About Landscaping Calculators
Landscaping Calculators is run by Alex Tim, who studied civil engineering and has more than 10 years of landscaping experience. The site does one job: it turns a measurement into an order a supplier will understand.
Who is behind it
Alex Tim founded Landscaping Calculators, and writes and checks the calculators and guides published under its name. If a figure is wrong, Alex answers for it and fixes it.
Alex has had a head for calculation since childhood, the kind of interest that turns a pile of gravel into a question about how many tons are in it. He went on to complete his studies in civil engineering, where working out quantities, loads and volumes is the job itself.
Add more than 10 years of landscaping work, and that is what shapes how the tools ask their questions. Depth comes before price. A ton and a cubic yard are treated as different things, because on a delivery ticket they are. And the order gets a little headroom, since running short costs a second truck.
How Alex works out a number
Every calculator on the site follows the same habits, in the same order. They are the checks Alex runs on any quantity before it turns into an order.
- Measure what gets covered, not the plot. The grass, not the lot. The bed, not the garden. Every later figure inherits the error in this one.
- Fix the depth before anything else. Going from 2 inches to 4 doubles the order, so depth decides the job more than area does.
- Weigh the material you are actually buying. Every sand, stone and soil has its own weight per yard, and one average figure for everything gets the tonnage wrong.
- Give the answer in every unit a supplier uses. Cubic yards, tons and bags together, because the quarry, the yard and the garden center each quote in a different one.
- Add the allowance the material needs. Overage on loose stone, compaction on fill dirt and decomposed granite, cutting waste on flagstone.
- Round up, never down. Bags and truck trips come in whole numbers, and half a bag short is a second trip.
- Price the material and the delivery apart. A blended figure hides which of the two is high.
The volume and weight formulas, the allowances and the material weights are on the methodology page.
Why these calculators exist
Landscaping materials are planned in one unit, sold in another and delivered in a third. You measure a bed in square feet, the quarry weighs the stone by the ton, and the truck tips it by the cubic yard. Most ordering mistakes happen in the conversions between those, which is why every calculator here gives yards, tons and bags side by side.
Materials also differ in weight far more than people expect. A cubic yard of fill sand and a cubic yard of play sand are about 500 lb apart. So the calculators use the density of the material you pick, not one average figure for everything.
How the numbers are kept straight
Every density, depth and price range on the site lives in one shared table. The calculator on a page and the charts underneath it read from the same figures, so they cannot disagree with each other, and a correction made once reaches every page that uses it.
The formulas and the material weights themselves are set out on the methodology page. Prices are typical US ranges and move with region and haul distance, so treat them as a guide and use your supplier’s quote for the real number.
What the site is not
It is not a supplier. Landscaping Calculators sells no materials, recommends no contractors and has no affiliate deals with either. The calculators are free and need no account.
It is not a substitute for someone who can see your ground, either. Retaining walls, drainage and anything carrying a load can need a professional on site, and the disclaimer says where the calculators stop.
Corrections and questions
Spotted a density or a price that looks wrong for your area? Email support@landscapingcalculators.com with the page and the figure you expected. Corrections are the most useful mail the site gets, and the contact page has the rest.