How Much Does Landscaping Cost?

When it comes to style and design, how formal or informal do you want the landscape to look? The design you pick will often play a part in how much landscapers charge for your project. If there are children playing and you want less regular maintenance, informal may be the move. Plants and walkways are less organized, leaving more room for flexibility. However, if you wish for straight edges, hemmed corners, and elaborate patterns, a formal landscape is the way to go.

Then, you can get more specific with English, Japanese, or Woodland designs. Finally, butterfly garden plants can be added to welcome flying creatures to make your landscape home, and add a pleasant alive feeling as well. So how do you estimate landscaping costs? Well, there are a couple more details to consider.

When creating your landscape, you may want various features such as a pool, stone walkway, or fencing. However, there can be numerous others that are less mentioned but add depth which are worth the cost in adding to a landscape. This includes landscape lighting, outdoor furniture, a paver patio, outdoor kitchen, fire pits and fireplaces, pergolas and arbors, and elevated garden beds. These additions should widen your mindset for how much you should spend on landscaping.

When you are looking for a landscaper to create what will hopefully be a project of a lifetime, make sure they have plenty of options, and the experience of putting it all together. If you want something on your landscape, always make sure you tell your project manager so everything can be considered in the full design.

When adding the living parts of your landscape, the combinations are as endless as the options. Some homeowners really enjoy lots of trees, while others prefer shrubs and gardens. Here are some of the best options tree wise:

The best trees for color – Red Horse Chestnuts, Saucer Magnolias, Southern Magnolias, Tulip Trees, and Witch Hazel.
The best disease-resistant trees -Japanese Maples, Chinese Fringe Trees, Chinese Pistache, and Bald Cypress’.
The best trees for shade– the Quaking Aspens, Red Maples, Weeping Willows, and London Plane Trees.

What about shrubs and other plants?  If you are looking for something low maintenance and easy, the list is clear. Some great options are  Lorolpetalums, Barberry’s, Abelias, Hypericum Kalmianum, Peonies, and Euonymus’. Although many of these are easy to maintain, there are more complex plants as well…

Want something more elegant?  Roses, hydrangeas, azaleas, and gardenias all fit the bill. They are beautiful flowering plants, and are known for it. Depending on how much you are willing to invest the time/money into your plants and bushes, these may be a good fit.

Depending on where you live, you may have a surplus of options available. Big cities and towns will likely have many more than one landscaper group to help bring your project ideas to life. However, quantity does not always mean quality. A landscaping project for your home or business is a huge investment, finding the right group for the job is key. When looking for a landscaper, you should likely look for three important things:

1.Trust

When looking for a landscaping service, trust is a major part of the decision making process. Because landscaping is such a huge investment, if you feel uncertain about whether the job will be executed properly, something has gone wrong. You should never have a gut feeling that something is probably going sideways during the upgrade of your landscape.

2.Quality Overall

Your landscape or remodel of your outdoors should last a long time to be worth the money invested. What is the point of an apparently perfect landscape, only to have it all fall apart and get ugly a few years in? Before moving forward with any project, consider asking for past projects done by the landscaper in the past, and see how they are holding out-years later. Also, never forget to search Google reviews for quick feedback on past customer experiences!

3. Efficiency

So you trust the landscaping group you are working with. You know they do quality work. Except, how well do they keep to a certain timetable? That is the key ingredient that ties everything together. A landscaping project may look great, but if it takes a year to finish-that first fact hardly matters.

Making sure your project manager will keep your properties transformation on schedule and timely is not something to overlook. Again, be sure to see what past clients have said about the landscapers you are looking at, people who spend time and money on something usually share their opinions!

So in summary, if you can trust a landscaper, know the job will be done well, and expect the work to be done when it’s supposed to be-you know you found a winner, and that your money will be worth the cost of the landscaping!

If plants, trees, or anything alive is important to you and your landscape design-soil is going to play a key factor. However, not all “soil” is created equal.
There are three main types of soil: Clay, Sand, and Loam.

