How waiting to do the garden later can end up costing you more.
"We’ll just finish the house first and tackle the garden next year."
It sounds like a sensible, low-stress financial decision. But in the world of high-end construction, this is a logistical trap that often increases landscape costs by 20% to 30%. The reason isn’t the price of the plants; it’s the price of Site Access.
The "900mm Nightmare"
During the construction of your home, the site is open. Excavators, bobcats, and trucks move freely. Moving 20 cubic metres of soil or placing large sandstone boulders takes a machine a few hours.
However, the moment your builder hands over the keys, the fences go up and the side gates are installed. Suddenly, your site access is restricted to a standard 900mm pedestrian gate. If a machine cannot fit down the side of your house, your landscape construction changes from Mechanical to Manual.
The Economics of Retrofitting
When you "do the garden later," you aren't just paying for plants; you’re paying for the extreme inefficiency of a restricted site:
Earthworks: Instead of a bobcat moving soil in two hours, you are paying four labourers to move it by wheelbarrow over two days.
Material Lifts: Large trees or heavy stone may now require a crane to lift them over the roof of your finished house—costing thousands in hire fees and permits.
Collateral Damage: Moving heavy materials through a finished home or down a narrow, rendered path risks scuffing your new paintwork or cracking your fresh driveway.
The Solution: Integrated Earthworks
The most cost-effective way to build a landscape is to coordinate with the house build. This is where our Architectural Native Master Plan pathway becomes your most valuable financial tool.
By having your design finalized before the house is finished, we can instruct your builder to complete the "heavy lifting"—the bulk earthworks, the structural retaining walls, and the sub-surface drainage—while the big machines are still on-site.
You can certainly plant the greenery later. But you must build the "bones" of the garden while you still have the space to move.
Don’t paint yourself into a corner
A bit of foresight now prevents a lot of wheelbarrowing later. Ensure your landscape is planned before the fences go up so that your budget goes into the garden, not the logistical cleanup.