Consumer focus: DIY landscaping
Cost-conscious gardeners can landscape with a little digging –and a little more digging
So it’s almost July, and this is the summer you swore you were going to get rid of that unkempt flowerbed and design a real landscape in the front or back of your house. But in the current economy, you’re less apt to hire a contractor with the knowhow to turn both your backyard and your wallet inside-out.
Don’t worry, help is on the way. According to area nursery managers, a reasonable design can be had by even the least knowledgeable homeowner for a price relative to your ambitions. “It can be done,” said Kim Schichtel, garden center manager at Murray Brothers Nursery in Orchard Park.
Susan Leone thought so. A self-described do-it-yourselfer, the Elma resident said she called Jeff Schafer, a landscape designer at Murray Brothers, to help her design the landscape she planted herself.
“I’m a rank amateur who is not afraid to experiment, but also not afraid to seek out expert advice when I need to,” she said. “I had some general ideas; I’ve always been hands-on. I enjoy it, its like a hobby. [But] it had some different challenges that I wasn’t comfortable doing on my own.”
Consulting with Schafer, Leone was able to solve those challenges with a few simple steps that saved her money in process. Here’s some of the advice Leone received, as well as tips from other area nursery experts:
• Know your area. Schichtel said before even sticking a shovel into the ground or starting the pickup for a trip to the local nursery, consumers should know the dimensions of their house and landscaping area, including lengths, widths and areas of the desired space. This will allow them to plan their space more efficiently with garden experts and have a more accurate price estimate. Schichtel said most people like to spend between $300 to $400, a price that should probably take care of the back or front yard of an average city duplex.
“That’s reasonable, depending on the size,” she said. “Unless it’s a huge area, then we’re talking more money.”
Leone said she used multiple resources to plan her design, but an open mind might be the best tool of all.
“(There are opportunities) for people who are willing to get books, look at pictures, visit nurseries, talk to people, experiment,” Leone continued. “It takes a little self confidence, always knowing that if it doesn’t look good, you can take it out and put something in its place. In some situations sometimes it seems like I’m trying to recreate the wheel. There are very talented people on our area and it’s also nice to be able to tap into their expertise.”
• Sunny or shady? The amount of sunlight your space gets will help you decide which plants to select. A plant’s light requirement is essential to its survival. Elicia Halas, front end manager of Perry’s Nurseries and Garden Center in West Seneca, said flowering plants are usually more popular than bushes. She said flowering plants like petunias and geraniums and bushes like weigelas, butterfly bushes, forsythias and burning bushes enjoy the sun, while begonias, shrubs, hostas and hydrangeas are better in the shade.
Leone consulted with Schafer to find a design that fit her half-sun, half-shade front yard and the many windows in the front of her house.
“It was the front of the house and I wasn’t feeling as confident as my own experimentation,” she said. “It was very flat-planed with windows. I wanted something that looked beautiful that didn’t grow up and cover the windows.”
So she used boxwoods, hollies, low-growing weigela and an assortment of perennials and ground cover plants.
“With all these varieties, you can get ones that bush out and are really big or with a knowledgeable landscaper you can get one that has a compact growing habit.”
• Air and space. Plants are like humans in that they don’t like to be crowded beyond comfort and they need sufficient air to breathe. So having a rough draft of your area with measurements will help you purchase only the necessary plants and should allow you to space your plants accordingly. Halas said most consumers want to plant bushes and flowers too close together, and that they can save the most money by allowing plants to start small and grow to their full potential.
Leone said she saved by spreading out her garden and not trying to plant everything at once. Though her garden now includes more than 100 plants, she said she tries to budget to add a few more plants each year. She will add perennials this fall.
• Dig in. Now that you’ve purchased your plants, you’ll need to prepare a proper landscape bed. First, outline an area with spray paint or another marking device. Schichtel said to then skim the first level of grass and sod off the area. You’ll need some compost top soil mix, especially if your existing soil is rocky or clay-filled. In that case, rake out the rocks and replace the clay with fine top soil, peat moss and fertilizer. Then mix, preferably with a rototiller, but if that’s not available, then a regular hoe, rake or pitchfork. You’ll want a 5-inch edge around the bed, which can be made by simply digging down your spade and taking chunks of existing sod off the edges of the bed. Halas recommended the bed be about a foot above ground level.
• No weeds, please. Everyone wants to avoid the dreaded attack of the weeds, but professionals say this starts way before the plants are even planted. Halas recommended using weed fabric in addition to a fertilizer such as Preen. Fabric should be cut to size and placed between the soil and mulch, while fertilizer is sprinkled around the garden bed (but not on the plants) before mulch is spread.
• Plant away. Now it’s time to plant. Keeping in mind your plant’s spacing requirements, Schichtel said to place plants high enough out of the soil (keep in mind you’ll be adding at least 1 inch of mulch) while at the same time completely baring them to the elements.
In addition to proper spacing, Leone saved most of her money by digging herself. She said “buying young” also pays off in that holes for plants and bushes don’t need to be dug as deep as those for older plants.
“To save money, I did all the digging myself except for a couple of very large trees in the foreground,” she said. “Normally I would tackle that but I’m not up to doing big holes right now.
• Extra, extra. Keeping spending limits in mind, you may want to add some extra items to your landscape to give it that finishing touch. Knickknacks like hanging plant holders, statues or even large rocks from a nearby wooded area can give your design a whole new look. Halas said a wide range of trees such as Japanese maples, mulberries and palm palms can be planted on the corners of the landscape, and you should be able to find a tree that fits your price range. Trees can cost anywhere from $40 to $4,000, Halas said.
• Time to mulch. Now that you have your beds planted and fertilizer spread, it’s time to decide on mulch. Mulch bought in bulk tends to be cheaper, but you’ll need a pickup truck or trailer to haul it if you don’t want to pay delivery or fuel charges. It’s sold by the yard (which covers approximately 27 cubic feet and costs from $30 to $40 per yard), and the most common kind is brown hardwood.
A good rule of thumb is that one yard probably contains the mulch that would be found in 15 bags. Bagged mulch tends to be pricier (around $4 per bag), but is usually finer and offers choices such as black dyed hardwood, red cedar and coco shells, a non-edible shell that smells like chocolate, covers more area but isn’t as durable in harsher climates. Bags usually come in 2-cubic-foot bags, and each 2-to-3-inch layer covers about 8 to 10 square feet. But the more heavy-handed your spreader is, the more you’ll want to buy.
• Wear and care. So now you’ve got that perfect landscape without your bank account being broken, but you’re not finished yet. Plants and bushes need to be taken care of, especially after planting. Halas said each plant should be watered all day with a sprinkler (from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) until they are well-established. Avoid watering at night, which she said causes fungi to grow. Your payoff from smart buying and accurate spacing will be a garden full of well-established plants (with big roots) that should bloom into their full capacity in about three to four years if they were purchased at a young age.
“What looks small now, you have to have an eye to the future,” Leone said. “It pays to be patient.”
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