Landscaping

Installing and maintaining landscaping around your home can be a costly undertaking. Even the perfect landscape can end up a source of vexation instead of pleasure — if it costs you more than you can afford to install and keep up.

With these few helpful tips, you can save money on your landscaping without sacrificing quality or beauty.

Plan Before You Spend

Plan before you make any purchases. Without a plan, you may buy things you don’t really need, and that can waste money.

Begin with a rough sketch of your landscape design. Next find out exactly what you need to make it possible. If you need advice, there are a number of websites where you can get ideas for creating your project. Specialty stores and some home improvement warehouses have experts on hand who can give you pointers.

Once you’ve done your homework, and know exactly what you need, you can start spending, without fear of money wasters intruding.

Purchase In Phases

Your written plan should include a timetable for when you will install each portion of your landscape. Most people can’t afford to make all the changes at once. Planning your landscape project in phases lets you buy what you need as you go, and as the money becomes available. This phased financing lets you avoid the interest and fees associated with home improvement loans or putting your purchases on credit cards.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality

It’s good to remember that cheaper is not always better. If there is very little difference in quality, then buying the cheaper item is naturally the best course. However, local stores are often staffed with seasoned experts who will share their wisdom for free if you ask questions while making a purchase. Specialty stores can give you accurate information on installing a water feature, for example. If you are inexperienced in landscaping, you can save money in the long run by spending a little extra for better service, experienced help and advice.

Check Plants Carefully

If you’re making your purchases at a “big box” store, be sure to carefully inspect plants for diseases and insect problems. These stores seldom give their plants the kind of care that a nursery would. If the plant you buy is diseased, you’ll have to buy it all over again when it dies, and that’s money down the drain. Furthermore, the disease or pest can spread to your other landscaping. Many nurseries offer warranties and guarantees free of charge on their plants.

Buy When Prices Are Low

If you plan your landscaping ahead, you can determine when each phase needs to be accomplished. You can buy lumber during the winter when it is cheaper, and store it until you are ready to use it. Buy trees, shrubs, perennials, mulch, and soil late in the season when the prices go down. In most places, you can wait until October to make your maintenance purchases and still have time to winterize your landscape. Keep an eye out for plant sales at local nurseries. You can find really good quality plants at low prices this way.

Pursue Other Resources

Explore alternative resources. Stores are not the only places to get what you need. You can order through catalogs or online. Membership in a garden and seed club can yield very good prices on many items, as well as useful advice.

Try arranging a plant exchange in your neighborhood. Some cities offer low-price or free mulch and compost, and you can check construction or demolition sites for free stones and bricks.

Neighborhood Cost Sharing

Approach your neighbors about sharing costs. If you pool your resources, you can get some good deals on items bought in bulk, and everyone benefits. In the same vein, you can share the rental fees for machinery such as chippers, tillers, and aerators. If everyone chips in a few dollars, you can work out a schedule that lets each neighbor use the equipment before it is due back. This is a great way to reduce the costs of your landscaping.

By heeding a few of these money-saving tips, you can hold down your costs and create a beautiful landscape that you can afford to maintain.

If you have interest in using landscaping stone in your yard, garden, koi pond or walkway, don’t limit yourself to the traditional. Consider finding or shopping for unique stones to add flair or accent to your plans. Landscaping stone can be versatile, used for simple decoration or as a foundation for much more.
Some of the uses for landscaping stone include flooring, such as for a patio, foundations for outbuildings, such as a gazebo, or even outbuildings completely made of stone. Fireplaces look great in stone (just watch out for river rock; pockets of steam could heat up and explode in a fire pit or fireplace) as do bases for planters. Entire columns could be made of stone, either as end caps for a stone wall or to support lamps or planters.
Whatever you eventual use of landscaping stone, seek out the unusual. Below are just two examples of what you might find.
Geodes
Geodes, on the surface, seem like unremarkable, round, fist sized lumps of white or tan rock. They could serve well in a planter or flowerbed for a little hardscaping, but the real gem about these rocks lays inside. Some geodes are lined inside with layered siliceous material of various color or even clear quartz crystals; the effect is a wavy, smooth, crystalline surface. You may not have a diamond-saw handy to slice one open, but you should be able to find nice specimens in a rock shop. They make great bookends for indoors, and can frame a showcase plant in your garden.
Thunder Eggs
It is almost worth using Thunder Eggs as a landscaping stone just for the great conversation possibilities. If the name was not unusual enough, it is also the State Rock of Oregon (although it is more a stone than a rock, but I suppose State Stone is asking too much.) Thunder Eggs are very much akin to geodes, as they are a shell filled with agate. They are different from geodes in that they have a solid center, often displaying a great contrast between the rocky shell of brown and the milky white and clear crystal center. Even solid, undivided Thunder Eggs are interesting to look at, with bubbly protrusions that do give the appearance of some strange egg.
Check with rock shops that cater to rock hounds for some unique finds. While the expensive might prohibit you from paving your patio with Thunder Eggs, a combination of a few unique specimens with more traditional landscaping stone would work well with almost any plan.

