Nobody schedules a hospital visit around the weather. The emergency department takes whoever shows up, and the staff parking deck fills and empties at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. no matter what fell overnight.

David J. Frank Landscape Contracting has maintained institutional and commercial properties across Wisconsin for more than 65 years, and hospital campuses are among the most demanding accounts we run.

Campus size varies a great deal. A community hospital might be one building and a surface lot. A medical center can be a cluster of buildings tied together by a parking structure and half a mile of walkway. We build the program after someone has walked the actual property.

Winter on a hospital campus

Snow and ice management is the biggest part of the job. Our snow and ice management starts at the emergency entrance and works outward: the drop-off loop, the main lobby, the ramps of the parking structure, then the walkways that connect the buildings. Trucks take the lots and drive lanes. Hand crews take everything a truck can’t fit into, like the short walk from the staff door to the deck.

Salt behaves differently at a hospital than at a shopping center. Lobby floors are polished, and salt tracked in from the entrance leaves a slick film that becomes its own hazard. The north-facing ramp stays icy long after the ramp facing the lot has dried out. A crew that has worked the same campus for a few winters learns which ramp is which.

Summer work

The growing season is quieter. Crews mow around visiting hours and keep blowers away from the air intakes, because dust and clippings end up in places nobody wants them. The property gets walked regularly, and a soft spot in a walkway is a small job in May. Our commercial maintenance program is built on that habit of looking.

The beds at the main entrance get the most attention on the grounds. Families stand there waiting on a car or a phone call. Pansies go in during April, petunias take over in summer, and mums close out the fall, all through our seasonal color program, which changes them out on schedule instead of leaving tired plants in for another two weeks.

Trees over parking and walkways get a closer look than trees out in open lawn. Our certified arborists prune in winter and mark anything with a cracked union or a dead top. Irrigation follows one rule on a campus: no water on a walkway in late October. Heads get aimed off the paths, and the whole system is blown out before the first hard freeze.

Courtyards, healing gardens, and indoor plants

Some hospitals want more from the outdoors than upkeep. Staff who eat lunch in a windowless break room might get a courtyard. Rehab patients who’ve been told to move every day might get a walking loop. Our design-build and bid-build teams build these spaces, working from an architect’s plans or from a plain conversation about how the space will be used.

Indoors, our interiorscape work covers lobbies, waiting rooms, and administrative offices. Hospital light is flat, and the air runs dry and cool, which rules out a lot of plants that look great in catalogs. We choose the ones that survive it, stop by on a schedule, and swap out anything that starts to fade.

Getting started

Most accounts begin with a walk of the property alongside the facilities manager. The plan comes from what turns up on that walk. A 40-bed community hospital and a multi-building medical center end up with very different programs.

Crews arrive in uniform and marked trucks so security and staff know who they are. The company that clears the snow in January is the same one mowing in July, so the whole campus runs through one phone number.

Call us at 262-255-4888 or contact us online to schedule a walkthrough.