San Antonio allows sprinkler watering once a week, on a day dictated by your street address, inside two narrow time windows. That single rule shapes every landscaping decision in the city more than climate, budget or taste. Add limestone and caliche sitting inches below the topsoil, and San Antonio becomes a market where local experience genuinely matters. This page lists landscapers serving San Antonio.
What San Antonio landscapers handle
Maintenance across a long growing season, with the summer emphasis on keeping plants alive under severe water restriction rather than on growth management.
Xeriscape and water-wise design — not a niche here but the mainstream approach, driven by aquifer-based restrictions that recur most years.
Irrigation design and repair, the licensed portion of the trade, and unusually consequential given how little watering time is permitted.
Rock and hardscape work, since limestone is both the constraint and the material — retaining walls, terraces, patios and dry creek beds using local stone.
Licensing: what Texas actually requires
Texas issues no general landscaping licence. Mowing, planting and maintenance require no state credential, so “licensed” alone means little.
Irrigation is licensed and enforced. Under Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1903, anyone selling, designing, installing, maintaining, altering, repairing, servicing or inspecting an irrigation system must hold a TCEQ licence. Obtaining one requires a 40-hour course and a six-hour exam at 70% or better in each section, with the licence valid three years. Technicians may work under the direct supervision of a licensed irrigator.
Unlicensed irrigation work is a Class C misdemeanour under §1903.251, with civil penalties up to $5,000 per day.
In a city with once-weekly watering, irrigation efficiency is worth more than almost anywhere in Texas — a poorly designed system simply cannot deliver enough water in the permitted window. Ask for the TCEQ number and verify it.
Pesticide application is licensed separately through the Texas Department of Agriculture. Verify liability and workers’ compensation insurance directly.
What’s specific to San Antonio
The SAWS watering rule. Under San Antonio Water System restrictions, sprinkler, irrigation-system and soaker-hose watering is permitted once per week, only on your designated day, and only during 5–10 a.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight. Your day is determined by the last digit of your street address.
This is the defining constraint of the local trade. A landscape must survive on one watering event per week, delivered in a five-hour morning window or a three-hour night window. What follows:
- Deep, infrequent irrigation is mandatory, not merely best practice
- Cycle-and-soak scheduling matters because thin soil over rock cannot absorb water quickly
- Heavy mulch is essential to hold what little moisture arrives
- Hydrozoning — grouping plants by water need — is the difference between a landscape that survives and one that doesn’t
- Plant selection must be genuinely drought-adapted, not merely “low water” by coastal standards
Restriction stages tighten and relax with aquifer levels, so confirm the current stage and your assigned day with SAWS directly.
The Edwards Aquifer. San Antonio’s water comes largely from the Edwards Aquifer, and restriction stages are triggered by aquifer levels rather than by reservoir storage. This is why restrictions here feel more permanent than in cities with surface-water supply — the trigger is a groundwater level that responds slowly. It also means landscape water use is a genuine civic issue, and water-wise design carries local social weight.
Thin soil over limestone, and caliche. Much of San Antonio, particularly on the north and west sides toward the Hill Country, has only inches of soil above limestone bedrock, often with a cemented caliche layer between. Practical consequences:
- Planting holes frequently require breaking rock, which is real labour and shows up in quotes
- Drainage is unpredictable — some sites drain instantly through fractured rock, others perch water on caliche
- Raised beds and berms are often the practical answer rather than fighting the substrate
- Soil is alkaline, so acid-loving plants struggle and show iron chlorosis
Heat, and mild winters. San Antonio sits around USDA zone 8b–9a. Summers are long and hot; winters are mild but include occasional hard freezes that damage tropicals people plant during good years.
Oak wilt. Central Texas has an established oak wilt problem, spread partly through fresh pruning wounds. Local guidance is to avoid pruning oaks during the highest-risk months and to seal fresh cuts on oaks immediately. A landscaper who prunes your live oaks in spring without sealing wounds is creating a serious risk to the whole neighbourhood’s tree canopy.