A complete makeover of your home’s landscape may not be possible. After all, there is no surprise that if you choose to completely re-do your landscape you will spend a great deal of money. However, there are surprising hidden costs in nearly any landscaping project, even some of the small ones. It is important to be aware of some of the costs that you might not normally think of before you begin a project. Otherwise, you will find that the project’s true cost is much more than you thought it would be, and you may discover that you might not have been able to afford your landscape change after all.
Perhaps the most hidden of landscaping costs involves features that require lighting and water. Many people think only of the cost of the equipment, and the cost of putting it in (which is minimal if they put it in themselves). They fail to consider how much money they will spend in the form of paying for increased energy and water usage. With outdoor lighting, it is possible to mitigate this cost somewhat by buying more energy efficient bulbs, or by confining the use of outdoor lighting to times when there is a special occasion. There is no reason for the lighting if you only use it so that the neighbors can admire your landscape even at night. Reserve the use of your outdoor lighting for times when you are entertaining people out of doors, or when you are sitting in your yard at night, and may need the light. Water features are a double whammy, as they require energy and water. Using a feature that reuses its own water can cut down a little bit on your water usage (although there will always be water lost to evaporation), and it is now possible to find some features that use less energy. However, if you must have a water feature and are afraid of the costs you will incur, you can always choose a very small pond or waterfall.
Related to the issue of water features is paying for water use when you water the lawn. Setting up sprinklers on a timer will ensure that you do not have to rely on your memory to remember to turn them off. It is important to note that most people water their lawns two or three times more then they need to. The average lawn actually receives about the same amount of water as a tropical rainforest. This is not necessary for your lawn. Watering each part of your lawn for 15 minutes two or three times a week (depending on climate) is usually sufficient, if it is not new sod (which requires a good soak every day the first week). Additionally, it is a good idea to take into account the amount of extra water you will be using to help sod or a tree establish itself. This can add up to be quite a bit of extra water, and if you city charges more money once your usage reaches a certain point, it can be even more costly.
Also, you may not realize how much money you might spend if your soil is poor. Before being in raptures about a particular plant, determine what kind of soil it needs to thrive, this will make a difference in whether your plant lives or dies. The costs of adding fertilizer to sandy soil or gypsum to clay soil can begin to add up. This problem can be remedied, however, if you examine what plants grow natively in your region. By choosing plants that grow well in the soil you have, or in near conditions, you can save a great deal on soil amendment. Most local master gardeners will give you guidance on native plants for free, or for a very small fee.
Just as there are hidden costs in nearly everything, landscaping, too, has hidden costs. The key is to be informed about the various consequences of your landscape choices, and to be careful in what you decide to do. While the up front costs may not be too unreasonable, you may find that as you continue to enjoy your new landscape, the later costs may be more than your landscape is worth.

For the avid do-it-yourself landscaper, the right tools are important. After all, if one wishes to save money on the expenses associated with having a well cared for yard, it is best to make sure that he or she has all of the tools necessary to create an attractive landscape. By understanding some of the most common tools used for basic landscaping needs, you can ensure that you have everything you need to keep your lawn in the best possible shape, bringing delight and distinction to your grounds, be they large or small.

Shovels, rakes, trowels, and hand cultivators. These are the most basic of tools when it comes to landscaping. Every home should be supplied with these basic implements. They make just about every landscaping endeavor possible. Shovels to remove sod and turn soil, as well as dig the holes necessary for fixtures like trees and hardscapes, Rakes are essential to smooth out planting beds and prepare ground for things like sod without packing the dirt. Trowels and hand cultivators allow you to perform minute work that requires more attention to detail. All of these tools are necessary to the proper functioning and care of a landscape.

