Need Assistance

[tcrock]

I'm new here so sorry if this is in the wrong place........

I plan on landscaping my backyard sometime this week, however, I would like an opinion as to what should be done

So if anyone is willing to help and has AOL instant messenger or MSN messenger to discuss possible ideas please let me know

I have pictures
If you wish to help me
AIM:RoundPick
MSN: frstrounddraft@sbcglobal.net

Thanks,
~tc~

[jwholden]

TC,

Welcome aboard!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Post a few of your space, what your goals are for that space, what your budget is, and see if someone bites. This is a great place for brainstorming!

[tcrock]

Thanks for the suggestions....

Here are a few pictures of the area I am planning to fix up!
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/3964/phot00576hw.jpg
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/8751/phot00584og.jpg http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/7295/phot00605vm.jpg

Any help is appreciated
~tc~

[Lanelle]

Once the pictures are viewable, folks will also need to know about your climate.
A USDA Zone would be helpful but telling us what part of the country we're dealing with would be even better.

[tcrock]

I'm in TX near the dallas area!, dont know the zone #

Need anymore info, let me know

[trees]

Okay...

Don't know exactly what you're looking for here, but if I were you I'd lose the lattice around the deck and use the existing posts to make a railing (maybe you could leave the lattice but just bring the height down to rail height). If you need screening, I'd go away from the deck and plant a vegetative screen of some sort (waxmyrtle, ligustrum or cleyera come to mind)

Then plant around it. Plants like Knockout rose, Crapemyrtle, Nandina, Dwarf Yaupon Holly, Carissa Holly, Loropetalum, Gardenia & Spiraea all should work well for you.

Looks like it may be a little bigger project than we can really delve into here, but I hope that helps anyway...

[waterfall larry]

Dear tc,

You should take some pictures from the house looking out. A landscape designer is going to want to know how private your yard is. You have 2 basic choices, let your neighbors see your yard or create some privacy for yourself. Most home owners want privacy and want to look out and see nothing but natural beauty. They don't want to see a bunch of houses and fences and other man made things.

Also a designer is going to want to know the topography of the yard. Is it totally flat or does it have slopes and banks?

I would encourage you to plan thoroughly before you do anything. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Planning and working on forming the absolute best design possible is the best and least expensive way to go about landscaping. Do it right the first time should be your goal.

A highly competent landscape designer is going to want to see a photo or photos that show every window or door on the back of your house. It seems like you have done this well enough. You seem to have only 2 windows on the back of your house. What is the left and right one? Generally you want to put your most beautiful landscaping in the highest visibility area of your yard and more specifically the highest visibility area of your yard while you are sitting down in a room inside of your house.

Trees was correct in saying that you need to loose the lattice work. But I would suggest that you use the lattice and poles in an area of your yard where they provide screening and privacy but can’t be seen while sitting down in either of the rooms in your house. The reason why you should loose the lattice is to be able to sit down and while sitting down, look out and see as many square feet of landscape beauty as is possible.

Before you do anything, you should check to see if there are any homeowner association rules that would prevent you from legally doing any landscaping.

Also it is helpful for a designer to have some idea of how much money you can spend. Once I get an answer to this, I ask the home owner if they would be willing to borrow some money and be able to do a larger block of work. You may not want to publicly disclose money matters but it would be nice to give a designer some idea of what you can spend and what you could borrow.

Larry C. Davis
paradisegardns333@yahoo.com
paradisegardens4u.com

[tcrock]

Thanks for the replies,

I plan to spend no more than $500.
Yes there is a slope in the grass area, I would descibe as having the characteristics of a garage incline! (If that helps any)

[waterfall larry]

$500 isn't going to get you much landscaping even if you do all of the work yourself. Consider an average 1 gallon plant at $5.00 to 10.00, how many plants will that get you? If you buy a 3 or 5 gallon plant at $20 to $25 how many plants will that get you? And this if for just plants and doesn't include any other materials.

Planting plants isn't the only type of landscaping work. You might want to consider a waterfall and pond and other types of landscape work.

If you want to challenge a landscape designer, ask them to limit their work to $500 or ask them to create a really awesome landscape in a 5 x 5 foot area. Small budget, small square footage landscape designing is difficult to do.

These are difficult things to do but it is, to some degree, possible to do.

[Stonehenge]

tcrock,

Eesh - I don't mean to quash your enthusiasm, but as larry mentions, $500 isn't going to get you very far. I usually get the wind taken out of my sails if a potential client tells me they have a budget of $2-3K - partly because I know I'm not going to be able to put much food on my table doing a project of that size, and partly because I know we can't make much of a change in a yard for that money.

I say spend $150 on vines for the lattice, and rent a power washer to clean the deck, then stain it some other color.

But if you really want to start making an impact in your yard, start thinking in the $10K and up range.

[waterfall larry]

“Tc” has presented us with a really good opportunity. Any landscape designer can create a really awesome landscape with 10 million dollars and 100 acres. The real challenge of a landscape designers ability is to do a really awesome landscape with $500 and a 15 x 20 foot or smaller area.

