Reefa specialty · Cracow
Gardening services and grounds maintenance in Cracow.
Year-round care of green areas for housing estates, office buildings and companies — one contract, one coordinator
Call 737 576 87650+
properties served
from 134PLN
hour
15min
response
Service scope
What's included in gardening services and grounds maintenance
- Lawn mowing with a collecting mower, ride-on mower or brush cutter — with edge trimming, clippings collected and green waste hauled away (time norms and calculator on the lawn mowing page)
- Tree and shrub pruning: maintenance and sanitary cuts of up to 30% of the crown (art. 87a of the Nature Conservation Act, ustawa o ochronie przyrody), hedges, thujas, fruit trees; work at height is carried out by certified partners (arborists) under a single contract with Reefa
- Lawn scarifying and aeration (March–April and September) with a gas-powered scarifier and a spike aerator, with the thatch raked up and hauled away
- Lawn fertilizing with spring and autumn fertilizer and overseeding of worn and thinned patches with a repair mix
- Weeding of beds, shrub groups and tree pits; removing weeds from pavers, gravel strips and curbs
- Mulching beds, shrub groups and tree pits with bark or wood chips — fewer weeds, less watering, an even look across the site
- Seasonal planting and plant replacement: planters at entrances, perennial beds, replacement shrubs after die-back, filling gaps in hedges
- Leaf raking and removal (October–November) from lawns, sidewalks and the roadside strip — blower and rakes, bagging, hauled away as green waste
- Watering in dry spells (water tanker — optional) and care of new plantings in their first season after planting
- Cleaning the outdoor area after the work: sidewalks, trash bins, trash enclosures, parking lot (blower, sweeping, removing clippings from paved surfaces)
- In winter, snow clearing and salting of sidewalks, driveways and parking lots by the same crew (price from the snow clearing calculator on reefa.pl)
- Seasonal report for the property manager: photos from every visit, a list of the treatments performed, recommendations and a work plan for the next season
01 / 01
Grounds maintenance in Krakow — 17 m² of municipal green space per resident and four ZZM mowing regimes
Krakow has 17.0 m² of municipal green areas per resident (Statistics Poland, 2024 — up from 13.8 m² in 2021), 77 parks and an estimated 1.3 million trees, yet the lowest share of forest land among the nine cities audited by the Supreme Audit Office (5.3%). The greenery you see from an apartment block is mostly cooperative and community lawns and tree rows — maintained by the property manager, not by the city.
The benchmark is set by Krakow's Municipal Greenery Board (ZZM): four mowing regimes — as needed, four cuts a season on housing estates, two on large areas, none in eco-zones — plus 30 ha of flower meadows cut once or twice a year and a “no mowing during drought” rule. Krakow cooperatives order 3–4 cuts between 1 April and 31 October, starting around 5–11 May; the city's BIP puts the duty to mow on the possessor or manager of the property. Reefa has operated in Krakow since 2020 and covers every district — from the wide lawns of Nowa Huta, Mistrzejowice and Kurdwanów to villa gardens in Wola Justowska and Swoszowice — plus Wieliczka, Skawina, Niepołomice and Zielonki. Lawn-only quotes: lawn mowing.
Four pillars
Why choose Reefa.
Year-round service by one crew
Mowing, hedges and beds in summer, leaf raking in autumn, snow clearing and salting in winter — the same crew and the same contract for 12 months. The property manager does not look for a new greenery contractor every season and a separate one for snow.
One coordinator, as with stairwell cleaning
The same Reefa coordinator runs both the greenery and the stairwells. Residents' comments come in through the QR-code system, the coordinator keeps the schedule, and the housing community receives one invoice for the areas inside and outside the building.
ZZM standards, nesting season, green waste
We mow to the green-space maintenance standards of ZZM Kraków: not in drought, not straight after rain, higher in heatwaves. From 1 March to 15 October we check for nests before every cut, and we haul away clippings, leaves and branches as green waste.
Photo report and 8% VAT invoice
Photos in the report after every visit, one VAT invoice a month. Green-space maintenance (PKWiU 81.30) carries the 8% rate — for one-off jobs we confirm the rate in the offer. Work covered by liability insurance up to 1,000,000 PLN.
Service area
Districts in Cracow.
We serve properties in every district of Cracow, with full on-site staffing.
