What Homeowners and Property Managers Ask Before Starting a Landscape Project
A landscape design and build project represents a significant investment in your property, and most people evaluating one have not hired a landscape company before. Duke's Landscape Company works through a defined process for every project, from the first conversation to the final walkthrough, and the questions below explain how that process works. You will find answers covering scope, design, construction, communication, and pricing. If your question is not here, the team will answer it directly.
Fit and Services
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Duke's Landscape Company handles full-scope landscape design and construction projects for residential and commercial properties across the Colorado Front Range and foothills. Typical projects combine outdoor living spaces, patios, outdoor kitchens, fire features, retaining walls and hardscape, native and xeric plantings, drainage and grading, and irrigation into one coordinated plan. Commercial work adds snow and ice management and larger site-scale design. Every project runs through the same process regardless of size.
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Small single-item requests, such as replacing a few shrubs, patching a section of irrigation, or a minor one-off repair, are outside what Duke's Landscape Company is structured to take on. The company works as a design-build firm, which means the value shows up on projects where design, grading, hardscape, and planting decisions have to work together. Homeowners looking strictly for a low-cost install of a plan drawn by someone else are usually better served by a general installation contractor. Being direct about this early saves everyone time.
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Duke's Landscape Company operates from Golden and Fort Collins, covering the Front Range, foothills, and Rocky Mountain communities of Colorado. The Golden branch serves Arvada, Boulder, Evergreen, Genesee, Conifer, Cherry Hills Village, and Roxborough Park. The Fort Collins branch serves Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Berthoud, and Longmont. Current coverage is listed on the service areas page.
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HOAs, commercial property owners, and property managers make up a substantial share of the work at Duke's Landscape Company. These projects follow the same discovery and design structure as residential work, with additional planning around tenant access, phasing, board approvals, and long-term maintenance cost. Winter service is available through commercial snow and ice management.
Services in Depth
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A full landscape design and build project at Duke's Landscape Company begins with discovery, moves into design and value engineering, and finishes with construction managed by an in-house team. The design accounts for soil, slope, drainage, sun exposure, and how you plan to use each area, then coordinates hardscape, planting, irrigation, and lighting into one plan. Because design and construction sit under one roof, the plan you approve is the plan the crew builds. You can review the phases on our process page.
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Landscape discovery is the phase where Duke's Landscape Company evaluates your property and defines what the project actually needs to accomplish before any design work starts. The team assesses soil conditions, drainage patterns, existing plant material, and site constraints while learning how you want to use the space and what budget range fits. Skipping this step is how projects end up with beautiful drawings that do not work on the actual site. Landscape discovery sets the scope everything else follows.
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Fire wise xeriscape design reduces both water use and wildfire fuel around a home, which matters for properties in Colorado's foothills and mountain corridors. Duke's Landscape Company plans plant selection, spacing, and material placement so the zones closest to the structure carry less combustible material, while drought-tolerant native plantings handle the rest of the property. The result lowers irrigation demand and supports defensible space requirements at the same time. Details are on the fire wise xeriscape page.
Process
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Duke's Landscape Company designs and builds every project with the same team, which eliminates the handoff between a separate designer and a separate installer. That handoff is where budgets slip, design intent gets diluted, and accountability gets blurry. Working design-build means one company owns the plan, the schedule, and the result. Projects move through discovery, then design and value engineering, then construction.
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The first step after you contact Duke's Landscape Company is a consultation, held in person or virtually, to understand your property, your goals, and your budget range. From there the project moves into discovery, where the team evaluates site conditions in detail. Design work begins once the scope is clear and both sides agree the project is a fit. You can start the conversation on the contact page.
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Duke's Landscape Company reviews the completed design with you before any construction starts, including layout, material selections, and how each area of the property connects. This is the point to adjust proportions, swap materials, or reprioritize scope. Changes made during design cost a fraction of changes made mid-build. Construction is scheduled only after you approve the plan.
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Construction at Duke's Landscape Company is performed by a small in-house team, with owner Jon LeDuc directly involved in projects. Licensed specialty trades are brought in where the work requires them, and they operate under the same project management and schedule. Keeping the core crew in-house is the reason the company limits how many projects it runs at once.
Communication and Accountability
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Clients of Duke's Landscape Company work directly with the owner and the project team rather than being passed to a rotating account manager. Because the company is deliberately small, the people who designed your landscape are the people answering your questions during construction. This is the structure clients most often cite in reviews of the company.
