Evans Homes & Gardens
Landscape Design
From planting a single tree to replanting your entire landscape, our landscape contractor services can bring your project through to completion. Choose to work with our in house designers or work with plans you provide. Most folks come to us with desires to make the outdoors of their home more than beautiful and functional, but also comfortable and pleasing. Creating the outdoor living space with skillfully designed landscapes and hardscapes can bring lower stress, and greater tranquility, to your home environment. We can help by sharing our visions in landscaping and landscape design by consulting with you on the phone, at our garden center in Gaithersburg, or at your home
Our landscape contractor services cover the following areas:
- Gaithersburg, MD
- Rockville, MD
- Bethesda, MD
- Potomac, MD
- Darnestown, MD
- Damascus, MD
- Clarksburg, MD
- Laytonsville, MD
- Germantown, MD
- Glen Echo, MD
- Olney, MD
Consultation at the Garden Center – a no charge service that can help with plant selection, garden design, and ideas how to integrate into your existing living environment with patios, walkways, stairs and pathways. Photos and drawings showing your existing situation always make it easier to understand the setting. One particularly helpful document is the house location survey, or plat, a scaled drawing showing the house and the property and their dimensions. It’s best not to enlarge this document, as it throws off the scale. Email in the adobe.pdf format to tom@evanshomesandgardens.com is another way to share this document with our landscape designers.
Consultation at Your House – a visit to your house to discuss and advise how we might solve your outdoor difficulties, or just make your home more beautiful and functional. Our landscape design services can provide rough sketches and notes, or sometimes just talking possibilities is all that’s needed. This is generally for those just beginning to think about what work to do, and it helps to frame the direction forward. There is a $60/hour fee for landscape design services and most meetings are about one hour. It always helps to have any documents available with copys for sketching and notes.
For those that are closer to ready to move forward, we offer landscape design services that begin with a meeting at your site and then work to develop a detailed scaled drawing that can eventually be used to estimate and install the improvements sought. There is a $60/hour fee for this service and a range of time required for the scope of your design will be discussed as part of the initial meeting. The property plat is a help but don’t worry if you don’t have yours, on site measurements combined with online records and google aerial photos all help put the package together.
Whether the project is defined by a fully fledged design, or a sketch, or a discussion, the next step is to provide an estimate for the intended work. The meeting to discuss the estimate is generally held at the Garden Center, where samples of plants and Gardens show what can be expected, along with other material samples and displays.
After considering the estimate, a verbal commitment to go forward with the landscape contracting work will hold a place in the schedule for the landscape work to be installed. After the agreement paperwork is drawn up, signed and combined with the initial payment, the landscape contracting work can begin.
Our landscape contracting services work on a lump sum basis, meaning that the total price for the work is offered before work begins. Payments are made on progress points, meaning that as the landscape work completes to a certain point, say the demolition is complete and debris is removed, then a previously agreed payment is due. The initial payment is always at the signing of the landscape contract agreement, and the last payment is always at completion. Sometimes, with smaller jobs, only two payments are needed.
If the landscape contracting work scheduled in the agreement changes as the work progresses, the cost and the schedule for the work changes also.
Change orders – the largest changes are handled with signed documents which detail the situation and the costs and completion time adjustments
Extras – additional work that is discussed and performed at extra cost. Added as a line item to the invoice
Time and Material charges – landscape contract work that cannot be reasonably anticipated for the scope needed are charged by the hour. Examples of difficult to judge work are rotten wood repair or the removal of giant boulders.
Consultation at Your House – a visit to your house to discuss and advise how we might solve your outdoor difficulties, or just make your home more beautiful and functional. Our landscape design services can provide rough sketches and notes, or sometimes just talking possibilities is all that’s needed. This is generally for those just beginning to think about what work to do, and it helps to frame the direction forward. There is a $60/hour fee for landscape design services and most meetings are about one hour. It always helps to have any documents available with copys for sketching and notes.
For those that are closer to ready to move forward, we offer landscape design services that begin with a meeting at your site and then work to develop a detailed scaled drawing that can eventually be used to estimate and install the improvements sought. There is a $60/hour fee for this service and a range of time required for the scope of your design will be discussed as part of the initial meeting. The property plat is a help but don’t worry if you don’t have yours, on site measurements combined with online records and google aerial photos all help put the package together.
Whether the project is defined by a fully fledged design, or a sketch, or a discussion, the next step is to provide an estimate for the intended work. The meeting to discuss the estimate is generally held at the Garden Center, where samples of plants and Gardens show what can be expected, along with other material samples and displays.
After considering the estimate, a verbal commitment to go forward with the landscape contracting work will hold a place in the schedule for the landscape work to be installed. After the agreement paperwork is drawn up, signed and combined with the initial payment, the landscape contracting work can begin.
Our landscape contracting services work on a lump sum basis, meaning that the total price for the work is offered before work begins. Payments are made on progress points, meaning that as the landscape work completes to a certain point, say the demolition is complete and debris is removed, then a previously agreed payment is due. The initial payment is always at the signing of the landscape contract agreement, and the last payment is always at completion. Sometimes, with smaller jobs, only two payments are needed.
If the landscape contracting work scheduled in the agreement changes as the work progresses, the cost and the schedule for the work changes also.
Change orders – the largest changes are handled with signed documents which detail the situation and the costs and completion time adjustments
Extras – additional work that is discussed and performed at extra cost. Added as a line item to the invoice
Time and Material charges – landscape contract work that cannot be reasonably anticipated for the scope needed are charged by the hour. Examples of difficult to judge work are rotten wood repair or the removal of giant boulders.
Landscape Features
- Edible Gardens
- Rain Gardens/Rainscapes
- Low Maintenance Plants
- Native/Sustainable Plants
- Lighting
How does material choice affect cost?
Plant Size – Smaller plant sizes cost less, but take a longer time to look fully established.
Plant Selection – Faster growing plants tend to be less expensive, but can overgrow the space and become maintenance issues. Slower growing plants cost more initially, but require less maintenance. Drought tolerant and native plants also reduce long term landscape costs.
Plant Growth Habit – By selecting plants with pleasing natural shapes, you can reduce long term maintenance costs by decreasing necessary pruning. For a complete, detailed list of plant material and prices, view our catalog.
Plant Selection – Faster growing plants tend to be less expensive, but can overgrow the space and become maintenance issues. Slower growing plants cost more initially, but require less maintenance. Drought tolerant and native plants also reduce long term landscape costs.
Plant Growth Habit – By selecting plants with pleasing natural shapes, you can reduce long term maintenance costs by decreasing necessary pruning. For a complete, detailed list of plant material and prices, view our catalog.
Sustainable Landscaping Practices
Evans Homes and Gardens is dedicated to sustainable landscape practices. Our sustainable landscape contractor services provide a variety of services including rain barrel and rain garden installation and design.
Watering Instructions for Newly Planted Material
Lay a low running hose, about 1/4 pressure, at base of trees for 20-30 minutes, shrubs 15-20 minutes. Check to be sure that water is sinking into the soil at base of tree or shrub, not running off. If water is running off, try to block the water or lower the water pressure.
Water newly installed plant material immediately after planting and every day for one week after planting.
After the first week, water 2-3 times a week for one month following the above outlined watering directions.
After one month, water once a week for a year.
During occasional dry spells, plants may require additional watering the first year and beyond.
It is best to water in the late afternoon or early morning.
We can not stress enough the importance of properly watering newly installed plant material. It is vital to the survival and success of the plants. Please contact our landscape design department if you have any questions regarding watering or maintaining your landscape.