Why Employ A Garden Designer?

As we start another new year in which it looks like we might all be spending a fair amount of time at home, you might be thinking about investing in your garden. Here’s a reminder of why it’s worthwhile engaging a professional garden designer for your project.

If you’re thinking of revamping your garden one question you may be asking is who would be best placed to help meet your requirements – a gardener, landscaper or garden designer?  In simple terms, a good gardener will be able to overhaul existing plants and will be invaluable in helping keep an established garden looking its best; a good landscaper will be able to lay a new patio for example or build garden features such as walls or pergolas. A professional garden designer will have the knowledge and expertise to look holistically at your garden and help you get the most out of the space, within the available budget.

A garden designer will be able to plan the layout of your garden bringing creativity in terms of where to position paving, decking and garden features.  They will be able to help you solve particular problems such as privacy issues, sloping sites, or shady corners.  They will also be experienced in selecting plants which achieve the ‘feel’ of garden you are looking for and are appropriate to the local conditions.  A good garden designer should also be able to provide you with construction drawings and a specification to enable a landscaper to accurately price and construct the works.

A garden design is effectively a blueprint for your garden – it ensures that, whether you choose to construct the whole garden in one go or in phases, perhaps to suit budget, all areas of the garden will complement each other and fit together as a cohesive space.

Completely revamping your garden can be a big investment – it’s not uncommon to spend a figure of 5-10% of the value of your house on achieving your ideal garden.  This might seem a lot but consider how much you might spend on a good quality kitchen, and how much value this adds to your home as well as to your quality of life.

An experienced garden designer will always work with your budget in mind and will be able to suggest cost-effective solutions to meet your requirements.  They should be able to provide you with a range of options for materials and planting to fit within your budget.

Once the design is complete, the garden designer should be able to help you source quotes from landscapers to carry out the work.  While some designers have one landscaper that they prefer to work with, I would almost always advise clients to competitively tender their project to two or three reputable landscapers.  This provides the client with peace of mind that they are getting value for money.

Garden design fees vary depending on the complexity of the garden and the services which the client requires but will no doubt be a cost that has to be factored into your project budget. However, when balanced against the sometimes costly mistakes of DIY garden projects, it can be a small price to pay to achieve the garden of your dreams.

A professional garden designer will help you maximise the potential of your space and leave you with a garden you will love for years to come.

You will find more details on the garden design process at https://www.artisangardendesign.net/stages-of-the-design-process/

If you would like to have a chat about your garden, please get in touch!

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