You want to pull into your driveway and feel pride in your home. However, you don’t want to devote every sunny Saturday to mowing, raking and trimming. With that in mind, what’s the most economical, stylish and low-maintenance way to create an exterior that makes you the envy of your neighbors?
Here at GreatBuildz, a free service that connects homeowners in the Bay Area, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties with reliable landscape contractors, we speak to homeowners every day about landscape budgeting – read on to learn more:
The following five evergreen tips result in low-budget landscaping that wows.
1. Master the Art of Xeriscaping
For all its liquid assets, only 1% of the Earth’s water is drinkable, and reducing the amount you use for landscaping helps ensure everyone has enough.
Xeriscaping plays a crucial role in this endeavor, which refers to using native plants instead of the traditional lawn to beautify your landscape while minimizing water and maintenance needs.
2. Blend Native Plants With Other Landscape Elements
Those who have the best success with xeriscaping use their brains more than their wallet. Take a walk through local wild regions to see which plants thrive in soils similar to those at your home. You might even score a freebie or two in the form of dropped seed pods you can nurture into new plant life, although you should follow leave-no-trace principles and leave hanging pods on the plant.
Your neighbors are another good source, especially if they also xeriscape. You can propagate many plants from cuttings, and close neighbors may even share their heirloom seeds.
What makes xeriscaping so low maintenance isn’t only native plant use, however. It also incorporates various non-living elements. Download a free landscape architecture app and go crazy. Your layout might include:
- Decorative stone, which often forms much of the “lawn” on xeriscaped properties.
- Larger stone features — such as rock rivers — that can double as a means to divert floodwaters away from your home’s foundation if you live on a slope.
- Decks, patios and gazebos.
- Raised garden beds.
- Dog runs, children’s play areas or even a putting green for the avid golfer.
- Water features, such as ponds and fountains.
- Meadow areas — intentional areas of undisturbed wilds that act as animal habitats.
3. Remember the Three R’s
The three R’s of sustainability are reduce, reuse and recycle, and the good news is applying them to your low-budget landscaping often keeps more green in your wallet, too. For example, a simple and inexpensive way to create a striking garden wall is to head to your local hardware store. Grab some of the free pallets they bring in shipments on, staying away from those with the MB stamp, as this indicates dangerous pesticide use.
While you’ll need to ask permission to take the pallets, all you’ll need to buy are bolts to attach them to a wall or fence and plant hangers. Attach the hangers between the slats of each pallet, perhaps adding an accent light to show off your new plant wall after dark.
Get savvy about what you can do for free. For example, there’s no need to buy plastic garden liners to keep weeds at bay when a flattened cardboard box serves the same purpose and adds valuable nutrients back into the soil when it eventually decays. Are you building raised garden borders? Find out if your local brick factory has a salvage yard where they store nonconforming shipments. They sometimes give away slightly chipped products for free or next to it.
4. Think Cyclical
For years, home landscapers spent way more than necessary each season. If it’s spring, it must be time to head to the nursery for new plants, grass seed and fertilizer. When winter approaches, it’s back to the store to buy huge bags of mulch wrapped in plastic.
Change your thinking from a linear, season-only approach to a cyclical model by asking yourself the right questions. How hard is it to maintain your landscaping through each stage of the growth cycle? How hard is it to regenerate the growth cycle each spring? How can you best use waste for a useful purpose, and what can you do if plants produce or propagate too much?
For example, it’s relatively easy to set up a small compost bin for your cuttings and food scraps, transforming your waste into nourishing soil for the next generation of plants. Those in small spaces like apartments can donate to community gardens. Lucky gardeners who produce bumper crops can supply food banks with fresh produce and share cuttings with their neighbors.
Create an easy four seasons landscape with the right blend of perennials, ground cover and annuals for year-round color. For example, manzanitas are native to Southern California and come into bloom during the tail end of the winter months. They pair well with fuschia or passionflower that bursts into color during the summer. You could also plant evergreen varieties like cacti along your home and fence perimeter, adding window boxes for more colorful blooms.
5. Embrace Lifelong Learning
The world changes quickly as new knowledge builds onto old every day. It’s impossible to learn everything, but keeping abreast of the latest tools and techniques can help you create a low-budget landscape that looks great season after season.
Your computer is a smart place to start for inspiration. You can master landscaping basics like proportion, transition and balance by looking at photographs of completed projects and reading about how the designer planned the layout. Play around with free landscape architecture software like SketchUp and iScape, perhaps investing in a paid version once you find the platform you like best.
Additionally, you could:
- Scour your local library for books and other resources.
- Attend landscaping conferences and trade shows.
- Visit museum grounds and botanical gardens to see how they design their gardens.
- Talk to your local nursery about the best training programs available in your area. While these may charge a fee, they’re often the best way to learn about low-budget landscaping in your climate zone.
- Talk to neighbors whose landscaping you admire to learn their tricks if they’re willing to tell.
If you find you love working in the good earth, you could always seek part or full-time landscaping work to get hands-on professional experience. Those who aren’t quite ready to shift into a new field can nevertheless gain experience by participating in community landscaping projects like tree planting. You’ll meet others willing to share their expertise and know you did something good for your neighborhood in exchange.
Of course, few things are simpler than hiring a contractor to install and maintain your landscaping for you. If it’s in your budget, go for it, opting for the most sustainable, low-maintenance design possible.
Landscaping on a Budget
You deserve to feel proud when you arrive home. Low-budget landscaping can look every bit as elegant as designs that cost significantly more. Additionally, it’s often easier to maintain, as it works with the natural environment instead of fighting against it. Take a mindful look at your property and draw inspiration from these ideas to create the exterior of your dreams.
Choosing the right contractors is essential to a smooth, successful building process that doesn’t go over budget. To be matched with a trusted, pre-vetted backyard contractors, contact GreatBuildz today at 888.668.2454 or visit our website for more information.
