Hardscaping

If you’ve ever seen driveways, retaining walls, stairs, walkways, fountains, and even small pools, these are all examples of hardscaping. These “hard” landscaping elements are usually built from wood, stone, or concrete, and they create the overall structure for a property or area. You can see hardscape walls at work in both public areas, such as retaining walls along a highway, and private areas, such as homes with concrete block flower beds.

In small-scale projects, hardscape landscaping has aesthetic appeal. It can help create levels, for example, on a property’s front yard that would otherwise remain flat. On the other hand, hardscaping features can be a highly beneficial addition to structures that sit on a slope. For example, when used as retaining walls, concrete hardscape in both residential and public or commercial projects can stop soil erosion, help with water drainage, and ensure that certain areas don’t become waterlogged or bog-like.

Hardscaping exists to support softscaping features. The two are inextricably linked as hardscape walls, and structures provide the “bones” for softscape features like:

• Floral arrangements
• Trees
• Sod/turfgrass
• Shrubs
• Small ponds or swimming pools
• Rock gardens
• Accent plants
• Vines
• Ground cover

Since softscaping elements are living plants, they’ll need upkeep and maintenance regularly through activities like pruning, mowing, fertilising, and more. In contrast, hardscape maintenance is much less frequent and usually only occurs if there’s something structurally wrong with the elements. An example of this is a shifting retaining wall or walkway stones coming loose because they haven’t been properly sealed.

Hardscape contractors are landscape architects who understand the interplay between both elements. They know that trees, soil, flowers, grass, shrubs, etc., cannot be ordered in a design-friendly and beautiful way without the foundation of hardscaping.

That’s why hardscaping companies will first start with the non-living elements of landscape design, including:

• Walkways
• Patios or decks
• Retaining hardscape walls
• Firepits
• Driveways
• Stone columns
• Fountains
• Gazebos or pergolas

These elements then create well-defined boundaries for people to use these elements or offer practical spaces to place softscaping elements.

Hardscape contractors won’t usually separate quotes based on hardscape and softscape elements or work. Instead, hardscaping companies will treat your project as an overall landscape design project.

However, you can opt to just hire hardscape contractors to design and build hardscape elements. Let’s say, for example, that you don’t want to hire equipment to put in concrete hardscape walls yourself. Instead, you’d rather have an expert handle that.

What you do want to be personally in charge of is sourcing trees, buying soil, ordering garden plants, creating flower beds, and more. That’s fine! You can ask your contractor to quote you for the hardscape elements only.

Typically, the amount of money you should plan to budget out for hardscaping is about 5%-10% of your home’s total value.

Hardscaping design, coupled with beautiful softscaping, can absolutely boost your home’s final value. That’s important for homeowners, especially those who want to enjoy their property in the present but also need to ensure that their significant financial investment is worth something down the road.

Your property’s value can increase between 5% and 15%, depending on what functional spaces and design elements your hardscape contractors incorporate.

For example, a property with a pool and an outdoor kitchen will be worth much more than a home with only a patio area. However, these are subjective evaluations. So don’t be surprised if a beautiful and aesthetic patio area is appraised to be worth just as much as a “fancier” hardscape project.