So STONEHENGE

do you think this would be a prime opportunity to throw down the gauntlet and do a hgtv designers challenge type of thing and challenge all of our hot shot designers come up with their best design?

And set up the following parameters.
1 = how to get the best landscape for $2500 out of a 15x20 foot area.
2 = Do 3 or less stages.
3 = points are given for spending the least amount of money.
4 = make stage 1 spend $500 on the present area and NOT remove the screen.
5 = make stage 2 the removal of the lattice and landscaping the remainder of the 15 x 20 area in such a way that the work done in stage 1 is used in stage 2 or later.
6 = one last challenge and I will see if you can figure this one out. How to in 2 to 4 years, double the size in square feet of landscape beauty, without spending any more money.

Now TC if we do this for you could the winner expect a little something something from you? I would look foreword to a papa john’s pizza.
also tc could we bump the budget up to say around $2,000 to $,2500? and you never havew told us if you have any neighbor hood homeowners restrictions on landscaping. If this exercise is going to do you any real world benefit, it would be good for a designer to know what the restrictions are.

[Stonehenge]

WL,

Because this site was designed with the working landscape firm in mind, I'm betting that many aren't going to want to put a whole lot of effort into a landscape design that they know will not result in food on their table.

Hard to put a design like this ahead of paying jobs on the priority list. I think most of the folks here don't mind giving their input on a single issue here or there to help out a DIYer in need, but asking for an entire plan might be expecting a lot from our members.

Just my $.02.

But your enthusiasm for this is certainly a good thing.

[tcrock]

This is going to be my do-it yourself project, so all items that are required will need to be done into the pricing...

As far as your design challange, how will I see what it will look like?
What all will I have to do?

[tcrock]

Thanks for all the reply, this is all much, much appreciated!

[waterfall larry]

Stonehenge,

I would think that people would like to respond to the exercise because it is simply that, - exercise. It is an opportunity to dust out the cobwebs and challenge their thinking, to stretch their mental muscles. And besides, is it really all that hard, a 15x20 foot area, the highest quality of beauty for the least amount of money? And finally, TC isn’t the only person who has a limited budget and a small space. Why couldn’t, once they do a design for TC’s space, take that same exact plan and use it in a paying customers design? What this exercise does is to test or sharpen a designers ability to produce highly cost effective and benefit effective designs. Or to put it in less obfuse terms, get people more bang for their buck. I guess I do have an unfair advantage. Since I am unemployed and looking for a job, hint hint, I have a lot of time on my hands. But is it all that difficult of a challenge? I would think that requirement 6 gave it away.

TC, I have asked you the same questions a couple of times now. It is nice to answer peoples questions so tc if it can be done, I have like 1,500 megs of unused rack space on my web sites hosting plan and it should be possible to upload a few designs.

[Stonehenge]

WL, If you would like to take the chalice and run with it, be my guest. Just giving the perspective of another in the industry. Feel free to prove me wrong.

[tcrock]

What is the question?

my apologies if I missed it, it wasnt intentional.

~Thanks~

[waterfall larry]

any homeowner assocition restrictions

what types of rooms are inside the 2 windows

your willingness to spend say $2,500

any photos of the area that would be seen from inside the 2 rooms looking out

any distance between the edge of the deck and lattice in which to plant plants

any place to use the lattice somewhere else in the yard like the sides of the landacaped area.

[tcrock]

Originally posted by waterfall larry
any homeowner assocition restrictions

what types of rooms are inside the 2 windows

your willingness to spend say $2,500

any photos of the area that would be seen from inside the 2 rooms looking out

any distance between the edge of the deck and lattice in which to plant plants

any place to use the lattice somewhere else in the yard like the sides of the landacaped area.

1) No
2) There is a kitchen and dining/living room area (I'll try to get pics looking out for you.)
3)I didnt want to, but I guess it'll have to be raised higher, the max I can/will spend is about $3,000. It's a gift to my mother!
4)I'll have to take some tomorrow, its night time now
5)No, the deck and lattice are connect by nails and no room inbetween.
6)The rest of the yard has a slope and I dont think it would look too well. (Once again, I'll try to get pictures of the slope!)

Thanks for reposting the question
& Thanks for your time

[jwholden]

An educated customer is always your best customer.

[Raj Venugopal]

Stonehenge, you're a very diplomatic fellow.

Sharing work, asking peer-to-peer questions, input...that's entirely consistent with gtx.

I'm not sure this forum should be used as a mechanism to do free designing. It diminishes the value of our common enterprise, and encourages other h/owners to do likewise.







Originally posted by Stonehenge
WL, If you would like to take the chalice and run with it, be my guest. Just giving the perspective of another in the industry. Feel free to prove me wrong.

