Winter is the perfect time to get started on your landscape improvements. If you’ve been feeling a void in your landscape, whether that be a lack of entertaining space, gaping views into your neighbors’ yards, or an utter lack of desire to be out in your landscape…a professional can help! We thrive off re-imagining outdoor spaces to maximize client enjoyment and inspire a reconnection with nature.
As a boutique landscape design and build firm, we aim to do the bulk of our designs for the year over the winter. This allows us to focus on smooth installations and project management from spring through fall. If you are interested in improving your landscape for next summer, here are the top five things we recommend starting this winter to maximize efficiency and enjoyment.
1. Meet with a Professional Landscape Designer
Search for landscape designers in your area and look at their portfolio of work, design approach and customer reviews. If it aligns with your goals, reach out. Think about if hiring a firm that does both design and installation is important to you.
We offer a complimentary fifteen-minute phone call with all prospective clients. If your project seems like a fit on the phone, we schedule an on-site professional consultation ($300). As ecological landscape designers, we seek to work with individuals aligned with our mission to create healthy habitats.
During the consultation, we evaluate your property and landscape wish list with you on-site, providing any top-of-mind suggestions for improvement and assessing the ecological health of your property. After reviewing your property survey, we will provide you with a Landscape Design Agreement priced to design the scope of work discussed.
Good design takes time. It requires site analysis, measurements, thoughtfulness, sourcing and estimating. We visit a site 1-2 more times after the consultation to complete the design. Be suspicious of anyone offering to do design work for you without visiting your property. Be wary of free estimates.
Our design package includes a Landscape Plan, Proposal with Pricing, Plant Photos, Hardscape Examples, Bloom Time Matrix and a Beneficial Wildlife poster. Clients that sign on to install all or part of their landscape design project in winter will be given priority for spring installations.
2. Permitting
Starting design work in winter allows time for permitting, which can be an extensive and lengthy process. Projects that require permitting vary from town to town, but they are often for projects involving: manipulating a steep slope, building a wall over 4’ tall, permanent structures, developing near a wetland zone, and more.
Depending on the scope of work, other professionals such as engineers or architects may become involved (we make recommendations through our Preferred Partners network). Specific drawings such as elevations, perspectives, or construction documents may be required to present to the town’s building department. It is beneficial to start the permitting process as early as possible to avoid any installation delays from permitting hold ups.
3. Improve Stormwater Management Before Spring Rains
Ideally stormwater management plans are executed in fall, before the ground freezes and before winter precipitation has the chance to freeze in undesired locations (driveways, walkways, patios). A GJLD client had an improperly installed (not by us) drainpipe malfunction and direct stormwater across her driveway, creating an icy hazard in winter. Not good!
If the ground is frozen, there are still stormwater elements that can be completed in winter, including armoring vulnerable zones with stone to interrupt stormwater flow.
Come march, our region has typically warmed up enough to dig into the ground and complete any subgrade stormwater installations. These drainage solutions may include installing new piping, French drains, button drains, bioswales, dry wells, and more.
This is a great time to schedule stormwater implementation because often plants are not fully available from our nursery suppliers yet. If we complete the stormwater component early, we are ready to plant in April and you get a full season of growth and enjoyment in your landscape.
4. Masonry
Masonry is a year-round activity! Our expert masons can custom build walkways, stairs, patios, fire pits, water features, or walls to enhance your landscape. We almost exclusively use natural stone for our masonry projects and can add artistic details for a truly unique outcome.
Patios can offer numerous entertaining functions, from dining al-fresco to warming by the fire pit.
Walkways and stairs enable better, safer circulation through your property and often allow you to appreciate new corners of the landscape. Fire pits and water features add calming energy to a landscape, through mesmerizing light or tranquil trickling.
Completing the masonry components of your project during winter ensures you can enjoy your new features longer, from Mother’s Day brunch outside to Halloween s’mores by the fire pit.
5. Grading & Site Development
Every project has elements of site development – the work that prepares a landscape for planting. This may include removing vegetation or turf, pruning, and amending the soil.
Many of our projects also require some amount of grading—manipulating the topography of the landscape by bringing in additional topsoil or cutting into an existing slope. Altering landscape grades allows us to expand functional space by making areas flatter, expanding planting zones, or enabling new hardscape areas.
Oftentimes, we will soften a steep slope by adding soil and erosion control measures, transforming the slope into a useable feature instead of a steep and non-functional zone.
Most planting areas have lost soil depth from erosion, so even flat areas receive supplemental topsoil to restore an adequate planting depth.
Grading and site development can be completed in winter and soil can be protected with erosion blankets until planting time in Spring. Remember, the more site development, grading, masonry, and stormwater elements are completed in winter, the faster the planting portion of the project can be completed, and the more time you have to enjoy your landscape!
Get Started Today, Enjoy Your Landscape Summer
If you’re ready to get started on your landscape project, fill out our contact form! We’ll give you a call to discuss your project. There is still time to get your dream landscape design and claim a spot in our Spring / Summer 2025 installation schedule.
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Green Jay Landscape Design
Where Design Meets Ecology
914-560-6570
