify at https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov.

That climate profile means three things for any landscape program. First, fungal pressure is the dominant agronomic challenge from May through October, not heat. Take-all root rot, large patch (Rhizoctonia solani), and gray leaf spot will defoliate a St. Augustine lawn in days if nitrogen rates are too high and irrigation is mistimed. Second, the city sits within a few miles of the Everglades and the C-9 canal grid, which means very high water tables, very low elevation (most lots sit between 6 and 10 feet above sea level), and active SFWMD permitting for any irrigation withdrawal from a private well. Third, the November-through-April dry season is real, with weeks of zero rainfall, which is why the SFWMD 2-day-per-week irrigation rule is structured as a permanent year-round operating standard rather than a drought response.

Grass types that work in Pembroke Pines

The dominant warm-season turf in Pembroke Pines is St. Augustinegrass. The University of Florida IFAS Cooperative Extension’s turfgrass program recommends Floratam as the workhorse cultivar for full-sun residential settings, Palmetto and CitraBlue for partial shade, and ProVista for HOA communities that want a slower-growing variety. UF/IFAS publishes the full cultivar guide in its EDIS publication ENH5 “St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns” at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/LH010. CitraBlue, released by UF in 2019, holds color at lower nitrogen rates than Floratam and shows documented resistance to gray leaf spot, large patch, and take-all root rot, which matters in a wet, warm climate where Floratam routinely fails on lower-elevation lots after wet-season fungal blowouts.

Zoysia (Empire and Zeon cultivars) is increasingly used on premium SilverLakes and Pembroke Falls lots as a higher-density, lower-water alternative to St. Augustine. Zoysia is more cold-tolerant, denser, and produces a finer-textured lawn, but it costs more to install (sod is roughly twice the price of Floratam St. Augustine) and demands sharper blade maintenance. Bahiagrass (Argentine, Pensacola) is sometimes used on the western, less-improved blocks closer to the Everglades buffer, but it produces tall seed heads and rarely meets HOA aesthetic standards in Pembroke Pines proper.

For homeowners exploring lower-input alternatives, our guide to drought-tolerant lawn alternatives covers the conversion math in detail. The UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscaping program at https://ffl.ifas.ufl.edu publishes the plant-list framework that satisfies HOA preemption protection under F.S. 720.3075.

Soil and irrigation design in Pembroke Pines

Soil chemistry in Pembroke Pines is the silent driver of most turf problems. The Natural Resources Conservation Service Web Soil Survey at https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov maps the dominant series as Margate fine sand, Pompano fine sand, and Wabasso fine sand, with a substantial fraction of the developed grid sitting on imported sand fill over what was originally Everglades marl and sawgrass marsh. Native sand pH typically measures 7.4 to 8.2 because of the Miami limestone base and shell-fragment cation exchange. Iron, manganese, and zinc are functionally unavailable to most plants at that pH, which is why iron chlorosis (a yellow-green discoloration on St. Augustine and Bahia) is the most-diagnosed problem in the metro.

The agronomic answer is chelated iron applied as a foliar spray two or three times per growing season, combined with a fertilization program that uses ammonium sulfate as the nitrogen source rather than urea or ammonium nitrate. The UF/IFAS publication “St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns” (ENH5) at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/LH010 walks through the rate schedule. Total annual nitrogen for St. Augustine in southeast Florida runs 2 to 4 pounds per 1,000 square feet split across the growing season. Broward County operates under a summer fertilizer blackout ordinance covering the June 1 through September 30 wet season, when nitrogen and phosphorus applications are restricted to protect canal and bay water quality.

Irrigation design has to account for the rapid-drainage sands sitting over limestone. Long single-run cycles cause leaching of soluble nitrogen below the root zone within hours and contribute to nutrient loading in the C-11 canal grid. Cycle-and-soak programming on smart controllers, running multiple shorter cycles separated by 30 to 60 minutes, is the answer. The EPA WaterSense Weather-Based Irrigation Controller specification at https://www.epa.gov/watersense/weather-based-irrigation-controllers identifies controllers that handle the math automatically. Our guide on how to install drip irrigation covers the controller and emitter selection for bed retrofits.

