Landscaping has a significant role in raising a home’s curb appeal and monetary worth. Regarding landscaping, many homeowners must decide whether to hire a professional or do the work themselves.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore every aspect of this choice and provide you with the knowledge you need to make the right decision for your garden.
Hiring A Landscaper Vs. Do-It-Yourself
However, the homeowner may consider hiring professional assistance for major jobs, like redoing a whole garden.
Depending on the scope of the job, it may be worthwhile to hire a professional landscaper to ensure that the landscaping is done properly. Taking quick corners in the planning stages of a landscaping project can lead to expensive repairs down the road.
This is especially true regarding the design, soil preparation, plant selection, placement, and all the hardscaping decisions that must be considered.
It’s also important to note that many people have personal experience with hiring professionals and having things go wrong or not be completed to their satisfaction.
Do your due diligence on the professional you intend to hire by checking references, visiting their website or Facebook page, and reading reviews. Second, initiate the project on a small scale or divide it into more manageable chunks.
A huge garden doesn’t have to be completed in one sitting. Once a professional has begun working, you may evaluate their efficiency and quality of service before shelling out any more cash.
When Should You Hire A Landscaper?
Irrigation
Since we already discussed the aversion to installing irrigation for the native gardens, we saved this one for last. An indigenous garden should use only collected rainwater to evoke its natural inspiration
. Irrigation plays an important, if not key, part in the success of many recently planted gardens, vegetable patches, orchards, herb plots, beds of roses, and wide lawns.
If you want irrigation for your garden, remember these important points: Firstly, less is more; underwatering is better than overwatering. And secondly, it’s worth paying a little extra to install your irrigation system correctly.
Nothing is more annoying than an irrigation system that constantly leaks or the electrics gives trouble, so quality materials and a well-planned installation are important.
Hiring a landscaper or an irrigation-only firm to install your sprinkler system is a decision that needs to be made after careful consideration of the area to be irrigated and your goals for the garden.
An irrigation-only firm is fine if you install it for a vegetable garden or for existing lawn areas you intend to keep the same. However, hiring a landscaper beforehand is advisable if you plan on updating your garden and installing the irrigation to accommodate the modifications.
When creating an irrigation plan, a landscaper may consider the varying water needs of the various planting zones in your garden, both new and old.
A New Garden
Landing a new garden takes much time and effort, especially if the yard is expansive. How big is a tricky topic to answer because it is dependent on so many variables.
The smallest gardens are typically between 20 and 25 square metres in size, while our largest gardens might span an entire hectare. Most customers say they couldn’t have done it independently or needed to know how much work was necessary, regardless of project size.
A garden’s aesthetic value depends on several factors, including but not limited to its design, contouring soil preparation and drainage, plant species, plant placement, type of lawn, type of lawn edging, irrigation (if necessary), and types of hardscaping materials like gravel or pebbles.
The plants’ expense and the time spent driving around to find them are just two examples of how other factors come into play when gardening.
What about the animals, though? As wildlife-friendly landscapers, we aim to design gardens that entice not only birds and butterflies but also a variety of other helpful insects that may visit a highveld garden.
Because of the significance of plant selection in this context, these considerations should be given careful attention during the design process.
Lots Hardscaping
When discussing your landscape, the term “hardscaping” is used to describe the paved areas, water features, gravel, rocks, edges, and other man-made additions. Plan on doing a lot of hardscaping in your garden, such as installing a firepit or boma, decking, asphalt, gravel, or rocks. It may be more cost-effective to hire a professional landscaping company.
Most landscaping companies have established contacts with local hardscaping suppliers, allowing them to offer you preferential pricing.
If you hire a landscaper to oversee the hardscaping quantities, you won’t have to worry about having too much of anything at the conclusion of the project. The landscaper can use these goods in future jobs, but you may need help with unnecessary or superfluous supplies for years.
While a landscaper’s expertise with plants is invaluable, a landscaper’s familiarity with hardscaping trends, products, and which vendors carry high-quality materials is as valuable.
A Garden Renovation
Makeovers to existing gardens can be just as challenging as designing a brand new one, if not more so, because some plants may hold special meaning to the gardeners.
A garden’s design is crucial when starting from scratch, although it may already exist in an established garden and only requires minor tweaks.
Hiring a landscaper is helpful in makeovers when the design will stay the same because they will likely use their expertise and knowledge to complete the project.
