How to Choose the Right Landscape Designer for Your Project, Part 3
We deep dive into the third in our three part series on how to choose your ideal landscape designer.
In this post, we’ll talk about experience, implementation, and expertise.
If you haven’t read our other two posts on this topic, please click one of the links below, or click here to read our overview post.
The top factors you should consider when choosing a landscape designer:
Part 1: Vision - Will they be able to understand your vision?
Part 2: Budget - How do they factor your budget into the design?
Part 3: Experience - What is their comfort zone?
Your Project
You’ve spent a ton of time dreaming and scheming about how your ideal outdoor living space will look and feel. You know which elements you must have, and you know how much you want to invest in your project.
Depending on what these elements are, there are a lot of different types of designers out there for you to choose from. Is your project straightforward or complex? Do you have complicated grading or drainage on your site? Do you have an existing landscape or is your home a new build?
Landscape Architect vs Landscape Designer
Before we dive in, there are a few distinctions to make to ensure you’re seeking out the right type of professional for your project.
Landscape Architect: These pros have Masters degrees in Landscape Architecture. Their design focus can be pointed in any direction from residential and ranch properties to large improvements like parks and commercial spaces. They drive the overall vision of the project and may bring in partner designers or other in-house teams to dial in the details. Typically, if you have a big or highly complex space you may want to consider working with a Landscape Architect.
Landscape Designer: These pros come in all shapes, sizes and experience levels. They are not usually required to have a specific degree in their field, but they may have professional certifications and other credentials that can give you more information about their experience level and expertise. They may work on residential or commercial properties of all sizes. Most of the time when you reach out to a landscape company about a design, you will reach a landscape designer.
EXPERIENCE
Comfort Zone
When interviewing your prospective designers, compare their past projects to your wish list. Are the elements you’re looking for part of their past projects? If you don’t see some of these items in your wish list on their website, ask them about them. They often can provide you with additional project photos or information about these types of elements. They may also let you know that they don’t usually address those items and suggest to you a partner to handle that piece of the project.
Project Management
How is installation handled? Will your designer also manage your installation? This will often lead to the best outcome for you, because they are experts on your vision and every detail of your finished design, and can ensure that the finished product remains true to the design.
Self-Managed: You will be responsible in full or in part for managing the installation of your project, including sourcing and collecting bids from installers and procuring permits and technical drawings as needed based on the scope of your project. Your designer may also be able to recommend trusted installers that their clients have worked with in the past. These designers may or may not also help to weigh in on the installation of the project by offering advice and guidance if an issue arises. With most of these scenarios, you will be managing the project yourself or with partial help from a pro.
Full Service: Most landscape companies offer installation management of all of their designs. They handle all of the dirty work for you so you can focus on your life while the project is installed. You’ll need to provide feedback on things as they come up during construction, but otherwise you will be largely hands off on the execution. In addition to this, you will often have a faster and more precise timeline for completion of your project, and communication and quality control are often better.
Design Build vs Design Manage
You may be interviewing design and installation companies who use contractors to complete their installations, some who use all in house crews, and some combination of both. You will have all of the benefits of the full service approach above, but these different types of companies can provide some advantages and disadvantages to you based on your priorities. It’s important to ask them how they handle these things in the beginning so you have a sense of how your finished project will be implemented.
Design Build: This is probably the most common type of landscape design company, and you may not be meeting with any other type. These companies have their own crews. You don’t usually have to worry about delays, miscommunications, or inconsistency in execution of your design. The relationship you have established with your designer carries the whole way through to the very end of your installation.
Design Manage: These companies usually have no in house crews, and work entirely with subcontractors. They still manage your entire project from start to finish, and you are still able to maintain the vision and quality intended by you and your designer. An additional advantage to these types of companies is that they are able to curate a custom group of experts to install your project. They have long standing, cooperative relationships with their install partners, and the result is often the ideal for you: you get the best quality specialists installing your project, your vision is maintained all the way to completion, and you maintain one relationship with your designer the whole way through.
Oak Canopy has always been a design manage company. We have great relationships with our installers, and work with them in the background on your project even when it’s in the design phase so we can all come together when it’s installation time. We employ a full time Project Manager who’s entire focus is on coordinating the moving parts of your project, anticipating potential issues, and keeping open all lines of communication.
Maintenance
How do you plan on maintaining your new landscape? Once your professionally designed garden is in place, it will require regular maintenance to ensure that your investment is always looking its best. It’s very common for design build companies to offer in house maintenance services. You may also be planning on maintaining your property yourself or by hiring your own crew.
No matter which route you go, it’s important to discuss the maintenance needs of your new landscape with your designer. They should be able to provide you with basic care info for your new plants and hardscape materials, and give you advice to pass along to your maintenance team.
Your garden will look its best if you hire a fine gardening team to maintain your property. They may work in partnership with your mowing team or offer all inclusive services. Fine gardening teams will incorporate your designer’s vision for the landscape into their efforts, offering a higher level of expertise to maximize the health and longevity of your new plants. Their services may include using proper pruning techniques, dividing clumping plants when needed, weeding flower beds, fertilizing and trimming, and other more specific plant health needs. It’s like hiring a personal gardener for your new landscape.
Let’s get started!
When you’re ready we would love to speak with you to turn your dreams into reality!
We understand the importance of getting value for your investment, and don’t want you to have the hassle of working through the complex process of designing and installing a custom outdoor living space on your own. We partner with you for the entire process:
Creating a custom design through our collaborative design process
Management of every detail of your installation: permitting, inspections, contractor scheduling, timeline management
Plant and material care and maintenance information, watering schedule and strategy, support and advice as needed
You’ll be surprised at how fun and easy it is to create the outdoor living space of your dreams!
