A professional landscaping plan by a landscape architect can boost curb appeal and add value to your home. But professional landscaping is expensive. So, instead of hiring a landscape company to do everything for me – with money I didn’t have, I hired a landscape architect to come out and draw me a landscape plan that I could execute by myself. I have been very pleased with the results, and my house even won “Yard of the Month”.
So, what did I do? How much did it cost? How long did it take? And maybe most important: if I had it to do over again, what would I have done differently?
“Builder special” landscaping
The problem I had was that I lived in a modest house in a pretty new neighborhood in the suburbs. What landscaping there was, was done by the builder. So, the landscaping material was limited and not very high quality. To make matters worse, the soil in my neighborhood was notoriously bad, and my soil in particular was mostly clay mixed with crush and run.
Hire a Landscape Architect
My first step was to meet with a local professional landscape architect, Bob Peter. At the time, Bob worked for Little and Little Landscape Architects, PLLC. I went over my situation and explained that what I wanted was to end up with a yard that was drought resistant and easy to maintain. I told Bob that I wanted the yard to look great but I did not want to have to pay for or baby exotic plants and shrubs. I wanted landscape materials that were about one or two steps above what the builder had used. Finally, I talked to him about his suggestions for what type of grass to use, and whether to put in a sprinkler or irrigation system. For about $500, Bob drew me the sketch shown above.