Is it better to remove or prune an existing shrub? Is there a problem with drainage, the soil, or the plant itself that wasn’t apparent during the original consultation?
And how about instructing your gardener in the art of garden maintenance? Having a competent landscaper train your garden staff during the renovation might save you years of aggravation and costly blunders because not all gardeners know how to manage an indigenous garden.
A garden maintenance business should be able to assist with basic tasks like pruning shrubs and trees and raking leaves. However, if you want to transform your garden completely, it is money well spent to hire a professional landscaper.
Feature Of Natural Pond/Water
Is hiring a landscaper or a pond/water feature expert necessary to install your new water feature? This is another one of those “grey areas,” like lighting and tree felling. “It depends” is the correct response.
Your architect should be able to design the water feature and have the builder or a water feature expert install it if it is an integral component of your new home development, for example, if it is adjacent to the house.
However, if you want to add a water feature or pond to your garden, a landscaper can help you plan and incorporate it into the landscape.
A landscape designer will consider the entire garden when planning a water feature, considering the water feature’s size and shape, how it will interact with the garden’s existing walkways and seating places, and whether the water plants will work in harmony with the garden’s current flora. In this case, hiring a landscaper would be a good investment.
Furthermore, a natural pond will bring a new biodiversity hotspot to your landscape, letting you play with a wide range of water plants and attracting new species like frogs, dragonflies, and birds. Every wildlife-friendly landscaper ought to be thrilled by this development.
When To Do It Yourself
Lighting
We are occasionally asked to assist with garden lighting, typically with the placement of lights. Still, if the request is outside of a garden renovation, the update can be handled by you and an electrician or alone if you are utilising solar lights. It is up to you if you want to hire a landscape designer to assist you in figuring out how many and what kind of lights to put in your yard.
If you merely need garden lighting installed, you can save money by finding the best placement for your lights and having an electrician do the job instead of hiring a landscaper.
Lighting your garden can be tricky, so to get a feel for how many lights you’ll need and where to put them, try setting out candles in jars of glass and moving them around at night.
Place candles and other hardscaping elements at the base of your feature trees to provide ambient lighting. Hire an electrician to run cabled lights to the appropriate spots, or go the do-it-yourself solar lighting route.
Solar garden lights could be an excellent choice if your garden is exposed to a great deal of sunshine directly, but you should stay with cabled lights if your garden has a lot of shaded parts.
Small Vegetable Garden
DIY projects like a little vegetable garden are perfect for the average person. Thanks to the wide selection of planters and other gardening supplies available at any garden centre, you and your loved ones can reap the benefits of a well-tended vegetable garden.
You have the freedom to personalise your space by choosing the layout, materials, and colours you choose. An infinite number of combinations are possible with the vegetable kinds sold in trays and seed packets.
A Do-It-Yourself Water Feature
Depending on the size of the water feature and the water quality (filtration, circulation, aeration, etc.), fish and water plants can be added to your garden, adding a new dimension to your outdoor space while providing a soothing soundscape.
Maintaining a water feature, whether filling it up, cleaning it, or ensuring the pump is still running, is more involved.
Most homeowners would rather have a water feature than not have one, especially if the water feature is properly designed and maintained.
The water features sold at most garden centres come in a wide range of sizes, styles, and materials (such as concrete and fibreglass), so it’s easy to find one that suits your needs.
Depending on the type of water feature you want to install, all it may take to get it up and running is a bit of manual labour to dig the hole and some basic plumbing skills to install the pump.
In addition, if you’re going to put in your water feature, pick one that complements the style of your house and put it where you’ll enjoy it the most, like next to a seating area.
Tree Felling
Large tree felling isn’t a do-it-yourself activity. Still, we mention it here since, unlike with lighting, hiring a professional landscaper isn’t always necessary if you aren’t planning on renovating your garden.
If you have a large tree on your property that is causing damage or has perished, contact a professional tree felling service or arborist as soon as possible.
These experts will evaluate the circumstance (tree health, etc.) and provide guidance. If you’re considering upgrading your garden, you should initially call out to a competent landscaper. Working with them to devise a plan to cut down the tree and improve the garden afterwards would be beneficial.
Three Shrubs Or Trees To Be Planted
Homeowners occasionally look for assistance in purchasing and planting trees and plants. Because some nurseries offer planting services, we usually point them in the direction of those nearby.
