First off, please excuse the AI slop. We have a landscape designer coming out in a few weeks and I plan on showing this as an example of what we want, but I will 100% trust their creative and professional judgement when it comes to what is realistic and what will work for our needs. Once we receive official plans, that is what I will present to the contractors we hire to do the work.
We live in the PNW and plan on converting our entire front lawn (photo 1) into a native habitat (photo 2). Photo 3 is what I used as inspiration. There is a 2 car gravel parking area behind where this photo was taken and that is where the path is leading from. The grass in the bottom left of the photo doesn't make any sense and that won't actually be there. The concrete pavers would need to be smaller to scale better with the size of our house.
Anyways, what should we expect to pay to have something like this done this Fall season? I understand that no one can give an exact number, and there's certainly going to be costs associated with this project that we aren't expecting, but I guess I'm just looking for a range. I have no idea if this is a 15K project or a 50K project.
Any insight would be super helpful! Thanks!
by Historical_Coffee694
10 Comments
In the PNW I’d recommend planting more densely. The landscape designer will likely go over that. About 1 plant per square foot. This will make a fuller looking landscape and also help against weeds long term as there’s more competition.
This is light on hardscaping, most of the cost will be the pavers leading up to the door.
Most people you hire will want to use weed fabric (it’s the industry short cut) you need to insist on no weed fabric and instead you want cardboard and mulch method. You’ll thank me in three years when that weed fabric becomes a major mess and is the opposite of native friendly by leeching microplastics into the soil forever.
I’d start familiarizing yourself with native flowers. I always tell people to start on Prairie Moon Nursery because the filters and photos are very easy. The other one for the PNW is Sparrowhawk. They are a Portland nursery but most PNW natives are native from Vancouver BC down to the Redwoods. Start picking ones you like so you can give this to the landscape designer!
I’d say this project will cost more towards $15K for the actual work. Large pavers are less work. Planting plugs, laying down cardboard and mulch, etc isn’t too bad.
It will depend on whether you want poured concrete with a sand finish, pre cast pavers, or natural stone. Poured concrete with sand finish will be least expensive at about 25-30/sf.
It is a lot of hardscaping square footage for a path. If you can reduce the square footage, you’ll save a ton. It also seems like it might make more logistical sense for the path to veer toward the driveway or center of the yard, but maybe not? If people usually park in front of your house and walk across the lawn to the front door, try to notice where they walk across the lawn. Those naturally chosen paths may be good to inform where your new path should be laid out.
I think this might be like a 15-25k project depending on the hardscape materials, lighting quantity, and final square footage of your path. I do design and estimating for the Portland area. If you’re in Seattle it would probably cost more.
I’m not in PNW so I’m no help with local pricing or local natives, but this project isn’t so bad. I’d break it down into sod removal, the path, plantings, and mulching. Without spending too much time on this I’d guess it’s a three day bid, and probably in the 20k range depending on number of plants and how you do the path.
I would be surprised if that fell under 20k not including design cost.
Does your designer not also have an install crew? Only jobs ive ever seen go sideways was when the designer was not involved in the install.
60k
I work for a design-build company in the PNW, and this looks like a 25k to 45k project to me. Demolition usually accounts for a large portion of the cost.
This seems like something you could do yourself over a couple of months.
I used to work on a private property with white stone pavers like those, nightmare to keep clean after rain
It looks like a lot of work. I would try building up to that and not doing it all at once. You may change your mind once you see how much work it is going to take to maintain.
I have used landscape design in a day (specifically hillary hutler) and I cannot reccomend Hillary enough. If you DM I can chat with you on what it ended up costing me.