A recent survey found that for every dollar the home-owner spends on their property they add $1.50 to the home’s value.
Landscaping can completely transform a house just by adding entertaining areas or bringing more shade, what’s more it can reflect the personality of the home owner.
You are building your dream home with all the attributes you require in it. But what about the garden area? It may be a flat lifeless piece of dirt or just an ordinary uninteresting area of your house. How is the best way to make the outside area enhance your property and what will it cost? The answer is as much or as little as you are prepared to spend.
The price depends on a lot of factors. One is the size shape and contour of the block. Obviously if mounds are wanted where the land is depressed, it takes more work than if the land is flat or rising. If you are happy with a few contoured mounds and paths complemented with trees, shrubs or flowers, you’ll pay less than if you want extravagant ponds and waterfalls, gazebos and sunken gardens.
Implementing your garden design is the final step in what will have already been an expensive process. It is wise to allow sufficient funds for your landscaping in your original budget, especially if your garden plans are elaborate and involve considerable outside labour.
Your garden is the first view the outside world will have of your home and as such it has a dramatic effect on the total value of your greatest asset.
Keep in mind as you plan your garden layout, the size of trees and shrubs at their fully mature height.
It can be frustrating and expensive if you plant the wrong species of tree near sewerage and drainage lines for example, or if a shrub or tree you may particularly like, when fully grown obscures the view from your sun-room window, or even worse obscures the sun from your sun-room window.
The immediate climatic conditions in your area and the time of year you intend commencing your landscaping, will both contribute to what you may be able to do as your first stage. The planting of some species you would like in your garden may have to be left for another time of year.
Dramatic effects can be obtained in your garden with an extensive choice of materials other than plants. The range includes, pergolas, koppered logs, lattice work, ponds and pools, railway sleepers and an almost endless array of stones, bricks, rocks and driveway materials.
As in many other aspects of your home design, there are many reliable and well-researched publications which will assist you greatly in achieving a garden which flows and changes with the four seasons, giving your home a stunning appearance all year round.
Whilst these publications are invaluable in the day to day organization of your garden, there is no substitute for local knowledge.
Your local landscaper and garden centre can assist you with that professional touch and fine detail to give your home that individual touch of brilliance.
source: Building & Renovating Guide