Pembroke Pines water rules and rebates

The City of Pembroke Pines Utilities Department sets residential water rates on a tiered structure. Rate detail and the conservation program are at https://www.ppines.com/461/Utilities-Department, and the residential rate page is at https://www.ppines.com/478/Water-Utility-Rates. The city’s WaterSense High Efficiency Toilet rebate program pays up to $100 per qualifying toilet replacement and offers free WaterSense faucet aerators and showerheads to residential customers. Verify program availability and the current application form with the Utilities Customer Service Office.

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) operates the regional permitting and shortage-order framework for Pembroke Pines. Under SFWMD Rule 40E-24, F.A.C., year-round watering is limited to 2 days per week with no irrigation between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (also prohibited between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. under the standard order). Odd-numbered addresses water Wednesday and Saturday; even-numbered addresses water Thursday and Sunday. The current rules and lookup tool are at https://www.sfwmd.gov/community-residents/landscape-irrigation. SFWMD also runs the Mobile Irrigation Lab program, which performs free system audits for high-volume residential and commercial customers.

Broward County Environmental Protection and Growth Management at https://www.broward.org/environment operates additional regional water-quality enforcement, including the summer fertilizer blackout. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (https://floridadep.gov) sets the statewide framework for reclaimed-water reuse, which underpins much of the irrigation supply in the western Broward master-planned communities.

Licensing for Pembroke Pines landscape contractors

Florida does not require a statewide landscape contractor license for mowing, planting, or installation of softscape elements. What Florida does require, and what every legitimate Pembroke Pines operator must hold, is a pesticide applicator license issued by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) Bureau of Licensing and Enforcement at https://www.fdacs.gov. The two licenses that apply to residential lawn care are the Limited Lawn and Ornamental Pesticide License (employee of a single property owner only, restricted to handheld and backpack equipment) and the Commercial Lawn and Ornamental Pesticide License (the standard credential for a commercial spray operator). The Commercial license requires passing both a CORE exam and a category-specific exam, and the fee schedule is published at https://www.fdacs.gov/Business-Services/Pesticide-Licensing/Pesticide-Applicator-Licenses.

For irrigation and any work crossing the potable boundary, the Florida Construction Industry Licensing Board (CILB) regulates certified and registered contractors at https://www.myfloridalicense.com. The City of Pembroke Pines also requires a local business tax receipt for any operator working in the city limits.

Insurance minimums to ask any Pembroke Pines contractor: general liability $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate, plus workers’ compensation as required under Florida Statute Chapter 440 for any operator with four or more employees in the construction industry classification. Verify both with a current Certificate of Insurance before the first invoice. Our vetting checklist walks through what to demand on paper.

HOAs and Pembroke Pines landscape design standards

A substantial majority of Pembroke Pines housing units sit inside a homeowners association, particularly in the master-planned communities (Pembroke Falls, SilverLakes, Chapel Trail, Pembroke Shores, Spring Valley, Towngate). Most Pembroke Pines HOAs require front-yard turf coverage within a tight band, mandate plant lists drawn from a Florida-friendly palette, require micro-spray or drip on bed areas rather than rotor-fed spray, and review modifications through an Architectural Review Committee.

Florida Statute 720.3075 (the Florida-Friendly Landscaping preemption, strengthened by HB 941 in 2023) prevents HOAs from enforcing covenants that prohibit a homeowner from installing Florida-Friendly Landscaping as defined in F.S. 373.185. Read the statute at https://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0720/Sections/0720.3075.html. The practical effect is that an HOA may still require architectural review and aesthetic compliance with a documented design palette, but it cannot block a homeowner from converting irrigated turf to a UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscape. Operators should expect to file plans with the ARC, document compliance with the approved plant list at completion, and budget for the review timeline.