There is the possibility of financial savings for homeowners using this method. You can also hire a gardener to help you dig the holes, have the plants delivered from a nursery, and then plant them yourself.
Home landscaping projects, including planting trees and plants, are satisfying and can reduce expenses. The nursery staff will be able to guide you through proper placement, compost, hole size, and maybe fertiliser.
However, if you want to improve the garden by planting trees, hiring a landscaper first to place the trees strategically inside the new environment is best.
A Small Garden For Play Or Experimentation
Creating your little garden is a creative and fulfilling experience that won’t break the bank. Gather inspiration from several sources (books, journals, the internet, a display garden, etc.), and then either design the garden yourself or have a professional landscaper do it.
You’ll need to make rather few journeys to the hardware store, garden centre, or other supplier to acquire the materials you’ll need for this modest project. If you have a small garden and use annual plants, you may easily switch it up whenever you like without spending a fortune.
Why Hiring A Landscape Designer Is Less Expensive Than Doing It Yourself
Some people may confuse landscaping with other outdoor summer tasks such as planting trees, bushes, flowers, and lawn mowing.
To clarify, landscaping is updating your current design by adding more features. To elaborate on this brief definition, landscaping entails more involved tasks than mowing the lawn every Saturday.
Professional Landscapers
Although it may seem like a lot of money to pay for a landscaper’s services, the truth is that landscaping in general is quite costly.
Hiring a landscaping service ensures top-quality results in less time than you hope to achieve. Hiring professional landscapers is smart because they are familiar with local ordinances and can complete the work more quickly and efficiently than you could on your own.
It’s safe to presume that you’re unaware of these guidelines; if you break one, you could face serious consequences, including the possibility of starting over.
DIY Landscaping
DIY projects appeal to us as humans for two primary reasons:
- They are enjoyable.
- They allow us to feel a sense of accomplishment in knowing that we were the ones who made “that”.
- They typically result in cost savings.
Even while those three reasons are usually correct, there are circumstances in which they are incorrect.
While it’s true that doing these tasks on our own can be rewarding and save us money, the reality is that they sometimes go differently than planned and often cost as much (or more!) than hiring an expert.
Time is a valuable resource, and every minute spent on one activity is a minute not spent on anything else.
Conclusion
Landscaping is a crucial aspect of a home’s curb appeal and monetary worth. Many homeowners decide whether to hire a professional or do the work themselves.
Hiring a professional is essential for major jobs like redoing a whole garden, as taking quick corners can lead to expensive repairs.
It is important to do your due diligence on the professional you intend to hire by checking references, visiting their website or Facebook page, and reading reviews.
When should you hire a landscaper? Irrigation is essential for the success of gardens, vegetable patches, orchards, herb plots, beds of roses, and wide lawns. Less is more, and it’s worth paying extra for a well-planned installation.
Hiring a landscaper beforehand is advisable if you plan on updating your garden and installing the irrigation to accommodate modifications.
Landing a new garden takes time and effort, especially if the yard is expansive. A garden’s aesthetic value depends on factors such as design, contouring soil preparation and drainage, plant species, plant placement, type of lawn, type of lawn edging, irrigation (if necessary), and types of hardscaping materials.
A do-it-yourself water feature can add a new dimension to your outdoor space and provide a soothing soundscape. However, maintaining a water feature is more involved and requires manual labor.
If you’re considering upgrading your garden, it’s best to consult a professional landscaper to evaluate the situation and provide guidance. Planning trees and plants can be done by hiring a gardener to help dig holes, deliver plants, and plant them yourself.
Home landscaping projects can be satisfying and can reduce expenses. However, if you want to strategically place trees, hiring a landscaper is best.
Landscaping can be more expensive than doing it yourself, but hiring a professional landscaper ensures top-quality results and is more efficient. They are familiar with local ordinances and can complete the work more quickly and efficiently than you could on your own.
Content Summary:
- Regarding landscaping, many homeowners must decide whether to hire a professional or do the work themselves.
- Depending on the scope of the job, it may be worthwhile to hire a professional landscaper to ensure that the landscaping is done properly.
- If you want irrigation for your garden, remember these important points: Firstly, less is more; underwatering is better than overwatering.
- And secondly, it’s worth paying a little extra to install your irrigation system correctly.
