August 31, 2026 · New View Landscaping
If you've never had a full landscape done before, it's hard to know what you're actually signing up for, how long it takes, what order things happen in, or when you'll start seeing something that looks like a finished yard instead of a construction site. Here's the real sequence.
It starts with a walk-through, not a sales pitch. We look at the property with you, talk about how you actually want to use the space, and take note of the stuff that isn't obvious from a photo, drainage patterns, sun exposure through the day, sight lines from inside the house. That walk-through is what the design gets built around, not the other way around.
Once there's a direction everyone agrees on, the work itself generally follows this order: grading and drainage first, since that's the foundation everything else sits on and it's a lot harder to fix after the fact. Then hardscape, retaining walls, patios, walkways, whatever structure the design calls for. Planting and mulch or rock bed work come after the hardscape is in, since you don't want a skid loader driving through freshly planted beds. Lighting, if it's part of the project, gets wired in during the hardscape and planting phases so nothing has to be dug up again later.
This is also the point where a lot of people are surprised how much of the timeline is grading and base prep, not the parts that are visible in the after photos. A retaining wall that takes three days to build might have a full day of that just in excavation and compaction before a single block gets set. That's not wasted time, it's the reason the wall's still straight in ten years instead of five.
For a full property, start to finish usually runs anywhere from several days to a couple of weeks depending on scope. If budget means phasing the project, we plan for that from the design stage, so what gets built first doesn't have to be redone when the next phase gets added.
The honest version of 'what to expect': a few days where the yard looks worse than when you started, because grading and hardscape work looks like a mess before it looks like anything. Then it comes together fast once beds and plantings go in. If you're getting ready for a project and want to know roughly what your specific yard is looking at, that's exactly what the free walk-through is for.
A full plan for your yard, then a crew that installs it right the first time.
Learn MoreEvery yard is different, so there's no honest flat-rate answer. Here's what actually moves the number up or down, so you know what you're looking at before you ask for a quote.
Not a matter of one being better than the other. Mulch and rock solve different problems, and picking wrong means redoing the bed sooner than you should have to.
Everyone thinks spring is planting season. For trees and shrubs in our climate, fall usually gives better results, and the window is shorter than people expect.
