Landscaping!!

[Skatermom23]

I am already looking forward to Spring and thinking our project for this year should be the yard. Anyone have stories to share on what you did, size of yard and cost involved?

 

[RitaZ.]

We are in the process of re-doing our landscaping. Very few plants were left standing and in good shape after Wilma.

It depends on what you want to do. I got one estimate, it was for $25K. So, we decided to do it ourselves. It's a lot of hard work and plants are expensive. We are choosing palms that are known to do well in hurricanes, we have to plan for that. I bought a small 4 ft. Dwarf Poinciana for $100. That one won't do well in a hurricane, but it won't grow to more than 15 ft. The blooms are so pretty, I just had to get it.

We are in S. FL, so palms are great. We're incorporating several of them into the landscaping (fox tails, alexander, adonidia, pygmy date & one more whose name I can't remember). It really depends on how much you want to do and how much you want to spend. I will be going to my local nursery to buy some more plants very soon. We are almost done with one side of the front of the house.

Good luck!

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Have you thought of paying a landscape designer, for just the plans?

That's what we're doing in our backyard.

We'll pay someone to come in with the planting mix, but we'll purchase the plants ourselves and put them in the ground.

 

[Skatermom23]

Have you thought of paying a landscape designer, for just the plans?

That's what we're doing in our backyard.

We'll pay someone to come in with the planting mix, but we'll purchase the plants ourselves and put them in the ground.

Actually I did that this week. She drew up some really nice plans and the cost was $7400 plus an additional $3000 or so for the sprinkler system. This didn't include a whole lot of plants. Most of it was for the edging and small rock wall my DH wants to do in front. We have that hard red clay, which is a bear to dig in, so I don't know if I really want to do the work ourselves. I was just curious as to what others invest in their yards.

 

[Bob Slydell]

We built our house around 3 years ago and had a professional landscape architect do all the landscaping for our house (in phases over the 3 years). I admit, it was enormously expensive, but when we sat down to debate on it, we decided we'd rather pay upfront to have it done right the first time than pay twice to tear stuff out and fix it.

They've done a wonderful job of giving us very detailed plans for everything they've done and the crew of workers they have is top notch, so we think we've gotten value for what we've paid.

I might still have some pictures of the various things they've done if you're interested.

 

[barkley]

best thing we did was contact the local college's architectural program to see if they had any senior students interested in doing a design for us. we ended up with a stunning design at no cost-the student was thrilled to be able to do one for a project that they could actualy take photos of before and after

second best thing-regrading the yard and doing a drainage system. while our neighbors yards would get huge puddles in the winter and spring, ours drained wonderfully. we ended up doing the sprinkler system as well as an integrated (to the timer) drip system for all the plants as well as some raised planter beds (for a veggie garden on the side yard). back in 1999 it cost us about $7500-but when we sold it was a big factor in making ours price out the same as those in the neighborhood with in-ground pools.

oh, and if you're patient-get some very young japanese maples. they are gorgeous-and to buy one the size ours grew to in just 6 years would have run over $1500 (vs the couple of hundred we paid).