Do-it-yourself landscaping
Do-it-yourself landscaping is never as simple as it looks. Websites, how-to videos, and magazines make it look so easy. When you actually get out in the yard and start working, whoever, you run into all sorts of unforeseen variables that challenge you at every turn.
This is where working with an online landscape design expert fromExterior Worlds can help you. It gives you the best of both worlds. You receive expert advice from someone with years of experience, and you get full freedom of choice in designing the landscape elements that most appeal to you.
Consulting with a professional landscape design firm can help you with complex challenges such as drainage, irrigation, elevation changes, tree root protection, and basic outdoor architecture. A landscape design consultant can either draw up a landscape master plan for a fee or help you sketch out of plan of your own.
He or she can also help guide you in knowing which elements to tackle yourself, and which elements need to be outsourced to a specialist. Certain vegetation is easier to work with than others, and the successful construction of outdoor structures is tied directly to the skills of the homeowner.
As a general principle, we recommend that do-it-yourself landscaping projects be restricted to plants, flowers, shrubs, and smaller trees. Large tree installation and maintenance should be turned over to a professional service in your area.
This is because the very largest of trees must be brought in on trucks and planted with special digging equipment that costs thousands of dollars to purchase, and hundreds of dollars to rent by the day.
It is much more practical to work with smaller trees such as Japanese Yew that can be installed with basic digging tools that you can operate by hand.
Any garden variety plant or shrub is also something that you can handle on your own, provided that the species is one that can grow in your part of the country.
As far as the inorganic forms of do-it-yourself landscaping go, we recommend that you focus on basic gravel, stone walkways, and masonry with brick or stone. A huge variety of outdoor decorative forms can be built with these simple elements using average skills and basic tools.
However, more complex structures, such as outdoor kitchens and custom patios, will require professionally developed plans and construction teams to build.
Regardless of how much or how little do-it-yourself landscaping work you actually do on your own, NEVER begin without some kind of plan on paper. If it is nothing more than a basic sketch drawn to scale, it is certainly better than trying to pull ideas out of your head and plant them in the ground as you go.
If you have any doubt about successful implementation of any part of your plan, do not hesitate to contact an online landscape design expert for a consultation. Your online landscape consultant can do several things to help you.
He or she can help you better develop your plan on paper and direct you to the best sources for materials. Your design consultant can also tell you what parts of your project really need to be handled by a specialist, and what type of specialist you should seek out for that service.
In exceptional cases, we can even travel to your location provided the scope of the project warrants an onsite visit and you are willing and able to cover the fees associated with travel, lodging, and onsite consulting and hands-on work.
For most do-it-yourself landscaping initiatives, however, professional assistance is primarily conceptual in the form of advice, with the actual work being done by the homeowner who takes pride and satisfaction in doing the work individually with as little help as absolutely necessary.