Landscaping costs

[kwhite]

I know this can obviously vary quite a bit but just curious as to what everyone spent that had their landscaping around the pool professionally done. We were originally thinking of doing this ourselves to save money but just curious what others have spent to have it done. Thanks!

 

[Captchaos]

This will vary wildly build to build. We had about 16 truckloads of fill dirt brought in to raise the deep end grade because our yard was not level. That resulted in them dumping a bunch of dirt sort of far away from the existing excavation and construction mess, destroying more grass in the process. We also ended up with a hill that was eroding every time it rained. The total area that needed to be reseeded was about 6000 square feet.

I received a couple of quotes-one for sodding and one for seeding. It was about $4500 to bring in top soil, leafgro, fertilizer, do a final grade, and labor. It was about $2700 for the same thing but with seed instead of sod. We ended up going a different route and kinda doing both but were able to get a significant discount due to family member connections. The rest so far has been a few plants on the side of the waterfall and we did that ourselves. We still plan to plant a few more trees as well but will also do that ourselves. Check out my thread in my signature, I will post some new drone shots tomorrow.

It will really vary significantly depending on what you want done. I talked to somebody the other day who had some landscaping done when her house was built which were decorative trees, mulch, and other things and spent $14,000. She referred to it as, “the little bit of landscaping we had done...”

 

[ctrav]

Depends on your taste, size of project, material and labor. Landscape companies don't work cheap and neither do the average yard guys anymore. My yard cost me about 35% of my pool build and trust me I have nothing crazy. It was a lot of sod and irrigation as Im on 1 1/4 acre of land...

 

[blazin]

That's a very broad question.. if you include our yard creation, bringing in 1000 yds of fill, it's much higher number than if you just talk plants. Planting itself is based on maturity. If you want a "right now" yard you'll be in multiple thousands. Sod, 3-4 ft shrubs, 6ft trees, etc.

If you want delayed gratification, it'll be less. Hydroseed, 1 foot shrubs, 3 foot trees..

A local nursery to us breaks out their planting and delivery fees. 70% of the material to plant, 10% to deliver to the site. Gives you a little bit of an idea about how much landscapers might charge in our area. A nice $450 tree becomes $900 planted on site, easy to see why DIY if you have the means really stretches you budget.

 

[Gorilla83]

It will be tough to compare costs, but it might be helpful to look at the different components many are using as part of their build. Here's mine which includes some hardscaping as well:

-Boulder waterfall roughly 11'w x 4'h x 5'd ~7K not including pump or plumbing
-Boulder extensions around waterfall - TBD
-800sq foot paver patio - 14/sq ft so $11,200
-Final grade and (hydro)seeding, costs here will vary wildly depending on the location and amount of work needed ~2200 plus hydroseed cost
-Retaining wall, in my case about 75-100 sq/ft of facing wall ~4000
-Lighting, wiring run, and transformers for retaining wall $1200
-Planting beds of various flowers and grasses around the pool and retaining wall with layered in river rock as a base ~4000-5000
-6 or 7 privacy screening trees/shrubs ~2500-3000
-Drainage to prevent water/mud from running into our patio and pool ~500
-Slab/stone steps coming down our sloping hill into the pool area ~4000
-420 feet of 54" aluminum fencing and 4 gates ~13K

"Phase 2" which will come most likely in the spring:
-Additional paver decking under the deck
-Additional plantings
-Outdoor kitchen appliances

 

[Manorpool]

We did a waterfall and a nice pool deck of pavers. All in all that alone was 36k with the pool being 36k itself. I always figure to have it professionally done you will roughly double the cost if you are adding comparable features. The pool deck and landscaping is likely more important then the pool itself. We have a vinyl liner steel wall pool. Also doing this all in NY probably adds a 10 grand kicker to most other areas outside of the tristate California and parts of florida.

 

[Divin Dave]

My landscaping after the pool build was fairly basic in what I wanted.
New Grass Lawn
Some sort of flower/ plants around back side of pool
Landscape lights around pool deck - 8 of them

Landscaper quote was about 12,000 not including a fence. The fence quote was 6000. So I did it myself.

15 yards of topsoil and amendments - about 400
Irrigation system retrofit of the existing one that got torn up digging the pool. About 600 including renting the ditch witch.
Hydroseed of the lawn was 900
Flower bed supplies and plants was about 1000 by the time it was done.
For landscape lights, I just went with inexpensive solar from Amazon

And lots and lots and lots of my labor for weeks on end spreading and grading soil, installing the irrigation stuff and building the flower bed. It about wore me out!

Oh, and that fence, it was about 2K for all of the materials and rental of the post hole auger and I built every inch of it myself too.

 

[Nectarologist]

Just to give you an idea, I paid about $16/sq foot for tech bloc pavers installed and an aluminum fence was $32/linear foot (if you need a fence). I don't remember what the other stuff cost but that can give you a rough idea. Note grading and removal of existing stuff can impact the cost too (they typically don't quote just on sq ft or linear ft alone).

 

[grottoguy]

I paid 12.50 a square foot for INCA pavers installed ( no concrete base). It seems around me the margin on pavers is much less than the margin on other landscaping (mulch, trees, rocks etc).

 

[kwhite]

Thanks for all the input! We already have the fence and a nice sized concrete patio in addition to the pool. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what condition the yard is in when everything is done before we can even have an idea of what we need. My husband’s thought is to just do topsoil and seed everything to get a nice lawn back and then do the landscaping next year. I was just curious what the cost may be to have some landscaping done this year. I guess I need to be patient

 

[blazin]

Thanks for all the input! We already have the fence and a nice sized concrete patio in addition to the pool. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what condition the yard is in when everything is done before we can even have an idea of what we need. My husband’s thought is to just do topsoil and seed everything to get a nice lawn back and then do the landscaping next year. I was just curious what the cost may be to have some landscaping done this year. I guess I need to be patient

We are doing the same thing.. the hydroseed is about $1500, but we're talking just shy of 1/4 acre. Mulch beds and plantings are quoted by multiple landscapers as a budget item, meaning no defined plants, no maturity levels, just leave about this much to fill the yard in nicely. $15k budget. Seems astronomical, and pricing out plants ourselves, mature trees, etc, puts us at $3-4 max. Mind you as I said before, one nursery we are looking at would charge us $300-400 to deliver said plants, and then if we had them plant, they'd charge $2100-2800 on top. Oh yea and then mulch, it's anywhere between $30-40/yd here. We need a lot, or we can do it in phases, but we're not in the 2-3 land, more like 20-30, so $1200. That's if we spread it.

DIY:

Plants - $3000
Mulch - $1200
Labor - $0
Delivery - $300

Total - $4500

Landscaper -

Budget $15k

Are we getting the same quality of plants? Yes we know the nursery. Are we getting the same number of plants? Nope DIY has ability to stretch dollars. All of my numbers are retail, not landscaper numbers. ie If I were the landscaper the same plants might cost me $2-3k based on the pricing nurseries offer landscapers.

Point is, if you can do anything yourself this area has a HUGE markup and has one of the highest potentials of stretching your money.