Clay will absorb water and keep it for long periods of time, making large trees able to thrive when lots of clay is present, but will kill many other plants.
Sand allows water to flow like wind blows through a screen door. Desert plants don’t need much water, which makes sense-they are usually sticking out of sand as far as the eye can see.
Loam is a scientific code-word for “the good stuff”. For most landscaping plants, especially high maintenance ones, loam is the dirt you want in your garden ground.

Although loam is usually desirable in most situations, depending on the area of a landscape and what plants/trees you want, various types of soil can be used strategically. For example elk, maple, and oak trees (which provide shade and defense against erosion) do very well with clay soil, while a normal garden should probably have plenty of loam. If a tropical plant is desired, sand will make sense for Black Eyed Susans or Lavender bushes.

So, before diving headfirst into adding plants to your landscape, make sure the right soil for the right life on your landscape is present. If that is not the case, no problem! It might drive the cost of landscaping up, but will be well worth it. Just ask your landscape group if they can properly adjust and fill your areas of importance with the right soil.

The final thing to consider while putting together a landscaping project is the current condition of the yard and area. Like soil and plants, if your yard is going to need some significant modification, that is something to calculate properly. Does your yard have lots of patchy grass or dead plants? Are you going to want a fence (or new fence) to surround your property? What about patios and decks, will the old one have to go before the new one comes in? If you want a pool, will the ground need some digging? Or, is there a sloped part of the yard that needs flattened? All these are important questions to consider when landscaping. You may need some prep work done on the area before jumping into the dream idea. This should not deter from any ideas, but should just be accounted for in the total cost.

In summary, when considering the cost of landscaping you must find out what you desire. The total price of landscaping can vary heavily depending on the design, what features you want, the plants involved, options for the landscaper group, soil conditions, and the current state of your landscape-and how different that is from what your dream area should look like.

Because the price can vary, here are a two examples of what Landscape Management Group has created and what you should expect on how much landscapers charge, depending on your package of desired landscape functions:

This family went all out on their backyard walkout-patio. Their dream project included a full backyard landscape renovation, an outdoor kitchen, fireplace, and pergola The cost of the project totaled around 150k.

Is 150k pushing the envelope a bit? Here is a smaller city backyard oasis.

Here is what the small backyard looked like before the work began:

Their dream project included a full landscape renovation, paver patio, an outdoor kitchen, and fence. The cost of the project totaled around 30k. Here is what it looks like now!

Here are the steps to get the process started with Landscape Management Group:

First we have a phone conversation with you to understand the 3,000 foot view, and then schedule a professional consultation. During the consultation, we refine the vision while keeping options and your budget in mind. You will not only have a vision but also have a very good idea of what your project budget should be; and most often, we will take the next steps to schedule a 3D Design model preview with one of our Landscape Designers.

Then, your representative and your dedicated Landscape Designer present your design with every detail. No need wasting time going back and forth with design revisions. In fact, these designs can all be online via video conferencing. We can make all the revisions you need right in front of you! Our goal is to not only show you a great perspective of your upcoming project and make any revisions necessary until we get it right. By the end of this design preview, we are ready to present an official proposal. usually the same day!

Next, you accept and we get you on the schedule (very simply & efficiently!). This is where your rep brings on your dedicated project manager. Don’t worry, your sales rep (who you love working with by now) will stay linked up to the project every step of the way to ensure no details are forgotten. Your project is set up on a timeline (that we give you access to view!) including the design, detailed project explanation video, delivery dates and start dates for every part of your project!

More questions? Find your answers on our Landscape FAQs page.

From the original consultation all the way to the finished project, we truly don’t miss a beat! That is why we strive to be the best. We are very proud to be an industry leader. We think you should just go straight to the sources and check our Reviews on Google, that way you can decide who is really the best around!

Click here to schedule your professional consultation!