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Most Ankeny homeowners start with a lot that has good ground and no plan. The grass is in and the yard is flat, but water has nowhere to go. Ted Lare Design Build & Garden Center fixes that from the drawing board, backed by more than 40 years in Central Iowa. Our designers hold landscape architecture degrees from Iowa State, and we design and build every project in-house. Our landscape design services turn a blank Ankeny lot into a yard that works, with the drainage solved before the first bed goes in. The best landscaping services in Ankeny, IA handle the water before anyone picks a single plant.
Get the water sorted first and the rest of the yard falls into place. Book a consultation and a designer will look over your Ankeny lot in person.
Ankeny lots differ more than they look, even two doors down. Your landscape designer walks the property to study the sun and the grade, then notes where water collects after a storm. On a flat lot, that piece matters more than most homeowners expect. The ground gives water little help getting anywhere.
From there we draw a master plan. It maps the beds and hardscape, then sets the plantings and the drainage for your lot instead of a template. Custom landscape design also plans for privacy and for how you move through the yard, and it looks ahead to how the space fills in over a few seasons. You see the finished yard before anyone breaks ground.
Outdoor living spaces work best when the pieces are planned together. We line up the patio and the seating with the sight lines and the foot traffic, then place a kitchen or a fire feature where it suits the way you gather. Many Ankeny lots start out flat and open, with no canopy overhead. So the plan builds shade in, with a pergola or trees set to grow into it. See finished work on our outdoor living page.
Hardscape sets the shape of the yard. Our patio installation work covers paver and natural stone, plus the walkways and stone steps that link one area to the next. Good hardscape design also handles grading, which is where a flat Ankeny lot needs the most attention. The patio has to shed water toward somewhere useful, since the ground will not do it alone. Where a yard has a grade change or a walkout, our team steps in as your retaining wall contractor to hold that grade. See materials on our paver patios page.
Planting turns a plan into a place. We choose trees for shade and structure. Shrubs and beds carry the everyday view, and privacy plantings screen an open Ankeny lot. Because we run our own garden center, the same people planning your yard grow and pick the plants. Backyard landscaping folds in landscape lighting and a water feature as well, and a pool installation reshapes the yard, so the deck and the plantings around it land on one plan.
Local ground shapes every plan we draw. Ankeny sits on the Des Moines Lobe, a stretch of flat prairie tableland that drains slowly by nature. Much of the city grew on old cropland, where the soil runs deep but the land lies close to level. Water does not roll off the way it would on a slope. Instead it pools where it lands, often in the low prairie pockets that developers graded and filled to build.
So the design gives water somewhere to go. A designer sets the grade and the beds so runoff has a clear path from the house, and a rain garden can hold the overflow and let it soak in. Iowa State University Extension offers useful guidance on managing water in the yard for ground like this. Plant choices follow the site too. We pick trees and perennials that take a hard Central Iowa winter and hold their shape once the blooms fade.
One team stays with your project from the first meeting through the final walk of the yard. You get a plan and an estimate, with room to adjust before any work starts. Then our own crews build what the designer drew. This landscape design build approach matters most on a flat Ankeny lot, where drainage is the part you stop seeing once the yard is done. The buried grading and the patio base get set to match the plan, because the crew building it answers to the designer who drew it. For the full sequence, read our Des Moines landscape design and build process.
Design depth is where we stand apart. Every plan comes from a designer with a landscape architecture degree from Iowa State, so the drainage and the structure are solved on paper before the first shovel. Plenty of crews can lay a patio. Fewer begin with a designer who reads the whole lot.
Behind that sits more than 40 years of Central Iowa work and our own garden center, so the plants come from the same hands that plan the yard. That makes us a landscaping company Ankeny IA homeowners can trust with the whole project, from the design to the build to the plants that finish it. One team protects your budget and your curb appeal, and keeps a complex build moving without finger-pointing between trades.
Cost tracks the size of the yard and the scope of the plan. A flat lot that needs real drainage work runs higher than a simple planting refresh. We set a number after a designer sees the property, so it matches your actual yard.
The work splits into design and build. Drawing the design takes a few weeks to reach a plan you approve. Building it depends on scope, from a few days for new plantings to several weeks on a full backyard. Plants then settle in over the next season or two.
Yes. We design the plan and our own crews install it, with no core work handed to an outside trade. On a flat lot that continuity matters, since buried drainage only works if the build follows the plan. For anything specific to your property, contact our team and a designer will walk you through it.
Yes, and a blank yard is a good place to start. Many Ankeny lots begin as flat, open ground under builder sod. We plan the whole space at once, so every piece, from the patio to the drainage, fits one design instead of arriving a summer at a time.
Yes. These work best when they go into the plan from the beginning. A pool resets the grade around it. A patio anchors the layout, and lighting carries the yard into the evening. Drawn together on one plan, the finished yard reads as a single space.
Every Ted Lare project starts with how you want to live outside, then a custom landscape design built around your property and your budget. That might be a new patio or a full outdoor living space. It might be a retaining wall, a pool, or a backyard rebuilt from the ground up. One designer and one crew carry it the whole way. Schedule a landscape consultation and put our landscape design services in Ankeny, IA to work on your yard.
Blank slate or next chapter, schedule a landscape consultation and see what your Waukee property can do.
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