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Questions that come up during an active build get answered by the project team rather than routed through a general inbox. Duke's Landscape Company keeps clients updated as phases complete so you know what is happening on your property and what comes next. Response expectations are set at the start of the project so there is no ambiguity once work is underway.
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Mid-project changes are documented in writing at Duke's Landscape Company, with the cost and schedule impact reviewed before any work proceeds. Some changes are straightforward, while others affect grading, drainage, or material orders already in motion. Being clear about that tradeoff up front is what keeps a project from drifting past its budget quietly. Most change requests are avoided entirely by resolving details during the design phase.
Construction and Performance
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Designing for Colorado means accounting for high altitude, intense sun, low humidity, freeze and thaw cycles, and long stretches without meaningful precipitation. Duke's Landscape Company selects native and adapted plant material suited to those conditions and specifies hardscape and drainage details that hold up through repeated freeze cycles. Foothills and mountain properties add slope, decomposed granite soils, and wildfire exposure to the equation. Design decisions made for a Front Range climate are what keep a landscape intact after the first hard winter.
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Lower-maintenance landscapes come from design decisions rather than from cutting corners on installation, and Duke's Landscape Company builds them by reducing turf area, grouping plants by water need, and specifying materials that do not require constant upkeep. Xeric and native plantings cut irrigation demand substantially while still providing seasonal color and structure. Properties that still want a lawn can keep a defined turf area sized to actual use. Ongoing landscape maintenance is available for clients who prefer the property managed for them.
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The Colorado construction season generally runs spring through fall, with frozen ground and snowpack limiting installation in deep winter. Duke's Landscape Company uses the winter months for discovery and design so approved projects are ready to build when conditions allow. Homeowners who begin the design conversation in the off-season have significantly more control over their build date.
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Drainage and grading are addressed as part of design at Duke's Landscape Company, not treated as an add-on after the patio is set. Water moving incorrectly across a property will eventually undermine hardscape, kill plant material, and reach the foundation, which makes it the first thing worth solving. Sloped foothills properties in particular require grading decisions before any surface features are placed.
Pricing and Getting Started
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Pricing at Duke's Landscape Company is determined by the scope of the design, the site conditions, and the materials selected, which is why an accurate number comes after discovery rather than during a first phone call. Slope, access, soil conditions, drainage requirements, and material choices all move the cost significantly on Colorado properties. Value engineering during the design phase adjusts scope and materials so the plan matches your budget. Being direct about your budget range early is what makes this work.
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A realistic budget range, a list of priorities for the space, and any property documents such as a survey or HOA guidelines give Duke's Landscape Company enough to have a productive first conversation. Photos of landscapes you like help communicate style faster than description alone. Knowing which elements are must-haves versus nice-to-haves lets the team protect what matters most if scope has to shift.
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Discussing budget early lets Duke's Landscape Company design something you can actually build, rather than presenting a plan that has to be dismantled after you see the number. A defined range shapes material selection, phasing, and scope from the first design pass forward. Homeowners who share a range consistently get a better outcome than those who wait to be quoted.
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Getting started with Duke's Landscape Company begins with scheduling a consultation through the contact page or by phone. The conversation covers your property, your goals, and your budget, and determines whether the project is a fit for both sides. From there, the project moves into discovery and design. Reviewing past work in the inspiration gallery is a useful way to prepare.
“Duke's was PHENOMINAL from start to finish. The value-engineering and phased project approach was such a relief for us. We knew what we wanted but the budget did not allow for it all at once. The way that Jon and Karen built our project out into digestible phases was not only creative but took what could have been an overwhelming process and made it an exciting journey to transformation. We've been in our home for 14 years now and have fallen in love with it all over again. Thank you, Duke's Landscape Company! You are truly a cut above the rest.”
Jared c. VIA GOOGLE
Landscape Design and Construction Across Colorado's Front Range
Duke's Landscape Company designs and builds landscapes for homeowners, HOAs, and commercial properties across Golden, Fort Collins, and the surrounding Front Range and foothills communities.
Founded in 2010 by Jon LeDuc, the company works as a design-build firm with a small in-house team, handling discovery, design and value engineering, construction, and ongoing maintenance under one roof. Every project is built around how you use your outdoor space and how the Colorado climate will treat it over time.
