Released On 20th Oct 2022

Why Winter Is The Best Time To Start Your Landscaping

Now that the weather is starting to turn, leaves are coming down and you’re having to defrost your car for the first time this year, it’s understandable that you’re not even thinking about summer or your garden. A lot of people tend to forget their gardens over the winter months, leaving them to ‘do their own thing’ because the cold, rain and snow keep you huddled indoors in the warm. But just because it’s cold and wintery now, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be planning ahead for the warmer months. Which is why winter is actually one of the best times to start your garden landscaping.

Outdoor Transformations Take Time

First things first. Completely changing your garden from a mix of grass and flower beds into an outdoor paradise isn’t an overnight job. There is a lot of planning and preparation that needs to happen before a single spade full of earth is moved. You will need to find a landscaper who you can work with, have consultations to decide exactly what your vision for the space is (and how practical it is), and draw up plans for it. All of that takes time, and if you wait until spring to start thinking about it, you might not get to enjoy your new garden until the next summer! In the off-season, your landscaper is going to be more accessible than normal and leaves more time to make design modifications, and pick out and order materials for your new space. After all, there are hundreds if not thousands of material combinations you could choose, and having the extra time to talk with your landscaper will be an enormous advantage when creating the landscaped garden of your dreams.

Get Your Budget Together

Transforming your garden space isn’t exactly a cheap project. But until you start putting ideas on paper, there is no telling how much it will cost you. If you left your planning until spring, you would only have a small space of time to pull together the funds you need before work would start. But planning in winter means you can work out exactly how much you need to have, what your different options are and what the costs for each will be. This means you can make choices based on what you like, rather than what’s cheap, and get your finances for the project planned out. This means you’ll be happier with your end result, and you won’t be out of pocket or in debt trying to do it!

Time To Arrange Your Permits

Depending on what you’re planning to do with your garden space, you might need to talk to your local council and obtain a permit. If you’re just re-scaping your flower beds, putting in some pathways and so on, you’ll probably be ok. But if you’re going to be putting up structures, like cabins or outdoor entertainment areas, then you may need a permit. Depending on your council, these can take between 4 and 6 weeks to get, and you will need to have full plans ready to submit before they will be granted. If you wait until spring or summer to do this, you could end up delaying your project by several months, which isn’t good for everyone! So, the further in advance you can get them sorted, the better.

A lot of people think that the time to start planning your garden projects is spring. And if you’re planting some new flowers and shrubs, they’re right. But if you’ve decided that this is going to be the year you put in that summer house, install that big new pond or create a fantastic decking area to entertain your friends and family, then you really need to start planning in winter.