[waterfall larry]

Raj I agree with you and disagree with you. Yes doing an entire design may be beyond normal, I don’t see many other “home owners” asking for an entire design. But to clarify things tc’s original post didn’t ask for an entire design. I was the one who suggested it, so rap my knuckles. I wonder what you mean by the phrase, “diminishes the value of our common enterprise”? This sounds like another stizzle globen phrase to me. But I think I know what you are saying any way. I think the crux of the issue is free designing or doing a design for free. I think this is what you are objecting to. I would think that if anything would diminish the value of our common enterprise, it would be an attitude of I don’t do anything unless I get paid for it. I would think that if anything would undiminish the value of our common good, it would be to be generous and give our knowledge and 2 cents worth for free. Isn’t giving our knowledge for free what this board is all about? I don’t see stonehenge charging 2 cents for each of his 5519 posts. So far I have posted places to buy liner for 25 to 35 cents per square foot and told people how to make their own skimmer for $20 to $40 but who has scratched my back, who has offered me a job? So what is the harm in every once in a while doing a design for someone for free?

The reason why I suggested that we take tc’s case and the reason why I suggested the 6 requirements that I did is that I saw that this situation was a perfect opportunity to as jwholden said, This is a great place for brainstorming! Tc’ situation is one of the most difficult and challenging situations that a landscape designer could experience - a small budget and as I laid out, a small area. I added the 6 requirements to make our task even more difficult. Now Stonehenge, I don’t want to hurt your feelings and forgive me if I do, but what you wrote, partly because I know we can't make much of a change in a yard for that money, set off my radar. There are 2 problems here. First is our willingness to believe this and accept it as true. Second is our unwillingness to figure out how to solve this problem or to not figure out things to do that would enable us to make a large and awesome improvement in a yard for $500 or solve the budget constraint problem. Personally I am about 95 % convinced that I am a competent enough designer to make a large improvement to a yard with $500 and probably 97% convinced that I could do this for $2500. Now if I think that I could do this with just my 26 years of experience shouldn’t it be super easy to believe that if 500 of us or just 70 of us with an average of 20 years of landscape experience could come up with a long long list of things to do to solve this problem?

So what do you all want to do?

Set around and believe that $500 can’t make much of a change in a yard or
Brainstorm and combine our knowledge and competency and figure out all sorts of things to do to make a large change in a yard for $500?

[waterfall larry]

tc i sent you a pm did you get it email me and let me know.

[Raj Venugopal]

Hi WL,

I too see your point, and it's a good one.

We were burned twice this year by two homeowners who liked our work and tried to get our ideas for free. The went through an extensive design process and then shopped it out. We've wised up and are going to start charging refundable consultations. Some of my colleagues have been burned by h/o's who expect landscapers to "whip something up" for free.

Tcrock, this isn't directed at you specifically. If you have friends with mature perennials, hit them up for divisions. Cheap and easy way to populate your beds if you provide the muscle power.

In an ideal world I'd love to give free advice and help to anyone who just wanted a nice home which they could enjoy and feel good about. As my time and energy is limited, I'm painfully aware that every minute I spend giving free advice and free help takes time away I could spend with my two young children. Fair wages are compensation for that time.

[waterfall larry]

raj,

Now I see better where you are coming from. You are coming from where I thought you were.

So what can we learn from this. What I think is this. When it comes time to make money we need to make money. Our time is valuable too. We all have things we enjoy and we need time to enjoy them.

Somewhere we need to strike an even balance. Somewhere we need to strike a balance between making money and doing something that we aren't going to make any money off of.

Personally I believe that one is just as important as the other. Some may say that making money is more important but I can't say that. There are people who can well afford our fees and then there are people who can't. I believe that we do have a responsibility to help people even though we may not make any money off of it. This board is a giant shining example of people taking the time and effort to post a response knowing that they won't make money off of their post.

So why do people post replies on this board? Could it be that they realize that there are other types of wealth than money? Could it be that helping someone for free pays - but pays in a form that has nothing to do with money? I think so. Could it be that sharing ones knowledge and wisdom enriches ones life?

The beauty of a discussion board or whatever this thing is called is that through the participation of a large number of people, a problem is solved, with just a little amount of time and effort from each contributor.

The beauty of a bord like this is that, "2 heads are better than 1". Turning out the highest quality design while spending as little of a customers money as possible is one characteristic that separtes the men from the boys or one trait than makes a designer more competent or more competent than other designers.

So when I say let's help tc out, I am saying let's all of us contribute something to a need that will help us all become more competent designers.

There are a thousand and one things that can be done to increase the quality of a design and a thousand and one things that can be done to decrease the cost of getting the best landscape possible. I have no doubt that there are a great number of highly competent people and designers on this board. So wouldn't it be awesome we unleashed all of this knowledge and competency on the problem or need?

My personal and professional goal in
landscaping is to get the greatest number of people a level of landscaping that gets them 100% of the life enrichment and value of landscaping and gets them there in the least amount of time possible and for the least amount of money possible. One of several things that I do to achieve this goal is to be anally and obsessively committed to being as cost effective with every one of the landscape dollars people entrust to me. No matter how much I try, I know that someone is going to have a few ideas I haven't thought of yet.

[tcrock]

Still waiting for my digital camera, had to have it repaired

Apologize for the wait!

Once again Thanks