If a landscaper knows, from the beginning, exactly how much money they have to work with, they can be honest with you right from the start.

 

You may not have enough cash on hand to afford your absolute dream garden, but a landscaper can look at options you have to save money, and offer you suggestions as to how you can reduce your landscaping costs.

 

From getting your hands dirty with DIY jobs you can complete yourself to using alternative materials, Dale Vine shares his top landscaping tips for transforming your garden on a budget.

A good landscaper should be able to offer a range of options to achieve the desired outcome for an outdoor space. Often this involves using some clever alternatives, so you can still get what you want without blowing out the budget. A lot of savings can be achieved by using alternative materials, such as compacted toppings instead of paved or concreted surfaces – which will also dramatically reduce labour costs to get the project completed.

A blank canvas is always a good starting point for a landscaper to work with. If you are willing and able to do some work yourself – such as clearing the site of unwanted trees, vegetation, existing structures, edging, rocks, sleepers, paving or damaged concrete slabs – you'll save money. Even if you don't want to take on these tasks, and as long as any preliminary demolition and clearing required is not too full-on, it will be cheaper to hire some labourers to take on any manual work, as you don't need a qualified tradesman to undertake demolition or general labour.

In saying this, some clients ask to do jobs such as planting or lawn-laying themselves to save costs. However, if these tasks are done poorly due to lack of skill, it can actually cost more if your new plants or lawn suffer or need replacing as a result. Also, if you pay a reputable landscaper to do the work, they should, at least, guarantee the health of your new plants and lawn, and replace anything that dies within a period of 6–12 months. This isn't necessarily standard across the industry, but is good practice, so it's worthwhile checking your landscaper's policy in this regard.

Basically, only you know your true skills and capabilities, so don't take on tasks you're unsure about just to try to save money. Anything beyond your technical skills is always best left for a qualified landscaper or tradesperson to undertake, or you could end up with a lot of unforeseen costs when you have mistakes fixed by a professional.

Get your mood board together. The more clear and decisive you can be towards what your after in your outdoor area the easier it will be to translate that and be able to build for your landscaper. Knowing what you want will save time and get things mover quicker.

Any clearing or demolition work that can be done by yourself before the works begin will save you paying your landscaper to do it. Getting rid of multiple cubic metres of soil might be too much for you to handle but you might be able to cut down trees, remove and old deck or timber structure yourself over a weekend and you'll feel good for accomplishing it.

Just having your landscaper come around for a look while your house is being built or a renovation is taking place can save you big dollars later. If you wait until your house is completed, you've moved in and your fences are up, then the option to get machinery or materials in easily may have been dramatically reduced or lost all together and labour costs sky rocket.

Put aside a realistic amount of your total home building budget for landscaping works. For many first home owners/builders landscaping becomes an afterthought, prioritising more expensive furnishings and fittings inside your home over a beautiful outdoor area they can use. 5k is not a realistic budget for landscaping and you will be left sorely disappointed with what you'd get for little.

Although everyone would love a beautiful natural stone paved area or path. For many multi-use entertaining areas, you could get away with stone steppers or borders set into compacted toppings which can still look great but won't cost anywhere near the price of a solid paved or decked area. Also if you don't mind waiting a few years for them to develop, smaller plants will save you a packet compared with mature ones when planting out.