You're kidding, right? In my region you'd pay $60 - $100 for good sized shrubs from a reasonably priced nursery. You'd pay about half that for the big box storesÂand they'd be about 1/3 the size. Think waiting 2 to 3 years for the smaller shrubs to catch up. Trees? Well, they'd be a bit pricierÂIs the work being priced just for the front yard? I've received several bids for a small landscape project in my backyard that would include re-grading mistakes of the distant past. (Note: You bet there's a warning here. Poorly done grading can mean water issues.) The quotes are coming in at $5,000 to $6,500, if we go with a newly paved patio after the grading. That's for a relatively small area of my modest overall landscape. You want shrubsÂa 50' hedge rowÂgrading seedingÂetc.? I guess I'm wondering who will evaluate the grade and get the drainage right, who will plan for decks, patios, walkways? What about exterior lighting, automatic watering? Sounds to me as though you already have this as cheap as possible Believe me, for 10k you'll get what you paid forÂand it probably won't be much. How much consultation with the LA will you have? Are you just receiving some sort of "standard package" or will the LA give you personal attention and all the different kinds of plan drawings that come with a professional LA? Are you getting the feeling of "Here's your grade work. There's your seed. Here's your row of hedge row shrubs. See ya' later!" (Sound of truck driving off rapidly.) If it were me, I'd be driving over to talk to this guy's previous customers. How happy are they? What does their landscape look like? I'd be talking with friends who have done landscape work that appeals to me and asking them what it cost. Either way, you might be better off putting $5,000 toward consultation with a reputable landscape architect firm for the purpose of developing a comprehensive site-analysis and exterior plan. The work doesn't have to all be implemented at once, but can be done in phases. I'd particularly recommend such a course for someone who aims to have low-maintenance. No landscape can be maintained without some care, and it takes thoughtfulness and planning to get something that is both attractive and relatively trouble free. A really beautiful home can be made into a sad, depressed looking trollop if the exterior work is done too much "on the cheap". Mistakes can damage your home and be costly to fix later on. Think in terms of spending 10 to 20 % of the cost of your home. That's the "rule of thumb" that's out there. Wellspring, who is just a homeowner somewhere on the low-cost-of-living prairie

Thank you everyone for your input - some great info here for me to consider. As I have been researching landscape professionals, I have been concentrating on those who seem to have significant hardscaping experience, since I know our project is going to involve a new retaining wall and section of patio at a minimum, and possibly much more. Someone to help me choose plants and design plantings is a secondary concern, although I have certainly been paying attention to people's styles in that regard as I research. Anyway, the people I have emailed thus far are all design-build firms, which I assume will be the easiest way to deal with this project, especially given Revolutionary's note about not building what other people design. That is understandable and I'm sure most of these designers have a team of masons/contractors they work with to avoid that exact issue. It sounds as though paying a designer for a buildable set of plans to shop around to contractors will just end up costing a lot more in the end, for very little benefit - that is, as long as I can find a design-build firm where both the designer and builders are equally talented! Asking whether these designers are willing to chat on the phone first is a terrific idea - I will absolutely ask! Site consultations have been offered at anywhere from $200 for one hour to $375 for three hours, and while I don't find those fees outrageous for someone's expertise, I really don't want to agree to the fee only to find that I can't stand someone the moment I meet them, LOL.

Please look into Permaculture / food forests or forest gardening. Plants and trees can provide beauty and function, and the idea is that you plant things that are perennial and will give you food. You could plant some evergreens that will give you pine nuts, some paw paw trees, persimmon trees and understory ones like Asian pears, serviceberries, figs and hazelnuts; bushes could be Cornelian cherries or bush cherries, blueberries or honey berries, currants; the list is endless. Even asparagus can be used, and it will resemble tall grasses. You could have rhubarb for their amazing color and leaf size, and strawberries as a ground cover...you could have a large pergola or arbor with kiwi or grapes...all of these plants are beautiful, many provide seasonal color and fragrance along with delicious fruit. I started a food forest last year, and along with what I had planted, I have well over 30 kinds of fruit that I'm growing and I plan to add more. I will have fresh fruit from May through November / December. I live in a zone 4-5 climate in Vermont. Watch a few videos by "Canadian Permaculture Legacy" to get the idea. It does not have to look like an orchard or vegetable garden, but instead, an integrated and verdant oasis of interesting plant shapes, heights and colors intermingled . Personally, I love raspberries, but I won't grow them because I don't want to deal with the canes which get unruly and are kind of labor intensive. All of my choices are tidy and low-maintenance. Right next to the sidewalk, for example, I have planted a 120' hedge of Regent serviceberries which will serve a number of purposes: all of the leaves from the neighborhood won't end up in my front yard, it will offer privacy in the summer but still be of a friendly height, it will feed the birds, act as a sound buffer for the constant traffic and will help with the dirt and dust that gets in the house from the highway. The hedge will explode in blossom in the spring; it will offer tons of food for me and it will offer fall color. Plants should provide more than a single purpose! With your upstairs windows, I was wondering if you could replace the existing ones with somewhat bigger/taller windows and add a second and third one on the left and right windows to help align with the downstairs and to let in more light.

Deanna, your head must be spinning with all that going on, but a lot of it sounds very satisfying. To have one child getting married and another just starting college, are very happy circumstances to be in. And you get to spend time traveling with your brother, that must have been fun! Is the college bound child going in the Fall? There are years when the garden has to fend for itself as much as possible and looks like this is one of those years for you. Your daffodils are fabulous! That is an amazing amount of bulbs to have planted. Remind me, did you have help putting them in? I love it when someone adds enough daffodils bulbs to really make a visual statement And that definitely is. Wow. So you did get Flower Record, I think you will be happy that they do dependably come back and increase from year to year. Now will you have any perennials come up to disguise the dying foliage? And will you be able to leave the grass without mowing until the foliage on the daffodils in the lawn cure? Very pretty tulips! I like that color combination and 7 years seems like a long time to have tulips coming back. I thought you had deer? For me this year, it was a very good year for bulbs. My daffodils were bursting with blooms and they increased their footprint. And all the bulbs lasted a good long time. At least that is one benefit of all this cool spring weather! They are just now starting to fade, but I am surprised that a few Daffodils just opened about a week ago and I now have a longer season with the different varieties. It must have been a warm winter, because I also had very little winter die back. All the hydrangea and the roses had new growth right to the tips of the branches. Very unusual for me. And all the rain we’ve had, this is the best start to the growing season I’ve had in a long time. I’m going to have to take a photo of the layered bed I started with that pile of branches. I also have four overflowing piles of compost that I am layering with them. I ran out of places to make a berm so I started one in an unused veggie bed. My wooden raised beds are 10 years old and this year are falling apart and I am going to have to dismantle them. I love your 3rd Forsythia photo with the Rockcress in front of it. So cheerful and colorful! That really is a very cute Sempervivum and Elfin Thyme is a great ground cover. You must have the conditions for it. I’ve gone back and opened your first photo about 3x…lol. It really is a very successful planting of daffodils. You did a wonderful job of placing them. I think it was the perfect place for them, with that slope and the curve of the bed and the evergreen tree in the background. This is exactly what a planting of daffodils should look like. Sometimes I go by someone’s house and they have stuck 2 daffodil bulbs here and another 2 there. So sad, in comparison to this. Great job Deanna!!