Has anyone ever paid a professional garden designer? Is it worth it?

[Gardeningnovice99]

I haven’t had a garden before, but have a 40ft one now. It’s really just paving slabs and weeds, no grass or trees or flowers. I have pinned a few images of what I want (and definitely want grass!), but feel completely daunted by the task. I don’t feel able to do it as I’ve never done anything like it before!

Someone suggested a garden designer. I contacted one (albeit a fancy one that has won awards) and they said a small garden can cost £25,000 for the design and all the stuff.

Obviously I don’t have that much money - not even close - is there another route? Where should I start? I would love a pretty garden for summer!

You don't need a garden designer, just find a decent landscape gardener and they will have lots of ideas and draw you out a design and then bring it to life! £25k I am sure there have been projects to this scale but not in your everyday garden!!

I would decide what you want and get someone in to do the hard stuff like laying paving.
Do you have time to garden or do you want to never do more than a bit of raking of leaves again.

If you intend to garden then I recommend doing it yourself. Study how much sun it gets and where and when. Then look online for ideas or ask on the gardening thread. It's much more rewarding if you are looking at a tree you chose and planted over the years. Look in the neighbours gardens - things which are thriving will probably do the same in yours.

We had a very small space out the front of our house which was just some ugly dying shrubs on a slope. We asked a designer to put in a veggie box, a fence and raise the ground to level. He sat down with us and worked through what other stuff we might like - a place for kids to play, lots of edibles. The end result is A-Ma-Zing! He made a complete “sensory garden”. Every single leaf is edible, everything smells utterly amazing, it produces so much food we can’t keep up. All on a tiny tiny plot of land.

It did cost a lot but he had a whole team working, brought in dump trucks worth of fresh soil and it would have absolutely taken me years of research to plan something like that.

People love it! All our neighbours are really happy to have it on the street and strangers all comment on it. It’s a lovely thing.

For us it was worth the money because I was heavily pregnant with twins and just knew I wouldn’t be able to fix the space for years to come, and I could never have made it that nice. Now it’s a real city oasis.

I would say if you don’t want to pay all the money for installation still get the professional design done as a plan to do it yourself.

I’m not in the UK so can’t really compare price except to say I think these things are universally quite expensive. It’s a lot of work, both mentally and physically and plants can be quite pricey depending.

YouTube all the bits you need to learn and get stuck in.

Reclamation yards are brilliant as are gumtree or Facebook marketplace for bits a pieces. Home bargains/B&M have lovely garden things and do a good sale at the end of the season.