Have you ever used a garden designer?

[DarlingCoffee]

Hello, I am considering hiring a garden designer to help with some landscaping and general planting in our front and back gardens. I’m just wondering if anyone has any experiences of this that they would be able to share with me, and also to give me an idea of the approximate cost? Our back garden is about 40 foot. The landscaping I would like is not major more to dig out defined edging in both gardens. I also wondered whether it is usual protocol to ask several designers for quotes to get a sense of different and potential options as I have a rough brief in mind, or whether you would pick one from the get go.

'Garden designers' cost a fortune and do everything on paper. You have to pay through the nose for their designs even if you don't like them. They don't get their hands dirty. You need a landscape gardener who does a bit of garden design and can help you plan what you want.

Not a proper designer no. I did investigate it once but the cost? I could have had a good kitchen designed and built for the price they seemed to want just for the design.

The landscaper we eventually used did do the design, but it's clear he's not actually a designer, although we're happy enough with the result.

Good luck with finding one! I wanted to get some work done and contacted at least 8 people calling themselves garden designers, all had glossy websites with examples of their work etc, they weren’t just fence and patio builders. I gave them a rough idea of the size of the garden and a list of the things I wanted to achieve/ remove/install. Of the people I contacted one got back and said they were fully booked for the foreseeable future, fair enough. Another quoted me an astronomical sum without even having seen the site. And the rest didn’t even bother replying. In the end I seriously amended my plans, called in some muscle to do the heavy lifting , did the rest myself and thereby saved myself in the region if £15,000!

A very healthy budget is necessary if you need to move features or do any hard landscaping. I whiled away an hour yesterday looking at websites for any projects similar to DH's flight of fantasy -- and the closest I found had a budget in the region of £100,000. He's gone off the idea a bit since I told him.

We consulted with one when we wanted a deck and a bit of definition to the planting areas and got skilfully up sold. He designed an amazing garden, way beyond what we had imagined or could afford.
I don’t regret it. Our garden has been a huge source of pleasure but we ended up cutting corners - using cheaper materials like sleepers instead of stone in the raised beds which all need replacing ten years on, and doing the planting ourselves which has also led to mistakes that need re-doing.
We were very naive at the time. Now I half my budget before discussing any project with anyone which helps keep things in the general neighbourhood of reality.

Yes, and it was honestly the worst money I’ve ever spent, I felt mugged afterwards and still can’t understand how we parted with a lot of money for rubbish advice. They didn’t take on board what we wanted or our preferred style at all. I was hoping they would come up with good suggestions of what would be best planted where, but the plants incorporated in their design weren’t actually suitable for their planned positions. There are so many great books on garden design and I wish we had stuck to using those. Unless you have absolutely loads to spend and can employ Butter Wakefield or similar!

I second Scampersaur's post
The same thing happened to us.
Recommended by a relative.
Way, way overpriced- we must have been on glue when we agreed to pay so much. Overplanted, plants too big for certain areas. We decided to not have as many trees as arrived. They were removed. Did we get a reduction in price ? Did we heck !!
Garden lighting has never worked properly.
He saw us coming.

Like a few others I did but was disappointed. We paid £2k for the initial designs but our designer went a bit mental and to do what she was suggesting would have been £60k plus. I felt we went too high end and she had a vision rather than listening to some of our practical concerns. We parted company and found a lovely gardener instead who has done some work for us. It isn’t as high end and glossy as we’d have got with the designer but we just wanted a garden to look pretty and give the children somewhere to play. The designer also wanted to add a 15% project fee to all work so it just wasn’t good value when we weren’t really clear what she was actually going to do. I also felt the designer would only source established a plants to get an ‘instant impact’ which again obviously costs a lot more.

We should have said at the quote stage our budget is x, what can you do for it rather than getting sucked into the pretty portfolios.

We did and felt mugged . Great website , great consultation and the. Terrible generic plans that didn't fulfil our brief and was very snooty when we tried to discuss

Parents did but then had to find a contractor and most of the plants suggested didn't meet the brief or couldn't cope with the crappy clay soil

Oh no. I came on to ask how much it would cost for a designer to put in a wildlife pond and patio area. Have booked someone to come by, but she already said her design fee is £2000 before we begin. Now I am worried.

How about putting some photos on here and getting the power of MN to work out some designs for you?

Yes same as @Scampersaur - worst money we've ever spent. He didn't take on board any of the input that we gave in terms of styles that we liked, what we were looking for. In the end I designed it myself, using elements from pictures of other gardens as inspiration and worked with a landscaper to create it. I wish I'd had the courage to do that from the outset.

@Quarks69

Can't really help with the patio but can defo help with the pond- did my parents pond from scratch with native planting etc

No but we have a wonderful grader who has some great ideas and has DJ W lots of projects for us - we usually put our own ideas down on paper and work through it together

We had a few people come and have a look. One looked at my sketch-plan and said. Well, looks like you've done my job for me. He sent a quote that was literally my sketch done with his much nicer handwriting and proposed to be able to do it all for less than £50,000!

They all wanted to charge a lot and all quoted tens of thousands. Crazy amounts in some cases.

We've arranged it ourselves, with my original sketch-plan and are getting various companies to build what we can't do ourselves. E.g. a patio and turfing. We've been able to recycle lots that was already here, that some of the designers said couldn't be done.

It's going really well and I'm looking forward to enjoying doing the planting that I can do.