Garden renovation checklist for a Mallorca property

Most renovation quotes are hard to compare because each company has guessed at a different scope. An afternoon spent deciding what stays, what goes and what needs testing turns three incomparable numbers into three prices for the same job. This is that afternoon, in order.

Walk the garden and mark what stays

Mature trees first. An established olive, carob or pine is worth building the new layout around, because the shade it casts cannot be bought back at any sensible price. Then sound stonework, because a dry stone wall that has not moved is worth repointing rather than replacing. Then anything you simply like, whether or not a designer would have chosen it.

Mark what goes

• Dead, diseased and half dead planting, including anything that has been cut back hard twice already.
• Invasive growth: cane, bramble and self seeded acacia are the usual suspects here.
• Cracked concrete edging and paving laid over roots, which costs less to remove than to disguise.
• Old irrigation with no plan behind it, because a patched system fails at the worst possible moment.
• Anything blocking access that will be needed during the work.

Test before you decide

Write the scope down

One page is enough. What is being cleared and who takes the waste away, whether the existing irrigation is reused or replaced, which trees stay, which surfaces are being rebuilt, and whether the planting is being done in one go or in phases. Send exactly that list to each company and the quotes come back comparable.

Get the order right

Anything involving digging comes first. Drainage, ducting, levels and retaining, then hard surfaces, then soil, then planting. A renovation done in the wrong order ends with new work being lifted, and it is the most common way a staged project costs more than doing it at once.

Time it properly

Autumn and winter suit planting on Mallorca, because roots establish before the heat. Hard landscaping can run all year. If the property is let, work backwards from the season rather than forwards from today, and say those dates in the request.

How the matching works

We do not renovate gardens. Send us the scope you wrote and we pass it to vetted renovation companies on Mallorca covering your area, who quote you directly against the same list. Request free quotes and compare what each one has included. The figures are in what a renovation costs.

Where to start

Take photographs from the house, from the far corner and of the access route, then write the one page scope. Send both through and several companies can price the same garden.