Planning Leads for Landscapers in Ireland: How to Find Planting Work Before It Goes to Price
Irish landscapers can find planting work weeks or months before it goes to price by tracking planning applications and commencement notices: the application shows which schemes include hedging, planting, boundary treatment or public open space, and the commencement notice shows when building starts. This guide explains how to read those signals, which schemes are worth pricing, how to turn a landscape plan into a plant order, and how PlanningLeads.ie for landscapers brings the records from all 31 local authorities into one trade filter.
PlantGift.ie and PlanningLeads.ie share the same founder, and PlantGift.ie is a sponsor of PlanningLeads.ie. We use it ourselves every week to see which new developments will need planting. We recommend it because it is how we work, but the relationship is worth knowing.
Why Is Landscaping Work So Hard to Win Late?
Landscaping is usually one of the last packages let on a building scheme, so by the time the ground is ready the developer has often already rung whoever did the last job. A landscape contractor who only hears about a scheme when the package goes out to price is competing on price alone, with little time to plan labour, plant supply or the planting window. The contractors who win consistently are the ones who knew the scheme was coming, spoke to the right people early and had a realistic plant schedule and programme ready.
What Does a Planning Application Tell a Landscaper?
A planning application tells you whether a scheme has a landscape to deliver, how big it is and who is behind it. The development description and the drawings lodged with the council often mention hard and soft landscaping, planting, hedgerows, boundary treatment, public open space or public realm. Larger schemes usually include a landscape plan or planting schedule, and permissions commonly carry a condition requiring landscaping to be agreed with the council and completed in the first planting season after the development is finished. Reading that scope early tells you what the package will involve long before anyone asks you to quote.
What Is a Commencement Notice, and Why Does the Timing Matter?
A commencement notice is the most useful timing signal a landscaper has, because it confirms that a permitted scheme is actually starting. Notices are lodged with the local building control authority, generally 14 to 28 days before works begin. Planning permissions often lapse unbuilt, so a commencement notice separates live schemes from ones that may never happen. From that point you can estimate when the ground will be ready, typically as the houses or buildings near completion, and plan your approach and plant order around the planting season rather than around the tender date.
Which Landscaping Schemes Are Worth Pricing?
The most valuable landscaping schemes are housing estates with public open space, commercial and civic schemes with a public realm plan, and river and habitat works with native planting. Housing estates bring boundary hedging, front-garden planting and communal open space in volume. Commercial and civic schemes bring structured planting beds, ornamental grasses and evergreen shrubs around plazas and car parks. Habitat and river works lean towards native and pollinator-friendly planting. Each type suggests a different plant palette, and knowing it early lets you price accurately and secure stock.
How Do You Turn a Landscape Plan into a Plant Order?
Turn a landscape plan into a plant order by measuring each element, converting it to plant numbers with standard spacings, then matching species to what is available in volume. Hedging is priced per linear metre, ground cover and mass planting per square metre. The table below uses the spacings we publish in our own planting guides for young pot-grown plants.
| Plan element | Measure | Typical spacing | Plants that suit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low formal boundary hedge | Linear metres | 6–7 plants per metre | Euonymus 'Green Spire', Ilex crenata 'Jenny' |
| Informal or fast low hedge | Linear metres | 3–4 plants per metre | Lonicera nitida 'Maigrün' |
| Scented, bee-friendly low hedge | Linear metres | About 3 per metre | Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) |
| Ground cover under shrubs and trees | Square metres | 5–7 plants per m² | Pachysandra, Geranium macrorrhizum, Carex |
| Sunny open-space beds | Square metres | 5–7 plants per m² | Geranium 'Rozanne', Nepeta, Salvia |
| Grass and sedge drifts | Square metres | 3–7 plants per m² | Carex, Sesleria, Calamagrostis |
At 6 plants per metre, a 72-plant hedging pack covers about 12 metres of low hedge; at 6 plants per square metre, a 60-plant ground-cover pack covers about 10 square metres. Pack sizes of 24 to 72 plants make large schemes straightforward to order, and bulk orders ship in large plant boxes by tracked courier.
Which Bulk Plants Suit Housing and Commercial Schemes?
For boundary and front-garden hedging on housing schemes, Euonymus japonicus 'Green Spire' and Ilex crenata 'Jenny' are the standard box alternatives: evergreen, neat when clipped and not hosts for box moth or box blight. Lonicera nitida 'Maigrün' is a quicker, informal option.
For open space, communal beds and shaded areas under new trees, evergreen and long-flowering ground cover keeps weeds down once established and needs little ongoing maintenance, which matters to management companies taking the estate over.
What Does PlanningLeads.ie Include for Landscapers?
PlanningLeads.ie gathers planning applications and commencement notices from all 31 Irish local authorities and tags the ones with a landscape to deliver, so landscape contractors, garden designers and landscape architects see only relevant schemes. According to PlanningLeads, its landscaping filter includes:
- Landscaping-only leads: hard and soft landscaping, planting, hedgerows, boundary treatment, patios, driveways, decking, public open space and public realm, tagged from the application description and kept apart from general building work.
- Schemes on site now: commencement-notice data showing which schemes are breaking ground, so you can plan around when the ground will be ready.
- Who to approach: the council record behind every scheme, the appointed contractor where the register names one, and, on its Max plan, the applicant organisation where a company applied. Private applicants are never stored or profiled.
- Map and radius alerts: every landscaping lead on a map, with an alert radius around your yard.
- Weekly alerts: saved searches emailed weekly, plus webhooks and bulk export on the Max plan.
The landscaping filter works on its free plan; the Pro plan adds the on-site feed, map and saved alerts. See PlanningLeads for landscapers and garden designers for current plans and features.
Frequently Asked Questions
See landscaping leads on PlanningLeads.ie →
Explore More Guides
- Bulk Landscaping Plants Ireland: Trade Pricing — pack sizes and coverage for commercial schemes
- Euonymus Green Spire Hedge Spacing Guide — plants per metre and pack coverage
- The Best Ornamental Grasses for Irish Gardens — sedges and grasses for open space
- Hedge Plants — box alternatives, low hedging and bamboo screening
- Bulk and trade orders — how to request a quote
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