Love Your Landscape – August 2017

When it comes to your landscaping, long-term planning offers many rewards. Resale value, maintenance considerations and future landscape plans are a few reasons to plan ahead…now!

When planning the initial infrastructure for your landscape, start with the end in mind. Consider how long you plan on living in your home; if you plan to retire there, and if you will be hiring-out maintenance work or doing the upkeep yourself. Make a list of all the goals you hope to accomplish with your property and make considerations in the infrastructure to accomplish them.

Considerations include asking if you will be doing all of your landscape plans at one time or doing in phases? Plan ahead for future expansion in the beginning so things are in-place for easy installation later—the cost savings will be worth it alone.

Here are a few examples of infrastructure items to consider.

Irrigation: plan ahead for future expansion and make sure your irrigation controller is wired to handle more zones than you are initially setting-up. Make sure you can expand irrigation to all areas of your property by having the water stubbed out in the right locations for easy expansion later.

Make sure driveways and sidewalks are equipped with sleeves or conduit underneath to avoid possible tear-out and replacement later. This will be important when adding outdoor lighting or water features when installing strategic GFI power outlets in the right locations.

When it comes to planning for trees, the species of trees to consider should include a discussion of the future location of your home, specifically how sun exposure will influence plantings. How much maintenance you want to create in the landscape is another thing to consider.

As always, good planning now will let you love your landscape in the short and long term!