Landscaping costs, anyone know...? (Austin: how much, Home Depot, backyard)

[southdown]

Does anybody have a rough idea how much it costs to landscape a backyard? I would like to use some stone around the trees and to make border edges, and a small area of grass about 20 x 20 ft. I have no idea what kinds of stone or grass is best for the area. I'm in NW Austin, and have quite heavy shade from oak trees. Thanks!

PS If there has already been a thread on this please let me know - I searched but didn't find!

[love roses]

I couldn't tell you. We're cheaters and spread seed around and our neighbor gets an extremely good deal on stone and just gives us his leftovers, or orders extra and gives it to us. I'm imagining you could do it for way less than $1,000 if you do it yourself. Sometimes if you go to those landscaping/stone business you can find better deals on stones than you can at home depot.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by southdown

Does anybody have a rough idea how much it costs to landscape a backyard? I would like to use some stone around the trees and to make border edges, and a small area of grass about 20 x 20 ft. I have no idea what kinds of stone or grass is best for the area. I'm in NW Austin, and have quite heavy shade from oak trees. Thanks!

PS If there has already been a thread on this please let me know - I searched but didn't find!

Well, if you have the shade of an oak tree, nothing will be better than St Augustine.. it can require a lot of water if it is in full sun, but shade is optimal. It will be dormant in the winter, but you could overseed with rye grass if you want year-round green.

For stones, it is personal preference, but the native look would be texas limestone... sometimes called "austin stone" around here. It's light colored, ranging from off-white to a little red. You can get very uniform shapes, or irregular for a more natural look.

Then bring in a bunch of high-quality mulch. The darker the better, IMO. Since you are NW, you may have deer issues so pick deer-resistant plants for the flower beds. Lantana, sage, small mountain laurel, etc. Go to the Ladybird wildflower center or Wild Basin preserve for some great native landscaping ideas.

Lastly, for a small backyard with 20x20 of grass, if it is fairly level I'd expect a landscaper to charge about $1000 - $1200. You could do it for about $300 for grass & stones, $300 for plants/mulch... the remainder is labor

[southdown]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Well, if you have the shade of an oak tree, nothing will be better than St Augustine.. it can require a lot of water if it is in full sun, but shade is optimal. It will be dormant in the winter, but you could overseed with rye grass if you want year-round green. You can get very uniform shapes, or irregular for a more natural look.

For stones, it is personal preference, but the native look would be texas limestone... sometimes called "austin stone" around here. It's light colored, ranging from off-white to a little red.

Then bring in a bunch of high-quality mulch. The darker the better, IMO. Since you are NW, you may have deer issues so pick deer-resistant plants for the flower beds. Lantana, sage, small mountain laurel, etc. Go to the Ladybird wildflower center or Wild Basin preserve for some great native landscaping ideas.

Lastly, for a small backyard with 20x20 of grass, if it is fairly level I'd expect a landscaper to charge about $1000 - $1200. You could do it for about $300 for grass & stones, $300 for plants/mulch... the remainder is labor

Thank you, that's a great help - I'm actually looking forward to doing the labor myself!

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by southdown

Does anybody have a rough idea how much it costs to landscape a backyard? I would like to use some stone around the trees and to make border edges, and a small area of grass about 20 x 20 ft. I have no idea what kinds of stone or grass is best for the area. I'm in NW Austin, and have quite heavy shade from oak trees. Thanks!

PS If there has already been a thread on this please let me know - I searched but didn't find!

We paid about 1800 recently for materials and labor for:
15 5 gallon bushes that will eventually grow to about 15 feet high to border our fence.

rocks and edging for about 4 feet wide and about 130 feet of perimeter. I felt that this was a rock bottom price by guys that were just trying to get business.

about 6 years ago we paid about 1200 for sod and 1200 for a sprinkler system for our small backyard, about 70X30 ft