Pruners and shears. These tools are used to improve the appearance of woody plants and trees. They keep plants from encroaching in other areas, and they also promote the overall health of the plants. They help maintain a neat appearance, and if you have topiary concerns, they are indispensable in maintaining a set shape. There are hand pruners, tools that help with the smaller branches and are easier to use, loppers for getting thicker branches that are to large for pruners, and even pruning saws that can help you with the toughest of branches. Hedge shears provide a way for hedges to be trimmed more conscientiously than with electric or gas-run trimmers (although these are widely available and can make maintaining hedges much easier).

Lawnmower. This is perhaps one of the most common and most obvious of landscaping tools. It is meant to keep the grass at a reasonable level, and to keep the lawn neat and healthy. Related to lawnmowers in the trimming department are things like weed wackers, which are very useful in keeping edges that can’t be cut by a mower nice and neat. Additionally, the use of some special machinery, designed to eliminate thick brush is useful to have on hand, even it is only in the form of a machine rented once a year.

Other tools of interest. Of course, there are specialty tools that may be needed depending upon on the features of your landscape. If you have a water fixture, it is important to make sure that you have the proper pumps and filters, and that you have little skimmers that can allow you to remove larger pieces of debris from the water. Automatic sprinklers can make watering the lawn and your other plants much easier, and you should have a garden hose for special watering needs. Regular household tools such as hammer and nails, levels, and drills can be helpful if you have built landscape features like patios, decks, pergolas, and trellises. They can also be useful in building things like containers and creating raised beds.

Wheelbarrow. A wheelbarrow will always be of infinite use for the avid landscaper and improver. Wheelbarrows are very useful for moving debris as well as bringing needed implements to their proper places. They haul dirt and bring in plants. They make it possible to for one person to carry a load that otherwise she or he would not be able to handle. For the serious landscaper, a wheelbarrow is indeed necessary.

When you have all of the tools necessary to take care of your landscape, then you are well rewarded for your hard work. Acquiring the more common tools can also save you money in the long run, as they can be used over and over again. Additionally, many of the more common landscape tools are fairly small in size and easy to store in a garage or a shed. As long as they are kept neatly arranged in place, they are easy to get to when needed, and not hard to find. Proper maintenance of you tools is important: keep them from becoming rusty, and make sure your lawnmower and other gas or electric implements are well oiled and always have plenty of gas. Proper care of your tools ensures that you will be able to properly care for your landscape.

Most homes have a few trees in the yard. Since they provide shade when it is too hot outside, it is only right that you landscape around the trees to make part of the beautiful scenery.

So how do you do that? The first thing you have to do is get in touch with arborist, a horticulturist or a forester. This is because planting around trees the wrong way can damaged the roots and kill the tree. Once they have established a protected root zone, you will be able to plant flowers and shrubs without any problems.

Instead of planting these on the ground, you can use planted boxes which does a great job of reducing mower damage. If you do decide to use these, be sure to maintain the soil at the original level and that the installation edging materials do not cut the tree roots.

The water requirement for plants and trees are also different. For instance, grass and plants have to be watered daily or three times a week. While the tree on the other hand only needs one application.

To prevent this from happening, you should also construct an irrigation system that is able to cater to the needs of both. You can make this happen by putting the water lines in one corridor outside the protected root zone.

But if it has to go through, make sure bore a hole only two feet below grade. Again, the improper way of doing this will compromise the tree’s stability and health.

But what if you suspect that something is wrong with tree? For that, you will have to inspect the base of the tree.

All trees have a natural root flare located at the base. If there is no flare and there is an excess fill, this has to be removed in order to save the life of the tree. Some of the work can be done by hand while the rest is done with a machine.

So if you want to landscape around trees, it is best to lay a 2 to 4 inch later of organic mulch at the base of the tree and then extend this outward to the protected root zone. Examples of these include wood chips and shredded bark. They must not be piled up against the tree trunk because this keeps the bark wet that leads to the growth of bacteria and fungi.

You must not also use landscaping fabrics or sheet plastic underneath mulch because they prevent oxygen and water going to the roots of the trees.

It is advised to prone out dead, low and rubbing branches. You must never pull on the healthy ones because this will reduce the tree’s ability to withstand heavy winds.

Irrigation must be done in the absence of precipitation. This should be done regularly during the fall until the ground freezes with periods that allows the soil to dry.

If you follow the tips mentioned, you will soon have a nice yard that surrounds a tree. Of course landscaping around trees is just one way to make your yard look good. But as this case has shown, planting flowers or shrubs into the ground and watering them is not as easy as it looks because you also have to pay attention the needs of the tree so both will be able to live.