Landscaping with Style
Finalize Your Plan
Design
Re-evaluating Your Preliminary Design
If you have the good fortune of developing a plan that falls below your budget, consider the following options:
- Spend the surplus on upgraded irrigation system components or upgraded hardscape materials.
- Set aside the surplus amount for future additions or modifications to your landscape.
- Add a feature you did not include in the preliminary plan because you thought it would be too expensive.
If your ultimate landscape design has exceeded your budget, consider these options:
- Scale back the original plan by excluding one or more features you can live without.
- Reduce the cost by purchasing smaller trees.
- Purchase fewer services and do more of the work yourself.
- Retain your complete plan and install it in phases.
Phasing In
Phasing in a landscape involves installing it in stages rather than all at once. Retaining the landscape plan as you originally conceived it offers several advantages.
First, you can install each phase of your landscape with the assurance that you will achieve exactly what you want by focusing on quality plants and materials. This eliminates the need to cut corners or settle for options you don't honestly like.
Phasing in your landscape also provides you with extra time—to install the components of each phase carefully and properly, to pre-shop for items that will be installed in the following phases, to learn how to maintain the existing elements of your landscape, and of course, to save up for the supplies and materials needed for future phases.
How to Approach Phasing In
1. Analyze and prioritize
- Identify the essential elements in your landscape plan and prioritize them by assigning a number to each. When creating that priority list, consider which items will be easiest to add or relocate, and which will be the most challenging to modify.
- Ask yourself if you can add or move things later. Identifying and prioritizing these elements will help ease the installation of items earmarked for future phases.
2. Put irrigation and grading first
- It is easiest and most cost-effective to complete all grading activities at once before installing the landscape.
- As a general rule, all major components of the irrigation system, such as the poly tubing or PVC pipe, should be installed at the same time. Therefore, they should be included in the first phase of your installation.
3. Maintain Access
- Do not block gates or build fences or walls that will hinder the installation of landscape elements planned for later phases.
- Install sleeves under sidewalks or block-outs (also known as stub-outs) in walls to accommodate future features, such as wiring for lighting, in future phases.
4. Consider temporary solutions
Pulling Your Design Together
At this point, you should have collected all the necessary information to finalize the landscape design and irrigation plan.
- You should redraw the preliminary plan if you have made more than a few minor changes.
- If you have decided to phase in portions of the landscape, note your priorities on the working design.
Make copies of your design. Landscape plans can be easily lost or damaged, so keep a few extras on hand for future reference. If you’ve decided not to modify the preliminary drawings, then it’s time to start planning your installation.