Having a professional landscaping team handle the relevant portions of a project ensures that no matter the job, you’ll be covered both inside and out. Contracting a landscaping team has benefits for both homeowners and building companies, and as tempting as it may be to do the job solo, there’s a lot of hidden costs and pitfalls to consider.
There’s money written all over it
Making excellent use of your land boosts the value of any property significantly. While it won’t put a major price up on a dingy granny-flat, any property worth its salt will have its retail value pumped by up to 28% with a worthwhile landscaping job.
Plus, like it or not first impressions count in the property market. Styling a property as one cohesive whole, rather than having an elegant inside clashing against a manky outside, is enough to give somebody increased confidence for the past and future of the house.
A decent job will also cause a house to function much more efficiently. Owners will save on:
- Electricity bills from efficient lighting and water distribution services.
- Heating and cooling bills from efficient energy trapping (simply placing the correct trees in the correct position can alleviate costs by up to 20%, retaining heat AND blocking wind).
- Watering bills from using water-retaining native Australian plant life.
You’ll be greener for it
Basic landscaping isn’t tough, just like how basic First Aid can be taught in a weekend course. However, making a functional, aesthetic design that ticks all of a client’s boxes while still contributing back to the environment is almost impossible without training.
A professional landscaping team can help you out by choosing and installing the correct selection of terrain and aesthetic to suit your needs. If you’re after an efficient native garden, they’ll be able to find the correct water-retaining grasses and plant life and suitably arrange them, while also considering watering routes, sunlight, shade, and human interactivity.
They’ll conform to your plans
The first problem most professionals and home buildersrenovators alike have with hiring a landscaping team is giving up control over the planning and design of a building. It’s easy enough to think of a construction job as a simple block of land, but a proper job will include plans for usability, flow-through, air, sunlight, and general livability that might not be readily apparent to an untrained eye.
It’s understandable in this circumstance that someone would think twice about handing off a portion of the design process to an outside source, but a landscapers primary consideration (other than general aesthetic) is fitting their work to the building project that they represent.
This might seem obvious (of course their plans would follow yours. It’s your vision!), but only if you’re underestimating the sheer amount of work that goes into a landscaping job.
Landscaping can sometimes be a precarious balance of fitting as much of a client’s specifications as possible. There’s a lot to consider, on a scale that most people can’t account for (more on that later). Some things simply won’t work, or won’t work efficiently, and can be tweaked in a way that will either add to — or minimum won’t detract from — a client’s vision.
Getting professional landscaping done means that you won’t hit those night-unforeseeable snags yourself, and you’ll be able to count on the advice of dedicated professionals who know how to both avoid and overcome those pitfalls.
They understand the garden
In the same way that a builder understands a room more intimately than the simple four walls that surround it, landscapers understand the outside composition of a garden.
There’s extra considerations that go into even a regular suburban front or backyard, and these only increase in scale as the scope of a project gets larger.
Landscapers have to consider, as part of their project:
- Illumination – pathing, natural and artificial light sources.
- Human space vs. natural space – the ‘journey’ of the garden (pathing, sightlines, etc).
- Aesthetic – the general look of the place from an outside eye.
- Garden health – soil, ease of access for watering, waterways, sunlight, healthy composition of suitable plant life.
- Boundaries – both the edges and joiners that connect the garden to the outside world or the inside of the house.
There are aspects you can’t control for
On top of this, a professional landscaping company will have staff that understand minute specifications of local conditions and fauna.
It’s fairly unlikely that any smaller building company or DIY job would think to take into consideration the topography of the landscape around the building, or to consider the frost line or potential flood spread. A landscaping company will do this and more. What’s more, they’ll be able to not only know what to look for, but they’ll have the expertise and capability to fix it, and completely revamp the entire shape or structure of the area if needed to do so.