Hi all,
We are trying to turn our weedy backyard (that is not level and has bald patches) into a low maintenance edible garden with perennial/ annual edibles, drought tolerant plants, and fruit trees...
We both have only lived in apartments before and we are quite overwhelmed by all the decisions to make and things to do (we don't have a truck or heavy duty equipments (we do have some hand tools like shovel and a lopper, weed-wacker etc.) Because my dh is super busy with work and not as excited as I am in gardening... making trips to nurseries and hauling dirt etc. so i am the primary person handling the gardening stuff.
So we do live in area where many houses (not all, but many do) have professional landscaping done. We don't think we are having much hardscaping, we already have a deck... mainly it would be, designing the space, planting fruit trees, grading the yard, replace existing weedy, patchy lawn with lower maintenance clover lawn or other more drought tolerant grass, creating area for planting native plants / mixed with perennials/ annuals edibles, flagstones paths, trellises and, change some of the existing irrigation to accommodate new landscape, tool shed area and other design decisions)
hopefully we can get the project under $8,000 (hopefully less) if we hire someone to design and install the landscaping. We paid $537,000 for our house last year and intend to stay here another 10 years minimum.( we are in the Bay Area, so real estate prices are crazy, this is considered affordable compare to SF). I notice that when people fix up their houses to sell, landscaping is one of things that is done to fetch higher prices. We figure, if we have to do it when we sell the house in the future anyway, why not do it early so we at least get to enjoy it?
So my question is, let's say if we spend $8,000 on landscaping, how much of that can we recoup when we sell in 10 years? We are making more money this year so this is within our budget. Our goal is to save $30K each year, and this year we should be able to save and invest $40,000. and can still spend $8,000 for a home project. Still this is quite a bit of money, but if this adds value to our property value, it is easier to stomach. Is landscaping considered home improvement or maintenance if no new structure is created (we aren't adding an outdoor living room)
We do enjoy being outside a lot, and I like gardening, so I intend to do most garden maintenance myself once this is set up.
My worry about DIY is if it will end up taking years instead of days to get it done, and if we don't do something right, we end up having to redo it or still have a professional come work on it, then we end spending more in both time and money.