- Hiring a landscaper or an irrigation-only firm to install your sprinkler system is a decision that needs to be made after careful consideration of the area to be irrigated and your goals for the garden.
- However, hiring a landscaper beforehand is advisable if you plan on updating your garden and installing the irrigation to accommodate the modifications.
- When creating an irrigation plan, a landscaper may consider the varying water needs of the various planting zones in your garden, both new and old.
- A garden’s aesthetic value depends on several factors, including but not limited to its design, contouring soil preparation and drainage, plant species, plant placement, type of lawn, type of lawn edging, irrigation (if necessary), and types of hardscaping materials like gravel or pebbles.
- Plan on doing a lot of hardscaping in your garden, such as installing a firepit or boma, decking, asphalt, gravel, or rocks.
- And how about instructing your gardener in the art of garden maintenance?
- However, if you want to transform your garden completely, it is money well spent to hire a professional landscaper.
- However, if you want to add a water feature or pond to your garden, a landscaper can help you plan and incorporate it into the landscape.
- A landscape designer will consider the entire garden when planning a water feature, considering the water feature’s size and shape, how it will interact with the garden’s existing walkways and seating places, and whether the water plants will work in harmony with the garden’s current flora.
- In this case, hiring a landscaper would be a good investment.
- It is up to you if you want to hire a landscape designer to assist you in figuring out how many and what kind of lights to put in your yard.
- If you merely need garden lighting installed, you can save money by finding the best placement for your lights and having an electrician do the job instead of hiring a landscaper.
- Place candles and other hardscaping elements at the base of your feature trees to provide ambient lighting.
- Hire an electrician to run cabled lights to the appropriate spots, or go the do-it-yourself solar lighting route.
- DIY projects like a little vegetable garden are perfect for the average person.
- Depending on the size of the water feature and the water quality (filtration, circulation, aeration, etc.),
- fish and water plants can be added to your garden, adding a new dimension to your outdoor space while providing a soothing soundscape.
- Maintaining a water feature, whether filling it up, cleaning it, or ensuring the pump is still running, is more involved.
- Most homeowners would rather have a water feature than not have one, especially if the water feature is properly designed and maintained.
- Large tree felling isn’t a do-it-yourself activity.
- If you have a large tree on your property that is causing damage or has perished, contact a professional tree felling service or arborist as soon as possible.
- If you’re considering upgrading your garden, you should initially call out to a competent landscaper.
- Working with them to devise a plan to cut down the tree and improve the garden afterwards would be beneficial.
- Homeowners occasionally look for assistance in purchasing and planting trees and plants.
- You can also hire a gardener to help you dig the holes, have the plants delivered from a nursery, and then plant them yourself.
- Home landscaping projects, including planting trees and plants, are satisfying and can reduce expenses.
- However, if you want to improve the garden by planting trees, hiring a landscaper first to place the trees strategically inside the new environment is best.
- and then either design the garden yourself or have a professional landscaper do it.
- To clarify, landscaping is updating your current design by adding more features.
- Although it may seem like a lot of money to pay for a landscaper’s services, the truth is that landscaping in general is quite costly.
- Hiring a landscaping service ensures top-quality results in less time than you hope to achieve.
- Hiring professional landscapers is smart because they are familiar with local ordinances and can complete the work more quickly and efficiently than you could on your own.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Creative Control Do I Have With DIY Landscaping?
Opting for a DIY approach allows for personalised creative control. You can choose specific plants, design unique features, and express your style in crafting your outdoor space.
Can I Collaborate With A Professional Landscaper On My Vision?
Absolutely. Professional landscapers often collaborate with homeowners to integrate their vision into a well-informed design. This ensures a harmonious blend of your preferences and the landscaper’s expertise.
How Time-Efficient Are Professional Landscapers?
Professional landscapers, equipped with the right tools and a skilled team, can complete projects efficiently. This swift turnaround allows you to enjoy your revamped outdoor space without the extended timelines associated with DIY efforts.
What About Maintenance Considerations?
Maintenance is a crucial aspect of landscaping. Professionals often provide ongoing maintenance services, ensuring the longevity and vitality of your outdoor space. DIY projects may need a more professional touch for sustained beauty.
Are There Long-Term Benefits To Hiring A Professional Landscaper?
Professionals bring long-term benefits, including expertise, efficient project completion, and ongoing maintenance. These factors contribute to your landscaped area’s sustained beauty and functionality over time.
