How Much Does Landscaping Cost

Are you thinking of hiring a landscaper to whip your yard into shape this year and how much does landscaping cost? If this is your first time doing this sort of thing then you might just get the shock of your life at just how high the cost of landscaping really is.

How Much Does Landscaping Cost ideal

When you work with landscape designers you stand to benefit from the designer’s skills and experience to produce a professionally designed garden landscape. How much does landscaping cost In turn, your garden will look good, be functional, and even suit the architecture of your house. Plus, you won’t have to redo it in a few years.

However, the cost of landscaping services is not cheap. Many professionals have been known how much does landscaping cost and this has not rendered well with most people who are struggling to make ends meet. A professional takes into consideration a variety of factors when he decides to create your personal plan.

The Cost Of Landscaping

Such factors may include shade, slope, sunlight, soil conditions and many more. He may also include unexpected additions and this may send you over your budget limit. In this article I am going to touch on tips and strategies of how to lower the cost of landscaping while still getting a superb front and back yard. I will expound on simple methods that are certain to lower your budget and greatly lower the cost of landscaping your yard. So how can you landscape cheap?

One of the ways you can do this is by working with what you have.
It has been said that the best way to save money when it comes to landscaping is to do as much work as possible yourself.
Not to worry, I have provided a few guidelines on how to achieve this.
The first step in lowering landscaping costs is to sit down and create a budget.

The notion here is that if you know what you have to work with before you begin your project then you will have the proper mindset that is conducive to keeping costs down.
Just remember to do it in small steps. Everyone seems to desire to get everything done all at once. Be willing to focus a little.
Completing one step of your project at a time has been known to greatly lower the cost of landscaping.

When it comes to plants, select only the native species of trees, shrubs or flowers to place in your landscape. I say this because this will help you save on costly soil amendments that you would incur if you decide to settle on other kinds that cannot thrive in your existing soil.
Another advantage of native species is that they require less supplements of water and thus are pocket friendly.

It is also advisable to preserve existing plants as this will in turn help reduce the costs for materials and resources needed to establish a new planting. Smaller, younger plant materials, compared to more mature plants will drive costs down. So will substituting a stone retaining wall with a less expensive timber retainer.

When it comes to the lawns, I highly recommend that you select a drought tolerant variety of grass that will save you future expenses on watering costs. Grasses of this nature include the Kentucky blue grass and the Perennial rye. These grasses have been known to require less water during dry periods and hence are more suitable for your landscape.

If at the end of all this you still decide to use the services of a designer, then I advise you to try and forgo the obvious. Don’t call them and ask for their opinion of your lawn or backyard.
Landscape designers have been known to talk people into designing everything with hopes of realizing huge profits.

Instead, I suggest you draw up your own landscaping plans before indulging in a consultation session. The plan here is to draw your own design and hire a landscape designer to review it. This is a less expensive route that will, more than often, work out in your favor.…

Affordable Landscaping – How to Set a Budget

If you have a large section or even an average section, Landscaping is very important to get right for many reasons. The first is your pride and enjoyment in your property. Secondly, will be possibly for your privacy, if you have bought a property that is in clear visibility to your neighbors, or the street, and, thirdly, to achieve the maximum sales price affordable landscaping when you come to sell what is more than likely to be your largest asset.

Affordable Landscaping

So, your landscaping is definitely going to require very extensive and careful planning to get the most out of it. It shouldn’t be undertaken too quickly. Landscaping is a little like writing a book. You might have an initial idea and think its great, but after jotting it down and thinking more about the plot and the characters, you’ll quickly run up against a brick wall, so to speak, as you release that the plot wont work for such and such a reason and it will need modification.

Irrigation Problems

o it is the same with affordable landscaping. Have a main idea, write it down, roughly draw it up and then think about it over the next few days or weeks before taking any more action. I bet that after two weeks your initial idea will have radically changed, on paper. The changes you make will be to seeing something else in the meantime that you prefer, or, it wont work because of light or irrigation problems, or, it was simply going to be too expensive. So, not taking action for a few weeks can save you a considerable amount of expense.

So, best to start with an affordable budget to set yourself. This should be your maximum that you can afford. From here you can start going backwards to save yourself money on your project.

Another consideration though while setting your budget is that you could undertake your affordable landscapingproject in stages, but, this would only be a good idea if you see yourself getting extra money to afford this in the future, otherwise you could end up with a very expensive stage all finished and then the next stage a budget finish that is simply not going to look right, so, probably best just to budget it at the start and perhaps have room for improvements in the future if extra money does become available.

Irrigation Systems

An interesting rule of thumb for landscaping on an average section is that it should be around 10% of the value of your home if you are starting afresh and plan to do everything. This includes, decks, pergola’s, fences, irrigation systems and lighting. It sounds like a lot, maybe too much, but if your home is worth say $600,000 then $60,000 for landscaping if it’s carefully planned will go a long way. A warning here though.

f your home is worth $600,000 or $400,000, or whatever its worth and you propose selling it soon and your home is the average price on your street, then don’t spend 10% extra on it – you’ll just over capitalize on it. The 10% budget is only if you intend to live in your home for say five years plus before selling and stay to enjoy your new surroundings. However, if you are landscaping so to sell your home, careful planning at a much lesser budget will definitely improve things and at least make your home sell faster.…