Stare MiastoKazimierzPodgórzeKrowodrzaDębnikiBronowiceNowa HutaCzyżynyPrądnik BiałyPrądnik CzerwonyBieżanów-ProkocimMistrzejowiceWola Duchacka+ surroundings up to 15 km
Comparison
Reefa vs. a typical cleaning company.
| Feature | Reefa | Typical company |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent staff assigned to property | rotating | |
| Dedicated coordinator | call center | |
| QR-code reporting system | ||
| Property profile document | ||
| Certified eco supplies | partial | |
| Liability insurance 1,000,000 PLN | lower | |
| Price fixed before start | can grow | |
| Client retention > 1 year | 50–60% |
We calculate the cost from hours, not from m²: (number of mowings in the season × hours per mowing + hedge cutting + leaf raking) × 134 PLN net, divided over the months of the contract. For an estate with 3,000 m² of lawn we assume 3–4 mowings per season (that is what Cracow and Katowice housing cooperatives order in their tenders), two hedge cuts (June and August) and two rounds of leaf raking. An example from the lawn mowing calculator on reefa.pl: 3,000 m² of lawn with trees and benches is 4 h 30 min of ride-on mower work with edge trimming, collection and removal of clippings, i.e. 610 PLN net per mowing and 1,830 PLN net for 3 mowings a season; hedges and leaves are added from separate norms. That is 0.20 PLN/m² per mowing, i.e. about 2,030 PLN per hectare — right inside the market band for rotary-mower mowing (kb.pl, 29 April 2026: Katowice 1,970 PLN/ha, Cracow 2,040 PLN/ha); on flat ground, with no trees and benches to steer around, we go below the market: a hectare (10,000 m²) is 1,250 PLN net per mowing. On a small lawn it is the other way round — 300 m² costs 240 PLN, i.e. 0.80 PLN/m², above the Cracow average of 0.77 PLN/m², because the price covers the real time on site with edge trimming, collection and removal of the clippings. Further market references: price portals quote a subscription for companies and housing communities of 400–1,200 PLN a month, and in the 2026 tender of the Paderewski housing cooperative (SM im. Paderewskiego) in Katowice the bid for 126,500 m² of greenery (3 mowings, 2 cuts of 3,023 linear meters of hedges) came to 259,600 PLN net a year. We give the exact amount after the site inventory.
The contract covers 12 items: lawn mowing with edge trimming and clippings removal, tree and shrub pruning, hedges, scarifying and aeration, fertilizing and overseeding, weeding and mulching of beds, seasonal planting, leaf raking, watering in drought (optional), cleaning of the outdoor area, snow clearing in winter and a seasonal report. We attach a month-by-month work calendar with the frequency of every treatment and a site inventory (m² of lawn, linear meters of hedge, number of trees). Billing is a monthly flat fee calculated from labor-hours × 134 PLN net, a VAT invoice once a month, photos from every visit in the report. The scope can be narrowed (e.g. mowing and leaves only) or extended to stairwell and garage cleaning — then everything goes on one invoice.
Scarifying is done in spring, once the temperature holds at 10°C or above and the grass has started growing — in Cracow and Katowice that is usually the second half of March and April; the second window is September, after the heat. The scarifier cuts the turf vertically and pulls out the thatch (dead stems and moss); after the treatment the lawn should be fertilized and overseeded. Aeration (spiking) is a separate treatment that improves air flow to the roots; we do it on compacted, heavily walked lawns. Market prices according to kb.pl (January 2026): scarifying 2.00–3.50 PLN/m², spike aeration 2.00–3.50 PLN/m² (hollow-tine aeration up to 3.70 PLN/m²), overseeding 1.80–2.50 PLN/m². With us the treatment is not priced per m²: it goes into the seasonal flat fee calculated from hours (134 PLN/hour net), and we give the exact amount after measuring the lawn.
Yes. Maintaining the greenery on common land is a cost of managing the common property: the Act on Ownership of Premises (ustawa o własności lokali) lists in art. 14(4) “expenses on keeping order and cleanliness”, and the unit owners cover them in proportion to their shares (art. 12(2)) in advance payments due by the 10th of the month (art. 15). The duty to mow the grass and look after the trees and shrubs rests with the possessor of the property, in practice the administrator or property manager — that is how the City of Cracow's public information bulletin (BIP) puts it in its answer to a question about greenery care. The cleanliness regulations of Cracow and Katowice do not impose a mowing frequency, but the Cracow one requires leaves to be removed systematically from the publicly accessible part of the property and the adjacent sidewalk. Reefa's seasonal flat fee slots easily into the annual budget: one monthly line, a VAT invoice, a scope ready to present at the meeting.
