Cost Concern

IF MONEY IS A PROBLEM: CUT COSTS BUT NOT QUALITY

When considering your budget know that there is no average cost for a landscape. Landscaping is personal. Some people invest nothing in their landscape while others invest great amounts. However, from a real estate point of view, if a homeowner invests less than five percent of the value of their home (property included) on landscape development, then they are probably not doing it justice. A landscape investment will probably not significantly affect the resale value of a home unless it approaches ten percent of its value. Landscapes involving hardscapes and the development of outdoor living areas, water features, seasonal gardens, and various other construction elements obviously represent much greater investments by their owners, usually in the range of up to twenty percent of more of a home’s value.

There are two types of costs involved in a garden; the first is building it, the second is maintaining it. Often if a little more time, effort and money is spent on building the garden, then the cost of maintaining it can be greatly reduced. Gardens which are initially cheap to build tend to require ongoing repair and maintenance of the hard materials used. This type of problem can however, be largely avoided by using good quality materials, which are often not necessarily more expensive ones. Creating a garden with limited money is not difficult, but it may require some compromises.