We sometimes get approached, either by a client or other landscape designers, who come to us with a completed garden design and ask us to quote it for landscaping purposes.
We engage with both these situations by ensuring we have a clear understanding of the difference between what a designer actually does, and what a landscaper actually does. From the start of the project, right through to the end.
These might be 2 different starting points. But once the digging begins, everything ends in exactly the same place.
The simplest explanation of how the designer and landscaper’s role differs is this.
The landscape designer is the person who works with the client to bring the vision they have for their garden to life. They create the vision and guide it. The landscaper is the one who takes the vision and turns it into reality. Nothing about these roles changes once the construction of the garden begins.
The designer doesn’t disappear once building starts
The landscape designer is the custodian of the vision for the garden. So it’s important they stay connected throughout the construction process.
Some people unfortunately don’t understand this. They assume that once the design is handed over to the landscaper their job is done and the interaction ceases. But it doesn’t work that way, or at least it shouldn’t. (At Whyte Gardens it definitely doesn’t!)
The very best outcomes are always achieved when the designer stays connected and in conversation with both the client and the landscaper throughout the project. Because there are always issues that arise during the construction of any garden. Some of these need to be solved by the landscaper and some need to involve the designer. Many involve both. All should involve the client.
What’s a landscaping problem vs a design problem?
This distinction matters most once a project is underway. And it’s genuinely useful to always run a problem through this filter. Let’s look at some examples to see.
Let’s say while the landscaping crew are digging they find an area that’s far boggier than anyone expected, with a lot of water sitting in it that nobody knew about. The landscaper suggests installing additional drainage. That may not appear to be a design problem. It could be just a functional problem that needs solving.
But it can become a design problem once the conversation turns to what that drainage should actually look like. The landscaper trying to do right by you might suggest a black strip drain from Bunnings at $30 a section and think the job is done. But the designer looking at the same spot might say that this type of drain will look very bad against the paving, and that it needs to be a stainless steel drain that blends in properly instead. Now that might cost $250 or more for the same function but be a lot better looking. Getting the drainage installed is the landscaper’s call. Choosing how it looks is the designer’s.
This is why collaboration and conversation between the designer, landscaper and the client throughout the entire project is crucial. Because the client will have to choose which strip drain to install as they are paying for it.
Another scenario might be that the landscaper notices a tree isn’t looking healthy. Perhaps it has termite damage. He thinks it should come out. That’s a legitimate recommendation. But what shouldn’t happen is the landscaper telling the client directly that the tree should go, and suggesting what to plant instead. The correct thing for the landscaper to do is raise it with the designer. Ask something like “do you want to replace this tree or should something else go there instead?” The designer and client work out the solution together. Then the landscaper then does whatever has been decided.
Each problem needs its own solution. Sometimes it will be just the landscaper. Sometimes it will be just the designer. But most often it will be both, in consultation with the client. That’s the best way and it can only happen if the designer stays connected to the project right throughout.
Why a landscaper should never play the designer’s role
Now this is NOT to say that a landscaper can’t have ideas. Most good ones do. Years of experience working on hundreds of gardens will tend to give a landscaper lots of opinions, likes & dislikes and even instincts about what works. None of that is a problem.
The only time things get troublesome is when a landscaper starts suggesting to the client to do something that isn’t already part of the design. The moment that happens, they’re wearing the designer’s hat, and that’s not their hat to wear.
There’s a practical reason why this is not a good idea. And it’s not just about whose turf is whose. The designer might already know something the landscaper doesn’t. Maybe the exact idea the landscaper is suggesting was already raised with the client two months earlier, and the client said no for reasons that never made it onto the plan.
Raising it again on site doesn’t help anyone, it just reopens a decision that has already been made. Or the whole garden might be designed around a particular feel, say a Mediterranean style, and a landscaper’s genuinely well-intentioned suggestion of a plant that doesn’t sit within that plant palette could, if it goes ahead, unravel the cohesion of the entire design.
Clients need to be careful too
It isn’t only the landscaper who needs to be careful here. Because the landscaper is on site every day but the designer usually isn’t, clients can often get chatting to the crew. Maybe they’ve seen something as the work progresses and they raise a question or suggestion with the landscaping team. Whether it’s something as innocent as saying a plant might work better in a different place or does that such and such a thing have to be so big?
A good landscaper will send that question straight back to the designer, because working out the vision together is what the designer and client do. It might seem like a small thing but it keeps everyone building the same garden.
Some changes on site can be OK
One thing we’ve learnt from designing and building nearly 600 gardens is that no plan really ever remains completely intact once it makes contact with the real site.
Adjustments are always necessary. Often because something did not become obvious until construction got underway.
For example, you pull out a few overgrown shrubs that were going to be replaced which were blocking a view, and suddenly a vista to the beach opens up that nobody, including the client, accounted for. Or the opposite happens. Suddenly next door’s ugly old shed is right in your eyeline in an unexpected manner.
Perhaps the excavations start and it’s suddenly revealed that the change in levels across the block is far more acute than it looked on paper. Or an area starts to be paved and midway through, by standing in it, someone realises it needs to be a bit larger to feel right.
These are real discoveries. They should always be expected during construction. But the right way to fix them is not the landscaper deciding on the spot how to handle it by just discussing it directly with the client. The right solution is to respect the designer’s role as the keeper of the original garden vision and involve them, and the client, in working out the right solution. Then that decision can be relayed back to the landscaper to re-cost and build.
In short, in summary
In short, it’s simple. The landscape designer creates the vision. The landscaper builds it.
Once construction starts, those roles don’t change. This is true whether your project began with us handling all the design and construction from start to finish. Or whether you brought us a design from another designer. And it’s also true for any designer that brings a design direct to us. We will always respect your role throughout the build.
Practical, on-the-ground problems generally belong to the landscaper. Anything that touches the vision belongs with the designer and client first. Once that conversation has been had, then the solution is relayed to the landscaper second.
It’s exactly why we run design and construction as one team at Whyte Gardens, from start to finish. Not because the two jobs should blur into each other, they shouldn’t, but because when the designer and the landscaper are talking to each other properly throughout the build, then the handover from one team to another never becomes a gap. No surprises, and no confusion about whose hat is whose.
If you have any questions about how this works on your own project, please contact us on (03) 9077 6344 or [email protected].
Andrew Whyte, Whyte Gardens
