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I'm just curious if there is a rule of thumb for landscaping costs? The house we are buying has a .23 acre lot. It's got a slight slope, so I may need to do a terrace. The house has a 1700 square foot footprint, with a two-car garage and a regular-size driveway.
Assume I'm willing to put in a decent amount sweat equity, but am not too skilled at putting in curbing etc. Plus I need to put in a sprinkler system and sod in the spring.
Landscaping costs can be all over the place from cheap to over-the-top expensive. And costs can vary depending on location. For example, in our previous house in PA, we met with a landscaper who wanted to charge us $1,300 for the plan - just the plan! - and who knows what the actual work would have cost. In our current house we spent @$2,500 this past summer for a plan, the materials, and the labor (installing a small pond, creating new gardens around the pond and new patio, planting and mulching the new gardens as well as the existing ones.)
What I can suggest is to do things backwards as we did. Interview a number of landscapers and get estimates for the work you'd like done and then create a budget because there doesn't seem to be a rule of thumb for estimating costs (such as $X/sq ft as one could somewhat do when building a house).
What might help you get a ballpark idea is to price out certain materials at your local Home Depot or Lowe's and then think about how long it would take someone to install the materials, and multiply the hours by, oh say, $25/hour or something.
I'm wondering about this, too. I'd like to research and buy my own plants and the city recycling center offers mulch and other landscaping materials really cheap. I'm also rather creative with design so I just need someone to implement my plan and plant what I bought. A team could probably do it in a day. Is $25/hour the going rate?
I don't know the going rate, and I'm sure it differs tremendously state to state, region to region, etc.
If you have a lawn service, or if your neighbors have one, you could describe your project and ask them for a quote. Or ask at the nursery where you plan to buy your plants for a referral.
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