One of the key elements to having a beautiful home is having a great landscaped background. DIY-ers, in their attempt to save money, often find out it was a false economy, with accidents, lack of tools or expertise leaving them with all sorts of problems that end up being more expensive to fix than it would have been to hire a professional in the first place.

Often, you can save money on your landscaping without sacrificing quality or beauty and achieve your landscaping goals by hiring a professional landscaper contractor or landscape designer to oversee and help you plan your work, even if you then save money by helping with labour or picking up materials.

That said, an independent designer might cost you thousands of dollars.

Although you may be able to access reasonably good free plans on the internet or at a nursery,  if you’re not sure about what to do or if you’ve got a tricky piece of land (e.g a steep block, or sudden slope) –  then a professional contractor may give you the expertise and peace of mind to prevent you making a costly mistake.

Hiring a professional will also give you accountability, professional indemnity, insurance benefits, and with that, peace of mind.

Top 7 Landscaping Tips: Tip #6: Budget

There are many hidden costs to landscaping that you may not think of straight away.

Apart from the obvious costs of landscaping such as diggers, drainage, infill, retainer walls, turf, paths, rockeries, pebbles, and walls, there are also ongoing costs that many people do not consider.

For example, outdoor lightning can be quite expensive.  If electric lights are used, do they need to be on all the time or only if you’re entertaining or spending some time in the yard, and using a timer or motion sensor? Are you able to use solar powered lights?

Water use may add up as well, especially if you have a pool or a pond.

It is a good rule of thumb to always add 10% for the things you’ve forgotten – ‘contingencies’ – which should also offset any increase in materials costs.

A good landscape designer or contractor can suggest more cost-effective workarounds for certain things you may want to do. If you can avoid digging or infill, for example, then you may end up with more to spend on some good quality timber decking or other visible part of your design, giving you more ‘bang for your buck’.

Murphy’s Law may mean that you end up with the hardware and landscaping suppliers being out of stock of something you need, often forcing you to buy a more expensive choices that is in stock.

Successful landscape design is not just about style, but just as importantly about function.

When planning your landscape design, it’s important to keep your lifestyle needs in mind, in terms of a use of space.

You may want to ask yourself the following questions:

• What will the space will be used for?
• How do you imagine using the space?
• Do you want to include an area for entertaining?
• Will your entertaining area be formal, or casual, i.e. barbeque?
• Would the flower bed you are considering in the middle of the lawn inhibit family games?
• Is there to be an area for children to play?
• Is there a fishpond or a swimming pool, and how will that affect safety and compliance?

A good place to start is to focus on the area where you spend most of your time.

The best landscape designs combine attractiveness with utility and function.

Top 7 Landscaping Tips: Tip #4: Lifestyle

When planning your landscaping or consulting with a landscape designer or contractor, it’s also very important to consider your lifestyle – both in terms of the type of plants you’d choose, but in your use of the space and how you like to live.

For example, if you’re more than happy to spend hours caring for beds of annuals and pruning beds of roses, and love spending hours gardening, then it’s fine to go ahead and plant time and care-intensive garden.

However, if you’re a person who prefers to spend your free time at the beach, or enjoys taking off on holiday, then an easy-care garden and landscape may suit you better.

Tip #3: Take the style of your home into consideration

Before beginning your landscaping work, it’s best to take the style of your home into account. It’s very important to ensure that your landscape design is going to harmonise with your home, both from a design point of view and practical point of view.

If your landscaping and your home have differing styles, although that can sometimes look okay in a quirky sort of way, more often than not it will probably clash!

If you have a simple and rustic country cottage, for example, then formal gardens surrounding it may look out of place.

A cohesive theme that flows throughout the property from inside to outside is usually much better from every point of view.

Tip #2: Collect (or even steal!) landscaping ideas

In their desire to be original with their landscaping, people often get very confused.

It can often be a much more practical starting point to base your landscape design on an existing design, look, or style you’ve seen and like.

Books, magazines, and the internet are great sources of landscape design ideas and styles, as is driving around the neighborhood and taking pictures or making notes.

When you see landscaping design that you like  - photograph it, copy it, and keep a record. You can always customise and tweak a design to your taste and make it your own later, especially considering that your property and space is going to be a little or a lot different anyway.

Your scrapbook, ‘look book’, or vision board will be a great asset to be able to show your landscape designer.

As they say, a picture paints a thousand words, and an experienced landscaper will have the expertise and experience to

• look at your pictures and figure out what you like about them
• be able to plan how to plan, design and technically execute what you want

Once the design is personalised and adapted to your personal taste, your property and the desired function, the design will be all your own even if it was originally influenced by another landscape design.

Tip #1: Planning

The first step in landscape or garden planning is to look at what you already have.

Keep a list of things you presently like and dislike about your existing landscape, the changes you’d like to make, as well as your plan for the use of your landscape space and the additional landscaping design you would like to have.

Be sure to bear in mind how your home looks during different seasons, and how things change. Ideally, you should do this for one year, so that you can see what you have during each season.

A good idea is to keep a journal or folder of landscape ideas. Find out what is it that you like and dislike about your current landscape design and write it down in this folder or journal.

Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:

living elements, such as flora or fauna

gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape

natural elements such as landforms, terrain shape and elevation, or bodies of water

human elements such as structures, buildings, fences or other material objects created and/or installed by humans

abstract elements such as the weather and lighting conditions

Landscaping is both science and art, and requires good observation and design skills. A good landscaper understands the elements of nature and construction, and blends them accordingly.

In order for human activity to be considered landscaping, it must be directed toward modifying the physical features of the land itself, including the cultivation and/or manipulation of plants or other flora.

Thales, the Greek Philosopher, argued that ‘any aspect of the material world affecting our visual perception of the land was a proper subject for landscaping’.

Philosophers in the 17th century debated whether visual beauty was a necessary goal of landscaping, with most having rejected the notion of an ‘objective aesthetic standard’ for any form of art, including landscaping.

Landscape Melbourne is a Landscaping and Property Maintenance family business based in Melbourne, Victoria.

Owner Nic Tashkoff offers a complete suite of landscaping and property maintenance services throughout Melbourne and major Regional centres.

Services

Melbourne Landscape provides landscape design, development, property maintenance, garden maintenance, water management, tree care, and environmentally friendly services to property owners.

Markets

Markets our business serves include individual residential, commercial, corporate, multi-lot subdivision, retail, mixed use, resorts, hospitality, and municipal.

Sustainability, Design, ROI

Our focus is on sustainability, design, customer enjoyment and return on investment.
With a philosophy that we should “live in the landscape rather than simply look at it”, Landscape Melbourne creates an outdoor space that allows the users to interact with the landscape rather than pass through it.

Increase the Value of your Property

Studies have shown that good landscaping design and layout can increase the value of a home by up to 15 percent. Improving your home’s landscaping is a great way to increase your property value.

Benefits of using Landscape Melbourne

In addition to increasing home value, other benefits include:
• Reducing energy expenditure.
• Improving your property’s appearance.
• Maximising usable space

Landscape Melbourne: Obligation-free Advice

The staff at Landscape Melbourne are happy to talk to you about any questions you may have regarding landscaping – the advice is obligation free.

Check out the website for many more free information articles on a range of subjects that we are updating regularly.