Perimeter Summit is a premier Class A office campus designed to provide a welcoming, refined, and functional outdoor environment for employees and visitors. The client envisioned a park-like setting that blends curated ornamental plantings with functional green spaces, including walking trails, outdoor workstations, and an organic vegetable garden. Seasonal color displays, high-quality turf, and amenity-rich outdoor areas were central to creating a vibrant, restorative workplace that enhances wellness and supports a positive employee experience.
Addressing Site Challenges
Perimeter Summit presented a range of site-specific challenges that required strategic planning and careful horticultural management. The campus includes both fescue and zoysia turf, each demanding distinct maintenance approaches to withstand Georgia’s hot summer climate. Much of the landscape is installed over structural surfaces, including parking decks, which limits rooting depth and increases susceptibility to environmental stress, necessitating precise irrigation and ongoing monitoring. Architectural features create microclimates across the site, with reflective heat from building façades and wind tunnel effects between office towers, impacting plant performance and complicating debris management.
Additionally, the mature landscape, developed in the late 1990s, features ornamental trees and shrubs that have reached the end of their lifecycle. Our team addresses these conditions through targeted pruning, selective plant replacement, deep root fertilization, and structural tree health treatments. Specialized care plans are implemented to maintain the balance between preserving the site’s mature character and sustaining a high-performance, visually appealing landscape.
Achieving the Client’s Goals
Ruppert Landscape has maintained Perimeter Summit for over six years, consistently delivering the polished, functional, and visually striking environment envisioned by the client. Seasonal color is a signature feature of the campus, with over 10,000 annuals planted each spring and fall across 6,000 square feet of flower beds, creating a vibrant and welcoming impression. The organic vegetable garden exemplifies the client’s commitment to wellness and sustainability, with seasonal planting, harvesting, and pest management programs that support employee engagement and community interaction.
Our team collaborates closely with the client through quarterly walkthroughs and seasonal enhancement planning, executing 5–10 targeted landscape improvements annually, including tree work, shrub replacements, and small renovation projects. Meticulous detailing, including weekly edging of 8–10 miles of bed and curb lines, hand pruning of over 100 shrubs, and maintenance of more than 1,000 perennials, ensures that the campus retains its refined Class A appearance. Large-scale mulch and pine straw installations are coordinated each spring to enhance plant health, retain soil moisture, and unify the overall landscape aesthetic.
Overcoming Execution Challenges
The project’s operational and environmental complexities required continuous adaptation and proactive problem-solving. Managing 6–8 acres of mixed turf across multiple microclimates involves careful mowing practices, aeration, and overseeding, as well as strategies to prevent zoysia encroachment into fescue zones. The irrigation system, consisting of 225 zones and multiple controllers across both turf and rooftop plantings, demands regular inspection, hands-on adjustments, and seasonal fine-tuning to ensure water efficiency and consistent plant health. The mature tree canopy creates significant seasonal leaf volumes, necessitating a multi-tiered leaf management strategy that combines mulching in place, relocating debris to naturalized areas, and vacuuming high-traffic zones.
These approaches allow the landscape to remain pristine while accommodating structural constraints, high-visibility areas, and the varied needs of a busy corporate campus. Through careful planning, responsive management, and deep horticultural expertise, Ruppert Landscape has successfully maintained Perimeter Summit as one of Atlanta’s most refined and welcoming corporate environments.