Five things your garden designer expects from you as a client and why – one of the biggest questions we receive is “when should I start my project?”, well Winter is one of the best times of the year to start planning your garden design for next year, especially before the spring rush when the whole world and their dog want their garden design done!
When working with together on your project, there are also a few things from you as a client that can help make the process as seamless as possible:
The hardest gardens to design are those with a vague design brief and wishlist, and also have the most revisions – which will ultimately cost you more money.
It’s your garden and you must work out at least what you want from the space. Creative thinking and design solutions are what we’re here for, but we do need pointing in the right direction from the very start.
We can only gather so much from viewing your house style or your interior designers plans, so use Pinterest or even a folder of screenshots of images on your phone and share those with us.
More is better than none, as we’ll whittle these down during the design process, and we also often receive an in depth presentation or PowerPoint which is super helpful too.
By providing fast and clear feedback we can then stick to project delivery dates and schedules that we originally discussed.
We found a good balance is two weeks for our busy clients to get together to discuss their feedback for us. If you delay, this will lead to delays.
If you haven’t got a clue where to start with costs, a good designer should give you guidance from the get go. If you’re still none the wiser, a very rough guide is 10% of your house value – but take this with a pinch of salt as this isn’t always the case and there are many many factors to consider.
Don’t expect a good designer or a landscaper to be free next week – if they’re good, they’re going to be busy. We’re very organised but we still have a schedule which we constantly review and adjust every week, especially when clients haven’t stuck to their feedback.
