During the coldest days of winter, garden seed and flower bulb catalogs start to arrive in the mail.
As silly as that may seem, avid gardeners start planning their gardens several months ahead of time.
Similarly, if there is a home landscape project you have in mind, start your planning early.
Whether you intend to do it yourself or hire a landscape contractor, it’s not too early to start planning anywhere from two to six months ahead of when you want the project to be finished.
Here are the basics steps you will need to complete as you go through the landscape design and construction process.
What Will Your Project Will Be?
Even if it’s just a simple patio, think about how you want the finished landscape to look. Skim through landscaping magazines and design websites for pictures and ideas.
Dream big; you can always scale back later. You might spend days or weeks on this phase of the project.
Choose a Landscape Designer
This may be you or it may be a professional landscape architect or designer. It is possible you will work with a landscaper that does both design and installation.
Even if you plan to do the construction yourself, there are advantages to consulting with a design expert.
They have the experience to make your project better while potentially steering you away from problems you had not thought about. Finding the right designer may take several days or weeks.
Create a Design Plan
If you are working with a professional, this may be a several week process.
At a minimum, there will be an initial meeting, a preliminary design review and a final plan presentation.
If you design the project yourself, take time to do it right by evaluating different concepts and options. Don’t rush the design phase.
Get Your Materials
Whether you are completing the project yourself or using a contractor, ensure materials are ordered well prior to beginning work in order to minimize the amount of time your outdoor property is unusable.
Installing Your Landscape Project
This part always takes longer than you think! A good landscape contractor may have enough work lined up that it will be several weeks before they can start your project.
It’s also easy to underestimate how long your own efforts will take.
A small project that you hope to finish in a weekend will probably take two or three.
Adding up each phase of the project, it is easy to create a timeline of several months. For do-it-yourself projects, the planning phase depends upon how much time you have available.
When working with professional landscapers, planning depends upon their availability. Of course, the size of the project is also a factor.
Regardless, you can see that planning a landscape project is a multi-step process. The time to start planning is now!
If you have any questions about landscaping supplies or planning, contact us or visit our location today.