Garden design costs

[MrsCampbellBlack]

This may well be a 'how long is a piece of string' question but any ideas/experience as to how much it would cost to get garden designs done? Our plot is one third of an acre.

We're in the middle of a house renovation and won't want to do the actual landscaping until next summer but would be good to have designs for garden done soon from an overall design/build perspective.

Thanks!

[Kr1stina]

YY please start a thread Holly

With photos natch

[shovetheholly]

Awww, that's really sweet kristina. I will post as soon as I have anything to show! (Right now the only photo would be a spreadsheet and a bit of graph paper with a pencil!! )

[shovetheholly]

Yes, I'm thinking of something like a very shortened version of a kind of prairie planting scheme, centred on drifts of it, interspersed with several other things (controlling colour is going to be a challenge).

I reckon it might look good with some very dry-tolerant alliums (Allium senescens ssp. montanum? or Summer beauty??).

[gardenrosie]

Hello

I am a garden designer, costs are one of the things I used to lose sleep over when I started out as in comparison to a jobbing gardener they can seem quite high, but the value of having your garden thought out properly is huge.

Design is a professional service - I have a Plant Science degree plus three years post grad training and ten years experience. I now charge £50+VAT per hour and a normal garden (eg typical terraced house) takes around 35-40 hours to design, including surveying, thinking about options, Skype calls, researching new materials, designing planting and doing the drawings, a couple of site visits and coming to present the finished design.

I work alongside architects whose training was of course more in depth but who charge upwards of £100+VAT per hour.

Hope that's helpful - good luck with the project!

Rosie Nottage

[shovetheholly]

I think that's the comparison landscapers should be drawing - with architects. It is a highly skilled job. I would even question the idea that architects have 'more in depth' training - I think it takes years to build up a really good knowledge of plants, it's just they are often not spent in a classroom.

[TrishaZO]

The landscaper i use is great at what he does and very easy on the eye! Iv been using him for about 3 years now. I'm sure he would quote you a reasonable price.

[Kr1stina]

We used a garden designer who charged a similar hourly rate to Rosie . We were able to keep costs down by doing some of the work ourselves - we did the site survey, chose the materials and gave a very detailed brief with many photos and plant lists .

Also I did the planting design , let the contract and managed the Contractors. Designer did the tender documents .

But you have to have a good background knowledge yourself and prepared for it to take a lot of time . I did this partly because I wanted to make sure it was done to my standards but also because I wanted to be that involved .

And also because we needed most of our budget for the landscaping , as it was a fairly large area and we needed a lot done .