The most common mistakes to avoid when engaging a designer or landscaper

Do you have a major landscaping project in mind for your existing home or a new build? Are you at the point of considering a landscape designer or landscaper for the project? 

Before you commit to anyone, we'd like to share with you the most common mistakes we've found people tend to make when commencing landscaping works. Our experience has been gained over the past 30 years from assisting more than 550 of our clients to complete their landscaping projects largely without drama.

We could probably write a hundred more of these, but the top 10 we list here are definitely the most common mistakes to avoid.

Remember you can only make the right decisions when you have the right information. So it's best, when it comes to potentially expensive projects like landscaping, to make sure you have the correct knowledge to hand.

1. Not knowing the difference between what designers and landscapers do

The landscaping industry can be a little confusing if this is your first project. It helps to have some clarity over the differing roles.

A landscape designer (or landscape architect) designs gardens but does not build them.

A landscaper builds or constructs the actual garden but usually does not design it.

And there are varying degrees of skills and experience among both designers and landscapers.

Some companies (such as Whyte Gardens) offer a complete service from landscape design right through to construction, so you have the ease and convenience of only having to deal with one entity.

There are many interim steps between the design phase and the building phase of a new garden. This is where most people get themselves into trouble because different designers and architects take on more or less of these interim steps, leaving you sometimes unsure of what exactly is meant to happen. And what your role is meant to be.

2. Having a design and feeling like you're set

If you have engaged a landscape designer or architect you may now have some very detailed drawings. You might then feel like your next step is to simply engage a landscaper and get started on creating your garden right?

But as explained in the first mistake, there can be many interim steps between the design and construction phases. The number and complexity of these steps can vary from project to project.

How successfully you manage these steps can depend on how many of them the designer takes on. It can also depend heavily on the experience level of the designer, how much they care about the construction phase and even if they have tended to over-think the design.

If your landscape designer or architect is not usually involved in the construction phase of the gardens they design, they can make a myriad of possible mistakes. Often this happens because they don't have the practical experience of seeing what happens during construction. We see designs from other designers all the time that have common errors. They choose inappropriate materials for the circumstances. They recommend plants that are inappropriate for the conditions of your garden. Or they may even suggest construction methods that are not appropriate. 

But probably the most common error we see landscape designers make is when they have no idea how to budget and so create designs without any thought of cost. When you then take their design to a landscaper to get it quoted for construction, you end up nearly having a heart attack at the price.

Sometimes they are great designers but not very good at maths. e.g. they designed a 3000 x 3000mm paved area but specified a paver that is 800mm wide, which means one row of pavers has to be cut and this can affect the aesthetics. Or they might design a wall to be 7450mm long but nominate 2400mm concrete sleepers when it could have been designed exactly to suit the size of the sleepers.

If your designer does not understand building codes, your design may need to be significantly altered because the relevant council would never allow it to be built that way. This can come at a great additional cost.

(We have several blogs that can help you with the process of choosing a landscape designer. We recommend you take a look - Whyte Gardens Blog)

3. Choosing to Project Manage the job yourself

Once you have your garden designed, some people make the fatal mistake of thinking, "I could probably project manage this myself". After all, you may relish the challenge or you may think that you could save yourself a lot of money by not engaging a professional landscaper to build it for you.

However, if you've ever watched shows like Grand Designs on TV you might have seen the disastrous events that can unfold when home-owners try to manage construction sites when they have little or no knowledge of how to do so. While occasionally there can be a success, more often than not they can end up being very expensive mistakes.

If you are going to manage the project yourself, it's important to set the right expectations and they should include the fact that it is likely to take way longer than you think. Also, you are going to make a lot of mistakes that will begin with "I didn't know that you can't......" or "How was I supposed to know that....."

We can only strongly recommend you set realistic expectations for your project. If you get a nervous feeling in your stomach that you might be gambling or taking a big risk, then the truth is you probably are and perhaps you should rethink your decision. (If you want to have an unbiased, free no-obligation chat about the upsides and downsides of self-managing your own garden project, please feel free to give us a call.)

4. Contracting a pool company before the design is settled

It's a common mistake but some people get this sequence wrong. First, they go around and look at a whole range of different styles and types of pools and then decide on the one they want. Then they contract a landscape designer.

This is often done because people assume a landscape designer designs the garden around the pool. But in actual fact, the design for the garden should be done first because the pool actually sits in a garden, not the other way around.

You may think this is a biased viewpoint but we can give you dozens of examples of projects that went wrong because the person had already locked in the pool contract before engaging the designer or landscaper.

In one case, before we even finished our design concept for the garden, a client went and signed a contract for a fibreglass pool with a separate spa. Yet the client had briefed us that this was an aspirational garden for their forever home. We now had to design around the already purchased pool and spa combination which looked a lot worse than if we had been allowed to design an integrated pool and spa garden. Not only would the design have more of a 'wow' factor, one would have flowed into the other better.

