Landscaping Colorado Springs CO

What Xeriscape Actually Asks of Your Yard

Xeriscape is a Colorado word and it means designing a yard to live on very little water. It does not mean covering the ground in gravel, which is the version most people picture and the version that disappoints them.

A gravel yard still grows weeds, throws heat back at the house all afternoon and gives you nothing to look at. A real low water design has plants, layers and seasonal change, grouped so the thirsty things sit together in one small zone instead of being scattered across the lot.

Watering rules and schedules here decide what is realistic, so a design that only survives on daily irrigation is a design that breaks the first month you cannot run it. Ask what the yard needs in its third summer. The first summer of any planting is the easy one and it tells you almost nothing about what you are signing up for.

Timing is the other half of survival. The growing season is short at this elevation and late spring frosts are normal, so a crew that wants to put tender material in the ground on the first warm week is gambling with your money. Trees and shrubs usually do better going in during fall, when roots keep working after the top has shut down. Winter is no break either: long dry warm spells with no snow cover will kill new plantings and evergreens, so ask whether winter watering is in the plan and who is doing it.

Hail is the part nobody warns you about. Broad soft foliage that photographs beautifully can be stripped back to stems by one August storm, while narrow leaved, tough and low growing material takes the beating and comes back. Exposure splits a single lot in two as well. The south and west sides bake all afternoon, the north side holds snow into spring, and the same plant put on both sides gives you one success and one failure.

Lawn is a choice, not a default. If you want turf, put it where people actually stand or play and let the rest of the lot be low water planting, because a carpet of grass across a whole Colorado Springs lot is usually the most expensive thing on the plan to keep alive.

The Clay Under the Yard and the Open Space Behind It

Expansive clay drains slowly, so a bed built flat, or ringed with edging that traps water, holds that water right against the foundation.

Beds and turf here need grading and real soil work first: slope falling away from the house, amended soil so roots have somewhere to go and a route for water to leave. That work is invisible and it costs money. It is also the difference between a yard that ages well and one that gets dug up in year three.

Order is the whole thing. Grading and drainage, then irrigation, then plants. A quote that leads with a plant list and leaves drainage as an optional add on has the sequence backwards.

Behind the fence is the other constraint. If you back onto open space, scrub or the forest edge, defensible space changes what you plant and how close to the walls it goes.

In practice the strip nearest the house stays lean and broken up instead of a continuous run of dense evergreens under the eaves, and the heavier planting gets pushed further out. It also covers the boring things nobody puts in a rendering, like where the wood pile sits and whether the mulch runs right up to the siding. A landscaper who works the wildland edge should raise all of this before you have to.

Colorado Does Not License Landscapers. Check These Three Things Instead

Colorado issues state licenses for electricians and plumbers. It issues nothing for landscapers, tree crews or hardscape installers, so a truck door that says licensed landscaper is telling you very little and there is no state number behind it for you to look up.

Insurance is the part that is real. Ask for general liability and workers comp certificates to come to you straight from the insurance agency, not as a photo forwarded by the crew, and check that the dates actually cover the weeks your job runs. A machine cutting a grade next to your foundation is the moment that certificate stops being paperwork.

Permits matter here too, because landscaping stops being landscaping at a certain point. In Colorado Springs a retaining wall above a set height needs a building permit, and a new irrigation line tied into the potable water supply needs an approved backflow preventer. Ask which parts of your plan cross those lines and who is pulling the permit, and treat nobody as the wrong answer.

The third check takes about ninety seconds and you can do it before anyone sets foot on your property. Ask for the business name exactly as it is registered, then search it on the Colorado Secretary of State business database, which is free and open to anybody. A name that comes back dissolved, or does not come back at all, has told you something useful for the price of nothing.

Landscaping Costs in Colorado Springs CO

These are Colorado Springs ranges, and they are a yardstick to hold a real bid against. They are not a substitute for one. Lots with a genuine drainage problem or a steep grade behind the house land at the top of these numbers, because the soil work happens before anything visible does. Ask every quote to split the site work from the planting, so you can see what you are really paying for and put two bids side by side on the same terms.

Choosing a Landscaper in Colorado Springs

Common Questions About Landscaping in Colorado Springs CO