Garden design and costs?

[Pyri]

Hi, appreciate this is a bit of a piece of string question, but we have a decent sized garden with some nice trees, shrubs and lawn to it. We have very few flowers.

I’d like to get the services of someone who could advise on best bulbs / seeds to plant throughout the year to give some colour, and advise on what grows well where (ie in the shade vs sunny spots). We don’t need services of a full landscape gardener I don’t think (or do we?), but more garden design / bulb advise!

What should we be looking for and has anyone got any idea on costs of this kind of service?

Ask at your local independent garden centre, some of them will design planting schemes for you for free if you purchase the plants from them! I told mine the size of the border i had to fill and they laid the plants out for me on the ground so i could take a photo etc and then plant them in the right places when i got home. Some of them do home visits too, so worth asking :)

We had landscape gardeners in last year to redo our patio and lawn, and they offered this service as an add-on to the landscaping work for £1000 (SW London). That included buying all the plants / bulbs and planting it all up. We didnt use the service so can't say if it was worth it.

I've just had my garden designed. The designers fee was £1500. That includes a drawn design, suggested materials (shed, pergola, tiles whatever) with online links - meaning she didn't say: 'get a 3x3m pergola', she had the actual one sourced - plants. She will project manage it, buy the plants and other materials (paint, concrete, fixings etc), arrange the skip and hire the labour. She's got a garden design qualification and is very passionate and knowledgeable about the right type of plant for the scheme I want. She came recommended by someone I trust.

I paid £130+VAT last yr for a garden design & planting scheme. Garden is 5x5m.

This is all so helpful, thank you so much

I was struggling to get anyone in for the same type of job as last summer most folks were charging hefty fees. I put my garden design out as a job on my builder first week of Jan as I figured it would be a quiet time with everyone recovering from Christmas spend. Got someone to provide ideas and go and get plants, bark, paint for less than £500. Although no hard landscaping is required (this was done at beginning of house reno last May), just wanted the long front garden to look better for kerb appeal. Same person has done all the planting too at an additional cost but still very reasonable. Is currently staining the decking to back garden!