Design and Budgeting For Your Landscape Project  

Budget is certainly a major factor in the design process. It is simply an exercise in design if there is not enough money available or allocated to construct it and implement the original vision and intent of the design.

So if you are working with a designer, don't be put off if you feel they are overly concerned about knowing your "budget". It makes the design process much easier and saves alot of "pie in the sky" scenarios that will never get built.

If you are to build your own landscape project or garden, do factor in the landscaping costs of all the materials, the amount of labor you will put in vs. hiring labor before you finalize your design. Knowing how much a landscape costs will also allow you to possibly phase the landscape installation if you intend to build the project exactly as designed but need to defer a portion of it until you have the money.

I have often heard from clients that they can't come up with a budget because they don't know how much things cost. This is a way of avoiding sharing how much they actually do have to spend. Its just that they are not sure if what they want is a dollar amount that they have to spend.

If they say, my budget is $20,000. That fine, its a good starting point to compare what their "wish list" is to the budget. However, if they share their wish list and are very vague about how much money they are willing to allocate, A designer providing a "free design or free estimate" may go through an exercise of design just to educate them as to how much various items cost. 

Of course at this stage in my career, I know how much things cost and can simply have a discussion about the cost of landscaping in order to arrive at a generalized budget without having to design anything.

The "free design" alternative to a paid design is useful to the client as their is no obligation to the designer and the contractor they represent to obtain free cost estimates of the work. It is only after this process, that a homeowner feels educated enough to provide a reasonable budget since they now have an idea of what things cost.

Now, in getting free designs from say three separate landscape companies. the homeowner has seen three different design concepts of what the designer thinks the homeowner stated they wanted. Sometimes the homeowner is vague about what they want just to allow the designer to be "creative". This is a mistake, as it does not give the designer sufficient feedback to truly provide for a specific set of criteria. If the homeowner does not express the needs/wants/desires adequately, the designer will end up doing most of the talking and not listening.

The resultant free designs will not be a reflection of what the homeowner truly wants and that meet their budget. Nor will the homeowner be able to compare the designs as they were not prepared apples to apples. When this happens, the homeowner tries to make sense of the designs and attempts to compare the design with the cost. In otherwords, the designs are compared as to the value. The best design for the price is the winner.  

Paying a fee for a design as a small portion of the installation budget should be the route everyone takes. Paying for a landscape design allows the integrity of the design process to be maintained. There is not the bias towards signing a construction contract. The client who pays for a design is free to take that final set of plans and shop contractors and obtain realistic "apples to apples" costs for the design they really want, not what the "free design" designer thought they would go for.

John Stuart Leslie is creator and founder of Virtual Garden Designer. Now you can work with an experienced landscape desiger online to have your garden or landscape designed professionally with ease and convenience. He holds a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture and has been a landscape designer and contractor for over 20 years.