Soft and hard landscaping explained

The two halves of a garden project

Hard landscaping covers paving, decking, steps, retaining walls, fencing, paths, drainage and anything built. Soft landscaping covers topsoil, turf, seeded lawn, shrubs, trees, bulbs and the beds they sit in. Most contractors are stronger at one than the other, and larger firms subcontract whichever half is not their own.

Money splits roughly 60 to 40 in favour of the hard elements on a typical project. Hard landscaping costs more per square metre and needs little upkeep afterwards; soft landscaping is cheaper to install and takes continuing time and money to keep looking as intended.

What each side costs per square metre

Published 2026 rates put a concrete slab patio at £90 to £140 a square metre installed, sandstone at £120 to £180, porcelain at £140 to £220, timber decking at £120 to £180 and composite at £150 to £250. Paths run £60 to £120 and retaining walls £200 to £500. Groundworks underneath add £20 to £50 for excavation and £30 to £60 for sub-base.

Soft landscaping is cheaper by the metre. Turf supplied and laid onto prepared ground runs £10 to £20 a square metre for the turf itself, with the higher published figures of £80 to £120 including full ground preparation, topsoil and spoil removal. Basic planting sits at £50 to £60 a square metre and richer schemes at £80 to £100. Whole gardens land between £80 and £250 a square metre finished, with £120 to £180 the middle of the market.

The order the work has to happen in

Sequence is not negotiable. Access and skip position first, then demolition and clearance, then drainage and services, then levels and sub-base, then hard surfaces, then boundaries, then topsoil, then planting and turf last. Bringing planting forward to make a site look finished means barrowing sand and slabs across new beds afterwards.

Weather governs the soft half. Turf laid in July needs daily watering for weeks, bare root planting only works between November and March, and topsoil worked while saturated compacts into something nothing will root into. A contractor who pushes the planting phase into a different month is managing the garden, not stalling.

Drainage, levels and the invisible budget

Falls of about 1 in 80 away from the house carry water off a patio, and paving must finish at least 150mm below the damp proof course. Channel drains at £40 to £80 a metre, French drains at £50 to £100 a metre and soakaways at £700 to £1,500 are the usual answers where a garden holds water.

Sloping sites turn into retaining structures, and retaining walls over a metre need engineering rather than block laying. Excavated spoil is the other hidden line: removing it is priced by the tonne and a level change of 300mm across 60 square metres produces around 18 cubic metres of soil that has to go somewhere.

Who does which half

Landscape contractors build the hard elements and are checked on that work by the British Association of Landscape Industries and the Association of Professional Landscapers, both of which inspect completed projects before accrediting a member. Garden designers draw the scheme and are not usually the people who build it; design fees typically run 10 to 15 per cent of the project, rising to 20 per cent on small jobs.

Maintenance gardeners take over once the build finishes and are the right people for pruning, feeding and replanting. Handing a newly planted scheme to someone with no plant knowledge is how expensive borders turn into mown grass within three years, so continuity from build to upkeep is worth agreeing at the start.