A Beginner’s Step by Step Guide to Transforming Your Yard on a Budget

So you bought a new house and you’ve spent the last few months (or years in my case) updating the interior to your liking. In the meantime, your yard has been decently maintained but has started to wear on you. All that faded tanbark is yucky, the kids have practically killed the grass by throwing the nearby gravel into it, or frankly – it’s just not your style. And you don’t know the first thing about landscape design or gardening or even where to start. Well, whatever it is, fear not! It’s fixable and it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Here’s how we did our entire backyard (including patio redesign and all new sod) for a FRACTION (READ: 85% OFF) OF THE GOING RATE.

 1.  Identify Your Yard Goals

This may seem like a no brainer, but it takes some time to determine what exactly you want in a yard.  Do you prioritize plenty of space to entertain with features like multiple seating areas or a fire pit, or do you simply need lots of grass for your kids to do kid stuff?  Also what is your aesthetic?  Do you prefer desert chic or English cottage?  A simple Pinterest search can help you visualize your style preferences for your landscaping.

The yard that came with our house was very disjointed.  There was a bocce ball court that ran nearly the entire extent of the back fence line surrounded by a border of gravel.  Also there was a playhouse and sandbox in the far back corner surrounded by tanbark.  We had a 3 and 1 year old.  I think you know where I’m going with this.  Everything ended up becoming a gross mix of sand, tanbark, oyster shell and gravel.  It became the bane of my existence trying to keep my kids from putting rocks in the bocce ball court or tanbark in the sandbox (or sand in the blowup pool, or the playhouse, or in the crevices of their bodies – TMI?)  I was torn because I loved how entertained they were by their creative play, but also horrified at how disgusting our yard was becoming.  So we had two main goals:

1.  Reduce all the mixed materials and simplify our yard
   • This ultimately meant removing the bocce ball court and sandbox.  The upside was this gave us TONS more room to add grass and other (cleaner) types of play for the kids, like a swing-set or trampoline.  
2. Make our yard “prettier”
   • For me this meant adding lush landscape like flowers, bushes and vines.  With so much sand and rocks before, I wanted green green green!  

Here are some “before” pictures, i.e. listing photos from when it was for sale.  It never looked this clean again.

Rocks and sand and tan bark, OH MY!   

Hello ginormous ugly desert plant!  Sorry if you like that, just not my thing

We ripped out this concreted-in bench and uber modern/modular fountain/water feature thingy day 1.  Again, just not my thing.

Okay so now we had an idea of what we wanted, but ZERO IDEA as to how to implement it.  This is where we made the BEST DECISION we could have.

2.  Hire a Landscape Design Professional

And I don’t mean a full service landscape design firm because we’re on a budget here.  No, you just want a cohesive plan and design.  Our local garden center, Armstrong Gardens, had a promotion going on in which, for $400, their landscape designer would come to your house, discuss your goals, take measurements, and deliver an extensive plan along with a $100 gift card to be used towards plants.  This was HANDS DOWN the best money we spent.  Kathleen met with me for roughly 45 minutes discussing our goals paying close attention to colors, styles and aesthetics we both like and DON’T like, and then went to work taking measurements and notes in the backyard.  Within a week or so, we got this.

And this.

AND a corresponding catalog of pictures of every plant she recommended.  Here is just page one.

Not only was this plan extensive, it was very deliberate.  Kathleen took into account factors such as what areas of our yard receive full, partial, or no sun and then selected plants that produced our preferred aesthetic.  She layered taller bushes behind lower-growing shrubs to create stunning borders that there is NO WAY IN HELL I could have designed  myself.  With our plan in hand, we were ready to start.  But how?

3.  Use Your Gardener as Your Landscaper

That is of course if you have a regular gardener, and even then, there is a BIG caveat to this one:  your gardener has to know what they’re doing.  But if they do, use them.  I say this for two reason. 

