What is hardscaping?
Hardscaping deals with all the non-plant elements of landscape and yard design. Paved areas, streets and sidewalks, paths, brick patios, retaining walls, pools, physical boundaries between properties or between lawns, and gardens are all creations that distinguish hardscaping from landscaping.
Landscaping deals with what are known as softscapes. Lawns, gardens, and flowerbeds are all softscapes. The architectural elements that contain them, divide them, lead to them, and encircle them are often made of hard materials. The process of planning and constructing those hard elements is hardscaping.
What can hardscaping contractors do?
These specialists can choose the building materials that go together best. For instance, hardscapers can match the colors of a home’s or a building’s interior with the architectural design they plan for the exterior, for the overall property. This could mean a certain colored brick or paving pattern; fountains that reference modern, Victorian, or baroque design.
And this process is holistic – taken altogether – not just in little parts. That is, if the pavement or architectural elements have a certain look, the outdoor furniture and walls will match.
Hardscapers bring in the masonry to construct a retaining wall against a steep slope. A theoretical anecdote: before, the steep slope may have been beautiful, but you wanted to use it as a space for recreation. Its intense gradient forbade any kind of actual activity. Well, sledding down it may have been fun, but was it fun when the kids flew head-on into the back of the house because they were flying so fast down the hill? Hardscapers will survey the slope and, with you, plan the best way to mold it into terraces supported by their brick walls. On one terrace, you could plant a garden. Attractive steps can lead to another level that provides a flat surface on which to toss a ball back and forth.
Hiring a hardscaper:
You’ll want to take a few steps before hiring a hardscaping service. If you follow them, you’re more likely to end up with an honest, licensed (if necessary), and experienced company.
1.) Call friends and family and get some recommendations of hardscapers who are honest and hardworking.
2.) Find out from your state’s website how hardscaping and landscaping licensing works. If the law requires a hardscaper or landscaper to possess a license for their work, you’ll obviously want to hire someone who has an updated license.
3.) Make a list of possible contractors. Call each one and ask as many questions as you can come up with: Are they licensed? How many years’ experience do they have? When could they begin and end work? How will the work schedule be decided? Will the crewmembers arrive and leave at the same times each day they work? Will there be a supervisor outside? Does the company provide workman’s compensation, and is there proof of it?
4.) Narrow your decision to three or so contractors. Get bids from them for the job you plan to do.
5.) Ask each contractor for references. Call the references and ask them to report the experiences they had with the hardscaping contractors. What was good and bad?
6.) Ask your chosen hardscaper for a contract.
7.) Check local and state laws that have to do with down payments to contractors. Many states stipulate that you, the consumer, do NOT have to pay the contractor before any work has begun.
Who should hire a hardscaping service?
Housing developments, and those who own property in industrial areas, urbanized and suburbanized areas may want consider hiring a hardscaping contractor. You can build pathways, erect walls and terraces with retaining walls, add fountains, driveways, fences, and gates. Hardscaping really takes the barrenness of a lawn or exterior property and gives it a civilized form.
The pros and cons:
Something about hardscaping that can detract from its many positive offerings. It’s in the name. The word “hard.” The surfaces and architectural elements that hardscapers build are impervious, not porous, but solid and often impossible for water to penetrate. This has a few drawbacks: It’s difficult for the normal water table to retain its natural level, and any water from rain will not immediately drain into the ground, which could cause flooding, or could threaten the structural integrity of hardscaping materials. Make sure that you and the hardscaper plan for sufficient water runoff control and drainage.
While landscaping can erode over time, hardscaping does not, because it uses tough, manmade elements like bricks and concrete in its construction. Patios and walkways can allow for heavy human traffic in the way that softscapes like manicured lawns cannot.
Hardscaping improves “curb appeal.”
It can make a space more livable by providing boundaries with other properties, providing safety and privacy, and transforming a steep yard into useful level terraces.
Additionally, hardscaping can increase the value of a property.
The bottom line:
Sometimes softscaping is not enough. That’s when you call the hardscapers. They can build walls and walkways from brick, pave a dirt driveway that suffers from ruts, and construct retaining walls that make a steep slope into utilitarian terraces.
