Are you considering a new garden for your home? Have you been offered a design consultation with a landscape designer or landscape architect? Are you wondering what this consultation will cover? Are you curious as to what its purpose is and what you will get out of it in the end?
Having conducted literally thousands of design consultations over our 30+ years of history, this article shares with you exactly what you should expect from yours. And gives you a deeper understanding of what you will gain should you decide to book a consultation with us.
What to expect from your design consultation
Firstly, a good design consultation should provide clear and concise answers to many of your questions concerning your garden project. It should give you insights into the process involved in creating a new garden, a greater reality of the designer’s methodology, and clarity and direction on your next steps.
It should also help you create a strong personal connection to the landscape designer or landscape architect so you feel more confident about moving ahead with your plans with them.
Of course, if it fails to do any of these, then that designer is probably not right for you.
Ultimately a design consultation offers you a rare opportunity to just sit down and chat, one-on-one, with a professional landscape designer or landscape architect - all without any obligation.
You can tap into their knowledge and expertise. Ask them any questions you like. Probe their background and experience and better understand how they personally would approach a garden project like yours.
You should get a sense of how they work and understand if they really have what it takes to be your preferred designer. You should also get a sense from them, that having designed so many gardens before that they have previously successfully overcome any challenges that you might be facing with your new garden plans.
What you might bring to the design consultation
Everyone will bring their own individual expectations and questions to a design consultation.
You might be seeking inspiration, direction or guidance.
You might have thoughts in your head about your garden you feel no one could ever understand.
You might have challenges with your property you feel are unsolvable. You might have aspects to your garden you think will mean you can never achieve the garden of your dreams because your block is too small, too big, too steep or an odd shape.
You might have budget questions, such as how much does a total garden renovation actually cost?
You may have something precious from your old garden you want to keep like a special tree or other favourite plant, a garden feature or something you want to make a feature of in your new garden.
You might have some very practical questions – like exactly where in the garden is it best to put the pool? Or is it better to have a timber deck around a pool or paving?
You might even be someone who doesn’t know where to start. What should your priorities be?
(If you're unsure what questions you should be asking your designer in a consultation, this article can be a good guide to help you - What should I ask a landscape designer before I engage them?)
Whatever your questions or challenges, a good landscape designer should be able to answer them if not fully, at least to your satisfaction.
While naturally you won’t get your garden designed in the session, you should get some clearer direction of what shape your new garden might take.
The human connection in your design consultation
A major benefit to having a consultation with a landscape designer or landscape architect is you get to meet them – whether in person or online. You simply cannot discount the value of this personal connection.
It’s all very good and well, when searching for your ideal landscape designer, to review their website, check their portfolio of gardens they have already created and read their reviews. But ultimately your choice of who to proceed with will often boil down to whether or not you feel like the designer you are talking to is your kind of person.
It’s a human world, and sometimes our decisions about who we choose to work with, boil down to simply whether we like someone or not.
A design consultation is the perfect time to get a feel for how your designer communicates, how they make you feel, if they listen to you properly, understand what you are saying, and seem empathetic to your hopes and dreams.
Feel free to ask them lots of questions, and check their credentials and experience. After all, they will be the ones bringing your dream garden to life, so you want to feel like you can trust them with your dream garden.
At Whyte Gardens we always strive to make you feel confident in dealing with us, without coming across as "know-it-alls", which we most decidedly are not!
Online vs on-site consultations*
At Whyte Gardens, our preference is to have an on-site Design Consultation with you, however if an online initial consultation is more convenient for you, we are happy to oblige.
Whichever you choose, you will be able to ask the same questions, grill the landscape designer or landscape architect on their background, experience, preferences etc. You can articulate your problems just the same and get a feel for how they respond, what their personality is like, and how well they communicate with you.
While nothing is quite as good as visiting your site, sending through vision of your existing garden or site captured on your mobile phone before an online consultation can help your designer grasp the scope of your garden plans. Even better is sending through still photos and/or house plans prior to the session to allow your designer to understand in more detail what your project entails.
Of course, there can be instances where an on-site visit for the design consultation would be preferable. Particularly if there are unique challenges or complexities with your site, unusual aspects you may wish to share or views that need to be taken into consideration.
*Note: Depending on where you are located and the size of your project, we may wish to charge a nominal fee for an on-site consultation, especially if it involves considerable travel for our designer, but you will be advised in advance.
Preparing for your design consultation
Obviously, the more information about your garden project your landscape designer or landscape architect has before your consultation, the better prepared they can be for it.
Whether or not you will be having an online consultation, sending through site photos and/or videos or house plans can be extremely beneficial for your designer to review beforehand to get a better feel for your project.
It also allows them to do a little prep work before the session and have some answers all ready for you.
To get a better understanding of you, your personal style and expectations, it can also be highly beneficial to send through any examples of gardens you particularly like, garden features you love, or even materials, textures, colours, plants etc that you would love to include.
The more we know about you, your tastes, your home and garden and your hopes and dreams, the better we will be to help you get the most out of your consultation with us.
For more detailed information on how to prepare to meet with a designer, please read this article - How to get the most out of your landscape design consultation
Understanding the true value of a landscape designer or landscape architect
Most people come to a design consultation with a wish list of desired garden features.
“We’d love a pool!” “We really want an outdoor kitchen!” “It’s got to have a deck or paved area for relaxing and sunbaking.” “I must have my veggie garden!”
