We have put in more than two hundred new landscapes in Delta County. Bare dirt to finished yard, and most of them started with somebody standing in the middle of it with no idea where to begin.
It does not have to happen all at once
A finished landscape on a new build is the largest single number most people see on a property after the house itself. The usual reaction is to put the whole thing off for a year, and that is the expensive version — another summer of weeds, another winter of runoff, and dirt tracked through the house the whole time.
Phasing works. Grading and irrigation this fall, lawn and the main beds next spring, the patio the year after. What makes phasing work rather than turn into three disconnected projects is that the whole thing gets designed first — including the parts nobody is building yet.
Which is why the plan comes first
Sleeves go under a patio before the patio exists. Irrigation zones get laid out for the beds that are coming, not only the ones going in this year. Grade gets solved once, for the finished property, instead of adjusted three times.
Do it the other way and phase three means cutting into phase one.
What a new build usually leaves you
Ground that has had equipment on it all summer, which means compaction most of the way down. Topsoil that was stripped and never came back. Construction debris that got graded over rather than hauled off. And a grade set to move water away from the foundation, which is not the same thing as a grade that works for a landscape.
None of that is a builder doing anything wrong. It is what a construction site is when the house is finished. It is also why a new landscape starts with dirt work rather than with plants, and why the first number you see includes work that will be invisible when it is done.
If you are working to a deadline
Some subdivisions require the landscape to be finished within a set time after you move in. If that is your situation, say so early. The build season here is short, and the difference between starting the conversation in January and starting it in May is whether that deadline is comfortable or not.
Budget
Tell us the number. A real budget stated up front gets you a plan built to it, in phases if that is what it takes. A budget nobody mentions gets you a proposal that may be twice what you had in mind, and two weeks wasted for both of us.
Start a Project or call 970-835-9661