Also, you don't want your pool installer and landscaper working as separate contractors. You want coordination on site and this is always best to come from the landscaper to the pool company, not the other way around. Another example of what can happen is when the pool installer comes in and installs the pool but in doing so they have no blocked access to the site for other works. In one case we had to do a whole lot of work digging by hand, at extra cost to the client, because we could not get an excavator into the site. After all, the pool blocked the way. If properly coordinated, the work would be done the other way around.

5. Underestimating the regulations involved

If you've never done a major landscaping project on your garden before you may have no idea these days just how many rules and regulations govern them. And how many permits you may be required to obtain.

Decades ago, designing a garden was simple and uncomplicated but as a building surveyor recently said to us - "It is now more complex to obtain permits for landscaping than it is to get them for building a house!"

The number of hoops you have to jump through with council and other authorities or regulatory bodies can be considerable. Not only do they add considerably to your timeframes, they can incur additional unexpected costs if you are not an experienced landscaper.

Here is just a small sample of some of the regulations you may face for your garden:

• Decking almost always needs a building permit. Often it needs a planning permit too.

• Retaining walls need a building permit in some circumstances, as well as a council permit when they are close to boundary fences or when they may enable you to overlook your neighbour's property

• Pergola/verandah permits are common

• Heritage-listed homes, often have multiple overlays that strictly control what work can be done

• Easements on your block will require permits if any of your works will be on them

• Arborist reports are usually required where there are any existing significant trees on your block

• Soil reports may be required to confirm how stable the soil is for certain works, such as a pool

• etc, etc

The most common mistake we find people tend to make is simply underestimating the number of permits that may be required. 

This is where the knowledge of a highly experienced designer/landscaper comes into play. Having a conversation with one before you even begin your project can help you understand the correct estimation of effort that may be required on your behalf.

6. Under-estimating your budget

We all tend towards wishful thinking. This leads us to imagine best-case scenarios for many things in life. 

But when it comes to "guesstimating" the cost of a new garden, we often fail by a big margin simply because we just have no idea what all components actually cost, let alone the labour.

We used to survey all our clients before we commenced working on a new garden design. We would ask the client to estimate what their projected budget range was for their new garden. The majority of clients would estimate a figure of between $100,000-150,000. Yet once their garden 'wish list' was compiled and the concept design created, the figure almost always doubled!!! This gives you some idea of how much people tend to underestimate.

Alternatively, we have other clients who don't operate on a budget at all. They tend to approach their new garden this way. "We would rather not give you a budget that could limit your creativity in designing our garden. Instead, we'd prefer you take our wish list, create a concept design for the garden, and then let's see where the costs lie." Their attitude tends to be "show us your best work and if we are inspired we will find the funds to build it". Which is a completely different approach. 

In between these two extremes tend to be the clients who, when they discover their design is going to cost twice their imagined budget, take a shot of a good single malt, do some minor cost savings on the design and then recognise they were probably overly conservative in their first approach.

If you'd like to avoid making the mistake of under-guesstimating your budget, we recommend you read this article which gives a realistic guide to the cost of landscaping a garden - How much will it cost to get my new garden landscaped

We recommend you read this to avoid the situation where you get a garden designed, discover how much it will cost, feel gutted about it all and end up going for something much cheaper that leaves you feeling disappointed.

7. Engaging a landscaper who is too cheap

Some people try to solve the issue of budget in the previous mistake by trying to engage a cheap landscaper to build their garden. Sadly this often compounds the first mistake of under-estimating your budget.

If you have had your new garden designed and you love it, choosing to get it built by a landscaper who is way cheaper than any others can be asking for trouble. 

If you do have a garden design, we recommend you get several landscapers to quote it. But be aware of what you are actually comparing when you put their quotes up against each other. (For some tips, take a look at this article - How to compare different landscapers' costs)

We have had landscapers quote against us and come in at 50% cheaper. One did so by simply failing to include labour costs in their quote which confused the client considerably until we pointed this out to them.

In another case, we again were up against a competing landscaper, whose quote came in at 50% of ours. In such cases clients tend to think either we are ripping them off or, as is sometimes the case, the other landscaper doesn't really know how to estimate. (At Whyte Gardens, our quotes are developed based on our years of experience accurately recording what time and materials are required to carry out our works. We pride ourselves on using sophisticated software to get our prices right, so when we see a price differential of 50% we suspect something might be wrong.)