You may think that having already decided these features, what is there for the designer to do but arrange them together nicely?
But a garden isn’t just a grab-bag of desirable features. A well-designed garden brings all these desirable elements together in a cohesive, holistic design that makes the entire garden function perfectly. It also adds unexpected features and aspects.
This is one of the most unrecognised skills of a landscape designer and landscape architect – it’s often what lies between the big features that make them all work together so beautifully.
A landscape designer’s true ability is to take a “big picture” view of your project and bring all the elements together in a way that just feels natural to you.
Another unrecognised aspect of how landscape designers and landscape architects work is how process-driven they are. While designers are often considered to be highly “creative”, which they are, they do actually follow some very well-established procedures in both the way they design and how they create your garden.
It’s not just about coming up with ideas. Design has a discipline to it.
Your design consultation should provide you with greater insights into this and how your designer will work with and for you. And it should make you feel like your designer really "gets you"!
Design consultations can reveal new options never considered before
Another value of a design consultation is the way it can open up alternatives and options regarding your garden. Sometimes in ways you might have never considered on your own.
Instead of considering there is only one way of doing something, we prefer to show you the many different solutions that might be available to you and different creative ways of bringing your dreams into reality.
For example, you might have always known your garden will need a retaining wall. But there are dozens of different ways to build a retaining wall, each using different materials and methods and therefore having completely different costs. Each of these options can not only give your wall a completely different look but the different construction methods used may allow for more space in your garden or options incorporated into the wall you had never considered before.
Giving you unexpected but additional choices for various finishes, such as paving, can allow you to find something that might better fit your own individual design aesthetic and personal taste. Or it may help you still achieve the look you want but help you bring your project in closer to budget.
The secret to getting the most out of your design consultation
Entrusting someone with creating your new garden, can feel like you are handing your “baby” to someone else to care for. You may feel like you need to test the designer in some way first to see if they can be trusted with your precious project. Or you may be reluctant to share your ideas for fear of influencing the designer.
At Whyte Gardens, we believe that open, honest and transparent communication is the secret to a great working relationship. It reaps rewards right from the start.
We understand that you may have fears or uncertainties about sharing your hopes and dreams with us, but we aim to build trust with you, so you can feel we are worthy of sharing your deepest concerns and your highest expectations for how the project will unfold.
We will never just give back to you a carbon copy of your thoughts. We will always strive to bring new ideas into being, new ways of looking at familiar things and hopefully, some big ideas that surprise and excite you.
And of course we will always treat anything discussed in a design consultation in the strictest confidence.
Talking about the budget in your design consultation
No design consultation could be considered complete without discussing some sort of budget expectations during it. For some, this can be a little uncomfortable. For others, it’s all part of the job. (You can’t design and create a garden without spending money.)
It is not uncommon for people to come to us with a wish-list for their garden that can exceed their available budget. However, it’s rarely their fault.
Would you know for example, off the top of your head, the average cost of an outdoor kitchen, a concrete swimming pool or a 10sqm paved area or deck? If you’ve never bought one of these before how would you know?
While we can never accurately cost a garden project until it has been designed, part of the purpose we set for our design consultations is to help you gain some understanding of the broad cost ranges for various popular garden features.
We feel you deserve to know if you are even in the ballpark from the very beginning.
For some additional insights in the costs of common landscaping features, please see this article - How much will it cost to get my new garden landscaped?
Gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges that lie ahead
Without putting a dampener on anything, the other thing we try to share with you in your design consultation is an understanding of some of the real-world obstacles that we will face together in bringing your new garden into being.
Permits are one of those challenges. Understanding how long it can take to get a permit is one realistic expectation we try to set for you. As is recognising the surprising number of things you might need a permit for.
Not many people realise, for example, that the deck you were planning to build will sometimes need both a planning permit, as well as a building permit. Or that the high front fence you were hoping for may also need council permission.
In fact, as someone recently quipped, these days you might need more permits to build your garden and all its associated features than you needed to build your house.
What you should walk away with at the end of your design consultation
At the end of your design consultation, you should walk away with greater clarity about your garden project, a deeper understanding of what is involved in creating it and a sense of excitement that yes, the garden you have been dreaming of, can become a reality.
You should have a strong sense of confidence that you will receive a garden design incorporating all of your wish list items in a cohesive and holistic garden plan that will be as functional as it is beautiful.
You should also have a realistic set of expectations around the likely costs of some of the garden features you were hoping to include, as well as how any possible challenges laying ahead may affect the deadline for your project. You should understand the processes your designer and landscaper will follow, recognise the key stages your garden project will go through and grasp what role you will be expected to play throughout the project.
We would also hope that when you get to the end of a consultation with one of our designers, you will feel a very strong personal connection to them and a high level of confidence that Whyte Gardens are the right choice for you.
Additionally, we would want you to feel like you have been listened to and understood. That we have heard your questions and answered them clearly and honestly. And that we have helped you understand the challenges that lay ahead.
In short a design consultation with us should establish a feeling in you that we are right for you, but equally so, it should establish that you are right for us!
Ultimately we would most want you to feel like you are partnering with us on a journey together towards a destination we both look forward to arriving at – your beautiful new garden.
We hope you have found this article informative and helpful.
To book your complimentary design consultation with us please click the link below:
If you have any other specific questions on what you will gain from your no-obligation consultation with one of our designers, please feel free to call me or email me at:
https://whytegardens.com.au/contact
