new construction landscaping Archives

Construction of a landscape for a new home can be easier and more cost effective than putting the landscaping in afterwards. The key is to start the new landscaping and in particular, the planning, design and construction as early as possible. As a guide to how to implement New Home Landscaping as cheaply and efficiently as possible, take a look at how some commercial landscape constructions.

New Home Landscaping design and construction

Top Money saving tips for new home landscaping and construction

Design the landscaping for your new home at the same time as your home.
Install landscaping services and infrastructure during your new home construction
Begin some of the landscaping before the new home construction.
Use tube stock plants as much as possible.
Use an experienced and skilled landscape designer.
Drip irrigation systems should be integrated with the new home construction.
Mulching around the new plants.
Work with the existing topsoil.

Design the landscaping simultaneously with your new home.

Landscape architect design traditional chinese garden plan.

The landscape as an extension of the home

The best landscape designs are those that integrate with your new home. The new home landscaping should be considered as part of the new home. In this way the new landscaping is an extension of the new home itself. An example of this is an outdoor eating area with a pergola near the kitchen. Part of the Melbourne lifestyle is having an outdoor barbecue, so the design of this area should really be an extension of the home.

A custom designed lap pool photo-realistic visualisation using landscape design tools.

Saving money by designing the new landscape early

Designing the new landscape early allows for all of the required connections to electricity and water to be planned in advance. Good landscape design for an outdoor eating area needs to consider how to remove rain water from the area as quickly as possible. By designing both at the same time, there are opportunities to save money in plumbing, electricity and irrigation. Extra outdoor electricity outlets and garden taps for irrigation can be planned at this stage. This is much cheaper than adding them later.

New Home Construction Landscaping. Garden lighting and irrigation should share trenches with house stormwater where possible.

Getting an early start on your landscaping will enable you to move materials and machines into areas that might become inaccessible later.

Landscaping the backyard. Begin your landscaping early.

Beginning your landscaping early will enable you to get labour saving machines into your backyard.

Money can be saved by using a single trench for all of your landscaping underground services. The same trench can be used for swimming pool, lighting and irrigation.

New Home Construction Landscaping. Install conduits below any future driveways or paths.

Installing landscaping services like garden lighting or irrigation under existing concrete driveways is expensive. Always lay some PVC conduit deep below the roadbase even if the landscape design has not been done yet.

New Home Landscaping infrastructure.

Landscaping such as entertainment areas, retaining walls and garden paths may require concrete pours for foundations. Having this poured at the same time as the house foundations will save a lot of money. Each concrete pour includes some concrete waste that cannot be used. Minimising the number of separate pours will save money. Landscaping connections like electricity and water may need to go under the new home’s patio. It will be much cheaper to arrange this before the patio is built.

Pool and Outdoor Entertaining area integrated into the design of this new home.

Start Landscaping early.

When landscaping a newly constructed home’s backyard or courtyard, getting materials to the back of the house can be a problem. Often the access on either side of the house is too narrow to get large amounts of landscaping materials to the back of the house economically. By designing, estimating and storing the materials in the backyard can save some headaches later.

Use smaller plants

Melbourne plant nurseries can supply fast growing tube stock and 140mm pots relatively cheaply. By planting these in areas unaffected by the new home building they can become well established by the time the home is completed. Exotic plants can then be transplanted to new locations if necessary. Australian native plants often to not transplant that well, so try to get their positions correct to the landscape design. Ideally put the plants in Autumn before the new home construction begins.

Potted Plants for the landscaping. Establishing smaller plants early will save you money.

Fast growing screening plants

Your landscape designer may establish locations for fast growing screening plants to be planted. Often these will be at the fence line of the property. If you can establish what the finished ground level will be, these plants can be put in during the preceding autumn. By the time you move in to your new home, these plants can be well established and screening out your neighbours and giving you some privacy. Always ensure plenty of mulch is used. You may get some broken branches or other damage during the construction, but the risk is usually worth it unless you have chosen very expensive plants.

Get advice from an experienced and skilled landscape designer.

An experienced and qualified landscaper or horticulturist will be able to advise you on your plant selection and plant care. At the design stage they will be able to check if you have selected the right plants for shady parts of the garden. Also speak to your local plant nursery.

One top tip for long term money saving on landscaping is to design your new home garden to be drought tolerant.

Drip irrigation systems

A drip irrigations system will save you money for years to come. The money savings will be in both avoiding the death of your plants and using water efficiently. Additionally, it will help get your smaller plants well established early. Ideally it should be part of the new home’s water tank system.

Drought tolerant landscaping – Irrigation drip system delivers water to the right place.

Mulching

New home construction will churn up a lot of topsoil and generally create a lot of mess around your future gardens. Our top tip here is to mulch as much as possible any future garden beds and newly planted screening plants. Initially using a fast decomposing mulch will improve the soil and will mean the final, more expensive, mulch layer can be a little bit thinner. So, if you have some garden beds that the landscaper designer has decided on an expensive coloured mulch, used some layers of inexpensive cane mulch or pea straw before the final mulch layer. If you put these layers down months in advance of your new home construction, you will have great topsoil by the time your landscaping begins. Especially if you have also added organic matter to the straw.

Using Mulch for Drought Tolerant Landscaping. Mulch also reduces erosion and weed growth as well as adding to the organic matter as it rots down.

Use your existing topsoil if possible.

Can I use my existing topsoil?

New home construction often involves scraping the topsoil away for the concrete slab. Your landscape designer should identify areas where this topsoil could be used in your landscape design. Poorer topsoils could be used as fill or to create some landforms in your garden. With some amelioration with organic matter or manure, most of these topsoils will be suitable for garden beds. Another possible use is as a subsoil for your lawns. This will reduce the amount of topsoil you need to buy later and save quite a bit of money. If if is one of Melbourne’s reactive clay topsoils, then adding gypsum and organic matter to it, will turn it into an excellent subsoil for lawns. Remember that some lawn root systems can be a metre long so a good quality sub soil like this can save a lot of money by storing water and nutrients for the lawn. Your existing topsoil can be stockpiled for later use. Build a compost heap on top of it with layers of peas straw and stable manure. Stable manure can often be bought cheaply from your local horse stable.

The existing topsoil was used as a subsoil below this lawn. This meant that money could be saved by using only 50mm of sandy loam. The existing topsoil was ameliorated with gypsum and organic matter, then rotary hoed to break up the clay.