Can A Landscape Designer Really

Save You Money On Your New Home

Article Writen By: Reder Landscaping

Every dollar counts when building a new home, which is why so much time is invested in planning before actual construction begins. Unfortunately, though, thousands of dollars of the project budget are often thrown away because homeowners fail to plan ahead for the final stage of construction-the landscaping.

Choosing your designer early in the construction - planning process and working with him or her to decide on your landscape goals may not only save you thousands, but will also allow far greater creative possibilities foe the same many that waiting until construction is nearly complete before considering your landscaping needs. Planning ahead means that existing on-site materials can be exploited, and that features such as walks and driveways can be sited by your designer to fit with your landscape plan rather than trying to shoehorn your landscaping into leftover spaces.

As difficult as it is to believe, money is often simply lying around the building site waiting to be picked up. Consider the soil that moved during construction. Today's savvy homebuilder understands the value of the topsoil that is scraped aside in the first step of the building process. It can be spread over the property when the home is finished and will provide a good base for a new lawn. At $10 to $15 per cubic yard it may be worth one to three thousand dollars, so it is now common for this soil to be stockpiled on the site for later use, translating into big savings down the road.

But what about the subsoil that is excavated for the foundation and basement? It's generally hauled from the site when building is nearly finished so that the lot can be "rough graded," or , in other words, flattened to resemble every other lot on the street, and this usually happens right before the landscape designer is brought in and asked to help the owner's create a "unique" and beautiful setting for their new home. What many don't realize, though, is that the single greatest way to add drama and interest to a landscape is through contouring, or shaping the land, whether through a gently rolling lot interspersed with shade trees, or a sharply rising berm topped with stately evergreens and hemmed by a stone wall overflowing with perennial color. Proper contouring lends the feeling that the house is an integral part of the property rather than just a building sitting on top of it, and the excavated subsoil is an excellent and economical material to use in creating the framework.

By developing a landscape plan early, determining the extent to which this material can be utilized, and preserving tit on-site, a designer might as several thousand dollars worth of feature to the landscape budget that would otherwise have been thrown away! It's planning ahead that makes all the difference.

Sidewalks and drives are another area where early consultation with your designer can save money while providing more creativity. A front walk is required for all new homes before they can be approved for occupancy. If the homeowner has not made other arrangements, then the builder has no choice but to provide one before closing, but because builders tend to concentrate more on the building itself than on the ground surrounding it, the walks often end up as non-descript, three-foot wide strips of concrete leading more of less directly from the driveway to the front door. It's important to remember, though, that the entryway is the feature that provides guests with their first impression of a new home. Being forced to walk to the door single file along a narrow path that's identical to every other on the street doesn't exactly give the first impression most want their guest to have. This why a landscape designer's first priority will often be to create a spacious, welcoming entryway with a walk that is wide enough to allow two people to move comfortably side by side from the drive, through one or more transition areas, and into an arrival space such as an outdoor foyer or entry court at the front door.

If the landscape designer is not brought in until construction is almost complete, the builder will have already poured a walk, leaving only two choices: Either they to design a landscape around an unflattering entry, or teat out the existing walk at considerable expense (and the loss of the labor and materials already invested) and start again. Having a landscape plan available will before this stage of construction means that your builder can pour an entry that is perfectly suited to the rest of your plan (most likely for only for a few hundred dollars more than the standard walk) or that your landscape contractor can provide a more decorative stone to brick paver entry in time to meet the closing requirements without tearing out work already done.

In either case, a good designer and some advanced planning again means a far more effective landscape for several hundred to several thousand dollars less than might have been possible otherwise.