If this is really a small area you will not need more than a yard or 2 of stone. The stone we purchased from Dirt cheap was $110. per yard and $50 or $60 to deliver. Rake up your pine straw, bag it and put out the trash. Put down the material from Lowes (get heavy duty roll) and do the rocks yourself. It won't cost you > $300

Seems high. Had ours done with three raised beds, two robelini palms and one Queen along with flowers Seminole rocks and walls for $3500

unless you do it yourself or a friend does the work naturally it going to cost a lot.
 

What your missing the contractors have to pay compensation, Contractor liability, truck insurance, repair, office workers, laborers telephone service, accountants, rent, of course it's going to cost a lot that why contractors stay away from homeowner as much as they can. I can believe that you cannot understand why they charge what they need to make a decent profit to male a living.

I completely agree. When one does their own gardening they don’t have these costs. So it is not fair to compare it to how much a landscaper needs to charge to make it worth their while to do our garden. I just evaluate how much the work is worth for me to pay for, and if they charge more than I want to pay then I find an alternate solution.

Yep, I pay $110 for an hour for two guys whenever I can’t do it myself (us. because of a medical issue, travel, elderly mom in hospital, etc.). It’s dirty, boring work that hurts my back and knees, and in this heat it’s just awful to be out crawling around plants pulling weeds. And the weeders usually have to drive twenty or thirty minutes each way from someplace north or south to get here. Yep, it’s expensive, but you are not likely to find anyone willing to do it cheaply, especially given the heat and the rain.

costly apparently but really varies. however seems like people complain about being scammed by rather bad landscape jobs.

I agree that rock mulches are more for the Southwest USA and Mexico where cacti and succulents thrive in the hot, alkaline rocks. If you choose to use a natural mulch then large pine bark nuggets can work well. The large size nuggets shade the surface so few weeds can germinate. Don’t install a weed mat under the bark as you will not benefit the plants and soil organisms that thrive when the mulch breaks down and improves the soil. You also don’t want a weed mat or rocks as they interfere with any gardening or planting of seasonal flowers. I have been using bark nuggets for over seven years and I have few weeds and the plants and trees are thriving. The bark mulch has a low ph and lowers our high ph soil that exists around many parts of the Villages. The ph around here can come in at 8 which is too high for most plants and trees we plant in our yards. Rocks are usually high ph and add to the alkalinity of our soils. Rocks get too hot and can stress many plants in our hot summers. I know Villagers come in high in the conformity scale but why copy a landscape that looks more like New Mexico than Florida? Yes, you have to add more bark nuggets over time but you are continually improving your soil and your plants will thrive. Rocks on top of landscape fabric seals your poor native soil in and no improvement in the soil occurs with decomposition of organic materials. No worms and few soil organisms produce a poor growing medium for plants. Sure new landscape looks good the first few years when rocks and fabric are spread around but in time the plants decline and stop thriving. Then the weeds sprout in the rocks and out comes the Roundup. We live in Florida. Look around outside the Villages, most divisions use bark mulch. It’s dark, natural color gives a classic look to any landscape.

Get at least three quotes. You can do ANYTHING yourselves...with permission from the Architectural Review Committee. Talk to your neighbors. People are overcharged a lot if they don't do their homework. But not just here....everywhere.