A guide to commissioning a design
What actually happens when you have a garden designed.
Most people commission a garden design once in their life, which makes it very hard to know what you are buying, what good looks like, or which questions to ask. This is the whole thing written down plainly — the sequence, what lands on your kitchen table at each stage, and the handful of things that make the difference between a garden that is built well and one that is argued about.
Week 0
The consultation
A visit of an hour or two. Bring your wish list, your Pinterest board and your gripes. We look at aspect, levels, soil, drainage, boundaries, sightlines from inside the house, and where the sun actually falls at the time of day you use the garden.
Shortly after
The written proposal
The brief, the scope, the stages, the fees and any third-party costs, all in writing. Nothing is drawn, and nothing is chargeable beyond the consultation, until you have said yes to this.
If the site needs it
A measured survey
On anything with level changes, awkward boundaries or a build of any ambition, a measured topographical survey by a specialist is money extremely well spent. It is a third-party cost, not a design fee, and it is what makes drawings buildable rather than approximate.
The design
Outline design, then detail
Layout drawings and 3D perspectives first, revised until the shape of the garden is right. Then construction drawings and a written specification — setting out, levels, materials, finishes, drainage, build-ups — which is what a contractor prices from.
Pricing
Tender and review
Drawings go out to suitable landscape contractors. Quotes come back and we read them together — not just the totals, but what each has included, excluded and assumed.
On site
Planting and oversight
Once the hard landscaping is done, planting goes in to the planting plan, with me setting out and overseeing it. That is the point at which drawings stop being drawings.
Deliverables
What you end up holding.
Design is not advice you have to remember. Every stage produces a document, and those documents are yours — they are what protects you when the quotes come in and what keeps the build honest once it starts.
- Scaled layout drawings of the new garden
- 3D perspectives from the views you actually use
- Construction drawings and a written specification
- Planting plans, area by area
- Sourced quotes for plants and trees
- Collated contractor quotes, reviewed with you
Timing
When to start, if you want it finished for summer.
Gardens run on a longer clock than people expect. Working backwards from a summer you want to actually enjoy:
Autumn & winter
The ideal time to design. Nothing is growing, contractors have space in the diary, and you have months rather than weeks to get the layout right.
Late winter
Tender and appoint. Good landscape contractors are booked out well ahead, so this is when the drawings need to exist — not when you first ring one.
Spring
Build. Hard landscaping first: levels, paving, walls, drainage, structures. Messy, loud, and the stage everyone underestimates.
Autumn again
The best planting window of the year — warm soil, reliable rain, roots away before spring. Plant then and the garden is established a full season sooner.
Before you appoint anyone
Five questions worth asking.
Who draws it, and who turns up?
In a practice of one, they are the same person. Ask, because in larger studios the person who charmed you at the pitch is not always the person drawing your planting plan.
What exactly do I get at each stage?
A proper answer is a list of documents. A vague answer about "developing ideas together" usually means you will not own anything a contractor can build from.
Do you produce construction drawings?
Plenty of designers stop at a pretty layout. Without setting-out, levels and a specification, the details get invented on site by whoever is laying the paving.
Will you help me price it?
Comparing three landscape quotes is nearly impossible without someone who knows what has been left out of each. Ask whether tender support is included and what it involves.
Do you come back when it is planted?
Setting out planting on site is a different skill from drawing it. A plan posted to a contractor and never revisited rarely looks like the drawing.
Everything above, from one designer who sees it through — consultation to last plant in the ground.