Is it worth me using a garden designer?

[AalyaSecura]

We had a single storey extension done at the back of our house that has wrecked the garden, so we are looking to get it redone in the run up to summer. It's what I'd describe as a typical size family garden, maybe 200sqm total. I'm not looking for a fancy design - we want a patio, lawn, space for washing line, planting areas. But there are a few 'tricky' aspects - we back on to a dog walkers field, and would like better privacy than we get now from our beech hedging. We're south west facing with almost constant sun, so need to create shade for sitting out. It's a wide plot, so would ideally like to emphasise its depth more. And we don't want it to be super contemporary, so want planting to soften the extension and the patio edges, ground them into the landscape more.

Would a garden designer help and be value for money? Our builder can do the hard landscaping, so just looking for design and planting rather than doing the building work. I've not been able to get any recommendations from friends, but there are a couple on Houzz that I like the look of, worried about the likely cost though.

We are currently having our garden done by a landscape gardener. Having quite a bit done: knock down garage, erecting a gym at the end of garden, raised bedding, sunken trampoline, water feature, treehouse etc. BUT at the beginning of all this he created a design for us using a fancy computer software which he charged us about £200 for

Thanks happy, was it an option to just get a design from your gardener, do you know?

We did. Worth it I think!

I did a basic design of what I wanted in my garden and the landscape gardener used my sketch and di the garden. You’ll have to pay quite a bit for a garden designer. A landscape gardener will be Able to advise you

I guess there's a difference between a landscape gardener and a garden designer, but I'm not really sure what that is?

I am thinking of coughing up even just for some advice or a design as the friends who have done this, who ironically have invested much less time and emotion and are not bothered about gardens (i.e. they're working really hard, small kids, have just made the decision to pony up to get the garden 'done' so they can get on with enjoying it) now all have much nicer gardens than me! There's an element of poking around the sides for me, I think as soon as I have money I'll use a guy near here who does the hard landscaping (patio, railway sleeper borders) with a landscape gardener to suggest trees and plants. I do have an idea of what I want: a native hedge, some roses and lavender, but I think an expert would be able to suggest solutions I wouldn't think of.

I have a thread called the “the landscapers are here, it’s better than the arrival of Santa” I used a landscaper and also a designer. She charged £400. If you like my garden and would like her details I will pm them to you.

doctor I love your thread and can’t believe that beautiful garden design was only £400! Whereabouts in the country are you? Going to look at your thread now to see if there’s any new pics.

The landscaper recommended her. He charged 16k for back and front garden. This included a good bit of building work and electrical work. She works independently and was really lovely.

I knew vaguely what I wanted and she understood immediately. I said a zig zag garden with lots of grasses, trees and Acers. I sketched out a coulple of designs and she revised it and added in an extra level. Which gave more definition. I did not need her for the plants as I knew exactly what I wanted. Telling her about the plants I wanted helped her with the plan. The price she quoted though, would have included planting advice and sketches of where plants should be placed if I wanted it. I am not sure if it would have included actual planting or supervising though.

She is in Loughton Essex. Not sure if this allowed. It her name is Lois Bostock. Google Garden Design by Lois.

We did a couple of areas of garden a couple of years ago and found our garden designer was well worth the cost.

The way we approached it was to look for local garden designers who looked like they met our brief. We sent the shortlisted five a brief consisting of some photos of the existing garden areas, a couple of Pinterest boards of inspiration for what we wanted and a written brief.

Three of the five came for a site visit and based on this we decided to pay the tax best to draw us designs.

The quality of what we got back (for between £800 and £1,500) varied considerably. The cheaper one was a much less developed plan (from a landscaper turned designer) and a much better product came back from the designer (a member of the Society of Garden Designers - they have a website where you can search by county for members).

His product included compute drawn views from different point in the house and the garden, a proper plan and build details, including plant proposals and planting locations.

We did end up refining his plans a bit with him and then used him to supervise the build and planting - but could have stopped at that point and taken it forward ourselves.

While expensive by comparison with some of the prior posts, I think we got decent value from the SGD member - when considering that this was for two distinct areas of garden - one about 36m2 and the other about 120m2 - both involving hard landscaping and planting - no grass areas at all.

We have since had people who were thinking of using the designer come and look at our garden and leave convinced they wanted to work with him.

Even if you decided not to go ahead you might get some good ideas from going through the process of talking to a couple of designers. For most the initial site visit will either be free or subject to a small consultation fee refundable it you proceed.

Thanks all! I've emailed a couple who looked good on Houzz and on their website, so we'll see where we go from here! I'm really interested to see what they say - though also worried about the cost, the extension has involved a lot of money!