1.  They will take pride in maintaining your yard going forward if they took the time to install it.  
2. They will likely charge MUCH MUCH less than a landscaper.  Ours quoted us roughly 1/4 of what a landscaper did for the EXACT SAME work.  The reason for this is twofold:  you are a returning/ongoing customer for your gardener unlike a one-time customer for the landscape firm; your returning business is an enormous benefit to them.  Secondly, if your gardener is like mine, payment is under-the-table.  The ability to not have to declare income as taxable means he can charge less than a corporation does and still receive an adequate commission.  I know maybe this isn’t the most ethical way to think about it but it definitely helps if you are on a budget!

Our gardener has managed our yards for nearly 7 years now while also working for a professional landscape service in the city.  We have a very good relationship with him and have had him do several projects for us over the years.  We had many conversations with him about various aspects of the job including soil prep, irrigation, types of sod to use, etc. so ultimately we felt confident in our decision to hire him to do the work.  Maybe this is a somewhat unique scenario, but it never hurts to ASK your gardener about their experience doing more complex work.  

 Naturally, Sean had to give the digger a spin.

4.  Work With What You Have

Progress over perfection, people.  I’d say this is what saved us the most money and headache.  If you have a concrete patio but don’t like the shape or size, did you know you can CUT IT???  Mind.  Blown.  We had this awful sharp edge on one part of our patio that A. was ugly and B. prevented our yard from having a good flow to it, and our gardener was able to carve it into a beautiful soft corner for us.  I literally had no clue you could cut concrete slab without damaging it.  This probably saved us anywhere from $20,000-$40,000 by not having to redo our patio.  

On the right side you can see where the corner was and how far it jetted out.  Rounding this edge not only gives our yard a softer vibe, but also opens up the grassy area for better flow.

We also worked with what we had by moving some of our existing plants and planters to different locations to save us money on buying plants.   Added bonus – these plants were moved to make room for even more grass!  Win-win!  While not as financially impactful as the cutting-the-slab hack, we were able to save a couple hundred bucks and keep some fruit trees the kids love.

5.  Go Small or Not at All

Basically this is the opposite of “go big or go home” and may be another “duh” point, but in order to stay under budget, you may not be able to do everything.  There is an entire area of our yard where we decided against implement the plan right now, and might not ever.  It’s off to the side and fairly hidden by our grill and patio furniture so even now that the rest of the yard is done, it doesn’t bother me.  

Also, to cut costs I purchased many of the plants in 1 gallon rather than 2-5 gallon containers.  Of course it would be nice to have our yard beautiful and lush immediately but I can wait a year or two for the plants to grow in to save a bundle of dough.  Plus, the younger plants require a little more love which I’m happy to give, and really is one of the many benefits of having a garden, isn’t it?  To garden?  But if you don’t know how to do that…

6.  Become Besties with a Nursery Staff Member

If you are truly a beginner like me and don’t know diddly squat about types of plants and plant care, talking with a seasoned associate is equivalent to a FREE crash course in Gardening 101.  The knowledge I ascertained from a garden center employee is far better than any internet search, SCOUT’S HONOR.   The nice lady at my local garden center spent nearly 3 hours with me patiently showing me EVERY plant listed on my list (30+) and alternatives when I didn’t love it in person.  She told me all about the care, size, blooms or temperament of each plant in a way you just can’t get from the internet.  Also plant names are ridiculously hard to remember so good luck with that Google search. 😉

The cost breakdown of our yard was approximately:

• $900 equipment rentals
• $6000 sod, tan bark, and materials 
• $1400 plants
• $1200 labor
• = $9,500 aka UNDER $10,000 

Our quote for patio alone was $40,000.  Had we hired the “expert” landscapers everything but the patio would have been about $20,000.  Shopping around and making budget conscious decisions saved us 85%!!!!

Here is our yard now that we’ve completed our “makeover.”  

So there you have it!  I can’t wait to watch my garden grow!  Let me know – did you find this helpful?  Any additional questions?  Please comment below or reach out on Instagram @notesofcharm.  Have a great weekend everyone, you know where I’ll be.  😉

Kristen