Driveway and landscaping post handover

Hi,

We have received our landscaping quote from builder and as expected, it is very high, so now considering what we want them to do before handover and what we want to do post handover.

We need to surface an area at the rear of the house. Initially we thought of decking but the builder has said that we require concreting underneath the decking, so we are now thinking of either concreting or tiling the area. Is there much difference in cost between these options?

As our side access is limited with the narrowest part being about 800mm, would I be correct in assuming that the rear landscaping should be completed first and then sides and front?

At the front, we are planning a retaining wall from the front boundary with a return to separate from our driveway. Would it be much of an issue to get the front retaining wall done by builder then we organise landscaper to do the rest separately? Does it matter when the driveway gets done in relation to other landscaping works? Another thought was to get the builder to do the retaining wall and driveway before handover, but a bit concerned about landscapers damaging the driveway later on or am I just overthinking?

why do you need concrete under the decking? I'm not sure about NSW laws or what your area is like, but in my area normally if we want to put up decking, we actually do it over sand to allow any water to drain into the soil rather than puddle up under the decking and causing it to rot.

It is probably safer to do rear landscaping first in case they need to bring in machinery, otherwise it will take time to maneuver it and possibly damage existing landscaping.

Whether or not the landscaping work can damage your driveway really depends on what type of landscaping you want to do and the kind of machinery that is required for it.

What do they mean by concrete underneath the decking? Do they mean concrete piles/ sonotubes as the deck foundation? Or fully concreting the whole area, as that would make very little sense.

As for cost, if you just concrete the whole area, you might be looking at $80 per square metre, or you could get stencilled concrete that look like tiles for $100+ per square meter, for decking maybe $200-300 per square metre, depending on the type of decking you want.