We rake leaves in two or three rounds between mid-October and the end of November: the first after the main leaf fall, the last once the trees are bare, just before the first snow. A layer of leaves left over winter cuts the lawn off from light and air, and a wet one encourages turf diseases, so the grass should be uncovered before the frosts. The Cracow cleanliness regulations require leaves to be removed from the publicly accessible part of the property and the adjacent sidewalk “systematically, as the need arises” — the possessor of the property is responsible for it. We bag the raked leaves and haul them away as green waste; for companies and housing communities this is a paid service (MPGK Katowice charges 600 PLN net per tonne of biodegradable waste, price list from 1 May 2026). We schedule the raking together with the last mowing at 4–5 cm.
On large, little-used parts of the site, yes: a wildflower meadow is cut 1–2 times a year instead of 3–4 lawn mowings, so there are fewer hours (and zlotys), and the area copes better with drought. Cracow already has around 30 ha of wildflower meadows established by ZZM since 2017, Katowice has been testing them since 2018 (20,000 m² were sown in 2019), and the GZM metropolis runs the Metropolitan Wildflower Meadows program (Metropolitalne Łąki Kwietne). The ZZM Kraków standard for extensive lawns also allows 10–20% of the area to be left unmown in a given year. A meadow is not suitable for playgrounds, entrance zones and strips along sidewalks — there the regularly mown lawn stays. During the inventory we point out which parts of the estate can be switched to meadow and calculate the saving in labor-hours.
Yes, that is our core model for housing communities and cooperatives: stairwell cleaning from 1000 PLN net a month plus greenery on a seasonal flat fee — one contract, one coordinator, one VAT invoice. In summer the crew mows and cuts hedges, in autumn it rakes leaves, in winter it clears snow and salts the paths, and it cleans the stairwells all year round. Residents report issues via QR codes in the stairwells and the coordinator handles them without involving the board. Instead of two or three contractors (cleaning, gardener, snow clearing) the property manager has one phone number and one photo report. Reefa services more than 50 sites, and 91% of clients stay with us for another year.
Yes. Services related to green-space maintenance (PKWiU 81.30, item 52 of Annex 3 to the VAT Act, ustawa o VAT) are taxed at 8% — confirmed among others by the binding rate information (WIS) issued by the Director of the National Tax Information (KIS) on 6 February 2024 (0111-KDSB1-1.440.18.2024.3.ND) and a 2018 tax ruling on lawn mowing commissioned by a housing cooperative. The 8% rate covers mowing, tree and shrub pruning, weeding, planting and leaf removal as part of grounds maintenance. Exceptions: construction work on green areas (e.g. surfaces, retaining walls) is classified separately, in Section F of PKWiU, and does not qualify for this rate, while a one-off mowing of a private plot with no other gardening work is sometimes classified at the 23% rate — which is why we confirm the rate in the offer. We issue the VAT invoice once a month, for housing communities with the option of splitting it by building.
Yes. Our baseline is the public green-space maintenance standards of ZZM Kraków (SUTZ) — a document available to every grounds manager: we mow intensive lawns to 5–10 cm, extensive ones no lower than 8–15 cm, we do not mow in drought or straight after rain, and in heatwaves we raise the cutting height. On hedges we leave 2–3 cm of annual growth and cut the sides first, then the top. In the bird nesting season (1 March–15 October according to GDOŚ, the General Directorate for Environmental Protection) we check shrubs and crowns for nests before every cut; occupied plants are left for later. Crown cuts are limited to 30% (art. 87a of the Nature Conservation Act, ustawa o ochronie przyrody), and we organize tree removal only after a permit or notification, which we help with. In Katowice we apply the same standards — the municipal greenery authority there mows to 6–8 cm.
A start in season usually within 7–14 days of signing the contract: 15 minutes to answer the inquiry, a site visit and inventory within a few days, an offer with the seasonal flat fee in 24–48 hours, then the date of the first visit. We plan the first mowing after winter for the turn of April and May, but a greenery contract can be signed in any month — in winter we start with snow clearing and sanitary tree cuts. Reefa holds liability insurance up to 1,000,000 PLN covering work at buildings and on outdoor areas; work at height (lift, rope access) is carried out by certified arborist partners under a single contract with Reefa. Staff are legally employed, equipment and fuel are on us, and the VAT invoice arrives once a month.
Other services in Cracow
Lawn mowing
from 134 PLN/hour
Tree and shrub pruning
from 134 PLN/hour
Apartment block cleaning
from 1000 PLN/month
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