Neighborhoods covered

HMNDP’s Pembroke Pines directory covers contractors serving the master-planned western communities (Chapel Trail, Pembroke Falls, SilverLakes, Towngate, Walnut Creek), the central residential blocks (Pembroke Shores, Spring Valley), and the older eastern grid closer to the Hollywood line. Coverage extends across the Broward County boundaries into Miramar, Cooper City, and Davie, where the contractor pool overlaps substantially and many operators carry multi-jurisdiction local business tax receipts. The Town of Southwest Ranches, immediately west of Pembroke Pines, operates with larger-acreage equestrian lots and a different contractor profile that overlaps less.

Find a vetted Pembroke Pines contractor

HMNDP applies a five-layer vetting filter to every contractor listed: FDACS pesticide license verified live against the state portal, current Certificate of Insurance on file, BBB and Google review minimums, sample-project documentation including before-and-after photos of recent St. Augustine renovations, and reference calls with two recent residential customers. The Pembroke Pines directory launches in Q3 2026.

If you are a homeowner looking for guidance before the launch, our pillar guides on how to find a reputable landscaper and hardscape contractor vetting are the starting points, along with our annual lawn care cost benchmarks for 2026 for sanity-checking quotes.

For Pembroke Pines contractors

If you operate a licensed lawn or landscape business in Broward County and want to appear in the HMNDP Pembroke Pines directory at launch, email partners@hmndp.org with your FDACS license number, service area, insurance certificate, and three customer references. We verify each item before listing. Operators should also flag any HOA management company relationships and document any Mobile Irrigation Lab audit qualifications.

Related coverage

For contractors and homeowners working through pricing, our 2026 lawn care cost guide and guide to measuring lawn square footage set the math baseline. For the fertilization side, our NPK fertilizer guide covers the macro rates that apply to St. Augustine and Zoysia in Florida. For diagnostic help, the brown patches in lawn guide covers large patch and gray leaf spot identification. The 2026 US turf water use restriction tracker covers the SFWMD framework, and EPA WaterSense smart irrigation walks through the WBIC controller specification.

Methodology

This page synthesizes wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2024 release, Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise MD 22744), climate normals from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information for the FLL station, USDA Plant Hardiness Zone designations from the 2023 revised map, turfgrass cultivar guidance from the University of Florida IFAS Cooperative Extension, licensing data from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Florida CILB, water-rule guidance from the City of Pembroke Pines Utilities and the South Florida Water Management District, and HOA preemption analysis from Florida Statute 720.3075. Data verified as of June 17, 2026. Rebate amounts and program eligibility change by fiscal cycle; confirm with the relevant authority before quoting a project.

Sources and References

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_22744.htm
• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/
• USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (2023): https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov
• University of Florida IFAS EDIS, St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns (ENH5): https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/LH010
• University of Florida IFAS EDIS topic index: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu
• UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions: https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu
• UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program: https://ffl.ifas.ufl.edu
• USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey: https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov
• City of Pembroke Pines Utilities Department: https://www.ppines.com/461/Utilities-Department
• City of Pembroke Pines Water Utility Rates: https://www.ppines.com/478/Water-Utility-Rates
• South Florida Water Management District, Landscape Irrigation: https://www.sfwmd.gov/community-residents/landscape-irrigation
• Broward County Environmental Protection: https://www.broward.org/environment
• Florida Department of Environmental Protection: https://floridadep.gov
• Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Pesticide Licensing: https://www.fdacs.gov/Business-Services/Pesticide-Licensing/Pesticide-Applicator-Licenses
• Florida Construction Industry Licensing Board: https://www.myfloridalicense.com
• Florida Statute 720.3075 (Florida-Friendly Landscaping): https://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0720/Sections/0720.3075.html
• EPA WaterSense Weather-Based Irrigation Controllers: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/weather-based-irrigation-controllers
• EPA WaterSense: https://www.epa.gov/watersense