Pricing expectations
San Antonio figures for 2026, as published by local landscaping companies and SAWS:
- Mowing, by lot size: under 5,000 sq ft $35–$45 per visit; 5,000–10,000 sq ft $45–$65; over 10,000 sq ft $65–$100+. A metro-wide guide puts maintenance at $45–$95 a visit
- Programmes: full-service $150–$450+ per month, or $1,500–$3,500 a year; fertilisation and weed control alone $400–$800 a year
- Materials in the ground: sod $1.20–$2.25 per square foot installed; mulch $55–$90 per cubic yard; xeriscape conversion $6–$15 per square foot
- Irrigation: a system $3,000–$6,000 metro-wide — one San Antonio irrigation company publishes that 75% of the systems it installs land between $2,500 and $3,500, averaging $2,800, with a system check at $65 for up to six zones and $5 per zone above that
- Bigger work: paver or stone patio $14–$40 per square foot; landscape design $300–$2,500; a full makeover $5,000–$40,000+; tree removal $500–$3,000
- SAWS pays you to take grass out. The Outdoor Living Rebate runs $300 for 200–300 sq ft, $500 for 301–450, $750 for 451–600 and $1,000 over 600 — and WaterSaver Landscape Coupons are $150 each this autumn, up to four per application window against a lifetime limit of eight
San Antonio is the clearest case on either directory of local rules being worth more money than local prices. Take the rebates first, because the disqualifiers are exactly what an ordinary contractor would do by default. No work started before pre-approval is eligible. The project must be at least 200 square feet and at least 10 feet wide — explicitly ruling out walkways. Concrete, mortar and asphalt are not allowed, artificial turf does not qualify, and a project made only of river rock or crushed granite does not either — that material cannot take up more than 20 percent. The separate WaterSaver coupon needs 200 square feet of grass gone and 15 approved plants at one gallon minimum, in a newly created bed; existing beds are not eligible. Let a contractor pour a patio, lay turf, or simply start early, and you have given up as much as $1,000 you were entitled to.
Second, watering is once a week. SAWS is in Stage 2: an irrigation system, sprinkler or soaker hose may run on your assigned day only, 5–10 a.m. or 9 p.m. to midnight, with the day set by the last digit of your street address. Drip may run twice a week, Monday and Friday. Hand watering is not restricted. A first violation on a single-family site is $137, though the fee can be waived by taking a one-hour course online. Any design that assumes conventional watering is designing something that will not survive August.
Third, on trees, the credential to ask for is not the one people expect. A homeowner in a finished house needs no tree permit to remove a tree — but if you hire someone, the City requires them to hold a valid, city-issued Tree Maintenance License. Ask for it by name. The City also asks you to minimise pruning oaks between 1 February and 1 July, when the oak wilt fungus is most active, and names mid-summer or late autumn as the better windows. One upsell the City quietly rebuts: ball moss is not a parasite.
Finally, irrigation work is licensed twice over. Texas requires a TCEQ Landscape Irrigator licence to sell, design, install, alter or repair a system, and the City requires a permit for any underground installation — plus an $85.00 annual irrigation contractor registration with San Antonio itself. Two credentials, both checkable, and a contractor who holds neither should not be trenching your garden.
These are ranges local landscaping companies publish for this metro rather than survey data, so treat them as a bracket to check a quote against, not a price list.
Two contract items: the contractor’s valid city-issued Tree Maintenance License before any tree work — the credential most homeowners here have never heard of, and written SAWS pre-approval in hand before a square foot of grass is removed.
Neighborhoods served
Landscapers listed here work across San Antonio, including Monte Vista, King William, Southtown, Tobin Hill, Mahncke Park, Stone Oak, Hollywood Park, Alamo Ranch, Shavano Park, Northwood and Lavaca.
Most also serve surrounding communities — Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills, Olmos Park, Converse, Schertz, Helotes, Leon Valley, Boerne and New Braunfels.
How this directory helps
Every landscaper here is listed with business name, address and phone so you can verify them yourself.
Three questions sort San Antonio contractors quickly. Ask for the TCEQ irrigator licence on any sprinkler work. Ask how they’d design a landscape that survives on one watering day per week — a real answer covers hydrozoning, mulch depth and drip conversion, not just plant names. And ask when they prune live oaks. Anyone who understands oak wilt will tell you what months they avoid and that they seal cuts immediately.