Working with trades: Landscapers

All too often left until last in a self build project, a landscaping scheme is incredibly important for making sure a home blends in to its setting. Tim Doherty sets out the main considerations you need to account for when planning your outdoor space

Tim Doherty

One of the keys to a successful scheme is combining good soft planting, which will mature over time, with the more formal hard landscaping. Here, a deck coated in Ronseal Decking Rescue Paint provides an appealing counterpoint to grasses, lavender and the mature trees in the background

When it comes to sorting out your landscaping, there tends to be three main approaches. You might well be a garden-lover with a great vision, really looking forward to transforming your plot into something very special. Alternatively, perhaps your planning consent includes a condition for the production of a formal landscaping scheme. For some of you, this might not be a critical part of your dream home and you may simply be content with chancing your luck at the end of the project with whatever cash is left over.

Design basics

Whatever category you fall into, your home’s exteriors will still need to be considered in fair detail – so it makes sense to have a scheme produced as part of the overall design process. The planning will fall into two sub-groups: the hard landscaping (driveways, paths, patios, walls and boundaries); and the soft parts of the design, which basically comes down to selecting the appropriate planting to match your vision and do justice to the space.

The majority of architects and home designers will include some landscaping as part of their service, but this is usually limited to the basic hard elements. They’re likely to set out the location of the site access (and any pavement crossover), entrance gates, size and scope of the driveway, position of a garage (if applicable), patios and boundary treatments. Their drawings may indicate some definition between planted areas and lawn, but this can often be the extent of the soft landscaping.