Ironically we stumbled across this project after the other landscaper completed it and were not surprised to see that it was a very cheap version of what we had quoted. The driveway was not exposed aggregate concrete but rather just gravel. The 200mm wide concrete block wall was only single brick and we questioned if it was strong enough. The design had specified a rendered wall but the landscaper had simply sponged on mortar. All the plants were much smaller than the design brief specified. It just looked cheap and disappointing and we hoped that disappointment was not what the client was feeling.

Generally, our advice when it comes to quoting is - if it sounds too cheap, it probably is!

8. Trying to save money by avoiding permit costs

Another common mistake we see people make is to try to avoid the cost (and extra time) involved in getting permits for some aspect of the garden design. We can't tell you how much this path is fraught with danger. 

While this mistake is most often made by people who also make mistake No. 3 - Trying to Project Manage the job themselves - it can also be made if you choose a landscaper who is not a Registered Building Practitioner. (For more information on the risks of going down this path please see this article What type of landscaper will I need for my new garden project?)

For example, if we design a garden that includes the building of a verandah we follow the building codes and allow for an engineer and building surveyor to be attached to the project. However, sometimes a client will decide to go with another landscaper who doesn't engage an engineer or obtain a building permit.

The risk of this course of action can be seen in another project we were asked to take a look at recently. The client had bought an established house. Not long after the council contacted them to advise them that the deck on the property had been built without a permit so it did not comply with building codes. Their choices were to either demolish it or retrospectively get a designer to draw it up and get a building inspector to certify that it had been built according to the correct code. If they couldn't it would need to come down and be replaced. It was going to be a nightmare project whichever path they took so we politely declined. 

In such a case the purchaser of the house has the right to claim whoever built the illegal deck and this can be a major cost. 

The bottom line is you can really open yourself up to a whole world of pain by breaking the law.

That's why we always do things by the book to ensure we don't open the door to potential litigation.

9. A mismatched budget and wishlist

One of the perils of starting a new garden project is bringing a preconceived budget with you that you don't realise doesn't begin to match the wishlist you have in mind.

This can lead you to feel frustrated about the process and you may end up thinking "Why have you designed a garden for me that is beyond my budget?".

It's a bit like seeing the price of a new car advertised and then going into the dealership with a big list of all the optional extras you'd like included. When the salesman says that the 'base' model costs $78,000 but when they add all the options you want, the price is now $95,410, you can get a shock. 

Unfortunately, if you say to your designer, "I have $150,000 to spend on landscaping. I want an outdoor kitchen, paving, basketball court, plants, lights, irrigation, etc" your designer does not have an options list like a car dealer to refer to that gives instant prices. Instead, they have to design your garden first to see if all those options can be done for the budget you have in mind. But even that is not definitive.

For example, let's take something simple like paving. How many square metres of paving will your garden require? We don't know yet until we design the garden. Then, in the process of reviewing the design, you change how you want to step out of your rear door onto the paving area and over to the outdoor kitchen, so you can add a little nook somewhere. This changes the total area of paving and associated costs. 

However, please remember that at the design stage, only a rough cost can be calculated because that isn't the designer's job but the landscaping estimators' job.

The simple truth is no one can cost what does not yet exist. But first, a concept design for the garden has to be created before any true indication can be made as to how much it might cost. 

However, the design process is a creative process that involves listening to what you as the client want and creating a garden that attempts to cover off your wishlist. Having an informed idea of what things actually cost can help you avoid briefing your designer on a wishlist that is not really achievable for your budget. One or the other will have to be modified.

10. Taking one specialist's advice on another's speciality

Any major landscaping project for a new garden by nature requires a wide number of different specialists and tradespeople to build it.

All these different trades need to be coordinated on-site and that is best managed by a site coordinator or project manager who understands each specialist's different role and how to manage them all.

If your landscaper doesn't work that way you can end up making a major mistake of listening to the wrong person, especially if you are attempting to project manage it yourself. For example, don't take advice from a horticulturist on the paving for your driveway. Don't listen to what the plumber says about the pool lighting. And don't let the decking contractor tell you what plants to put in.

We've even had instances where a pool installer attempted to tell our client that "the landscaper can just come in after we've installed the pool and work around it". What the installer didn't realise about the project was that there were potentially serious issues regarding the retaining walls and concreting around the pool. If we hadn't insisted the pool company let us schedule their works, the client would have ended up with a badly installed pool, with paving that would have been likely to pop out and crack, requiring constant repairs for years to come.

The moral is that a pool installer is not a paving expert. So always ensure you take the right advice from the right person at any stage of your project, to ensure you end up taking the right steps.

(An ancillary mistake to this one is a golden rule of a building site - "an apprentice never knows as much as an experienced professional!")

As we said at the start, these are just some of the most common mistakes people make when engaging a landscape designer or landscaper. Hopefully by reading this article you will avoid making them yourself.

If you have any more questions about any of the issues raised in this article please feel free to contact us. We are more than happy to answer them.

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