Oh, and it's a .25 acre lot with about a 55' x 50' house in the middle.

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 possibleÂ

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

Ten thousand dollars for landscaping is chump change on a house with a footprint of over 2,500 even if you need someone to help take the axles off of it.

You are building a 50'x55' house and have chosen to live in a neighborhood that has built the preservation of values into it for the purposes of making it a nice place to live and keep your property value up. Presumably, you bought into this development partly because of that protection.

This is like buying a Mercedes and complaining that you have to put gas in it.

That $10k that you and all others in your HOA need to spend is an insurance policy that protects all of you from the neighbor that is too cheap to keep up the standards that are designed to give you a certain quality of life and to retain and enhance the value of your property.

Are you the person these rules are designed to protect the rest of the HOA from?

If you know exactly what you want to have done, you can get a couple of prices from other contractors/installers.

If you have any skills, you can do your own planting, seeding, and spreading of straw after the drainage and grading are done. If you don't have the skills/knowledge, you may end up with poor results and have to pay to have it done over with new plants.

We have gotten a few prices from a company that many homeowners use. Thankfully he was very familiar with our subdivision and our particular section in the subdivision so he is developing two plans for our house that will come in well below the $10K. He will also take care of the yard for a fee and noted that he has about 100 such contracts in our subdivision for various upkeep.

Buy the way laag z6CapeCod, I do balk at paying $3.69 to fill up our Mercedes. We are currently living up North and are moving to VA.

No one likes over paying, so I can not blame you for that. But, although it was not always that way in Virginia, labor costs money and we should all be thankful for that.

Fifty feet of hedge can eat up $2,500 pretty easily. You are in a part of the world that has a high cost of living. It is that way for the lowest workers as well as the people in the big houses in gated communities. The laborers are most likely paid at least $15 per hour or more and billed out at $45-$60 per hour (they have to be paid for non-billable hours as well). The contractor is also paying out for fuel. He also has to store his equipment and trucks in an area where rent or ownership is expensive. Trucks and equipment are very expensive and require a lot more repair than a car. There is insurance of many kinds. It costs a lot of money just to be in place before any work gets done.

I had a chuckle at a gas station earlier this year. The person at the other side of the pump island was complaining about the gas price being over $3. I went in to pay as she is buying a pint of water for $1.25 without batting an eyelid - that's $10 per gallon.

It is all a matter of perspective.

laag is correct, many people balk at the cost of decent landscaping because they don't know anything about it. But they'll cough up $5000 for a stainless professional range or granite countertops and think they got their money's worth.

Oh yeah, have to add that the landscaper is only doing the yard. This is not part of the GC budget and will be an individual proposal.

The GC budget includes the walkways, exterior lights and the deck. We also need a fence installed around the HVAC/trash area and the GC has that in the build budget.

$10K still sounds like a helluva bargain to me.

Welcome to the Commonwealth! I am not familiar with the cost of living in Williamsburg, but in general I agree with the others that $10k is a very reasonable price for the type of work you are talking about. I mostly wanted to chime in to say that I hope you want a run-of-the-mill-low-maintenance landscape, because I suspect that is what you will be getting.

I am curious how much you have been involved in the design of the walkways and the deck. It is these major features that set the stage for the rest of the landscape. At this stage I would suggest at least a consultation with a talented landscape designer that can integrate your paths, deck and plantings into a cohesive outdoor living area.

- Brent

My wife is from VA and she says it's the Commonwealth but wealth is not all that common.

I have not been involved in the deck or walkways. My wife is picking almost everything. All I know there is some specific stone/pebble that my wife wants for the walkways.

We are not gardening people and want no-fuss landscaping plus a contract for the landscaper to care for it.