How Garden Design Made Me A Better Landscaper
Paul Baker, founder of My Garden Design explains how garden design made him a better landscaper.
This year, Holland Landscapes – my core business – celebrates 35 years of building gardens. Dad founded the company in 1988 with just one man and one van and it’s gone from strength to strength. But how did Holland Landscapes grow from a one man band to an award winning landscaping company with over 500 gardens to our name? Part of the answer is down to training, experience, sensible pricing and genuine, old fashioned landscaping skills. The other part of is garden design. Yes, garden design made me a better landscaper. Here’s how.
How Does Garden Design Make Landscapers More Successful?
I’m not a garden designer and I won’t even pretend that I am. But I do know a good garden design when I see one. I admire the creativity and I can also see at a glance whether that design will translate into a buildable garden. (There are good designers and then there are ‘others’) But a good garden design is definitely one of the best tools any landscaper can have.
When you have a good garden design, it takes most of the hassle out of building a garden.
- Managing client expectations – I can be confident that I am building what they are looking forward to seeing.
- More precise quoting – No messing, I know exactly what materials I need and I can make a fairly accurate assessment of how many hours it will take to build each feature.
- Smoother planning and project management. When I know what I’m going to build I can plan the project from the ground up, order machinery and materials in good time and book any additional trades people such as arborists and electricians.
Of course there’ll still be variables such as weather, clients changing their minds, machinery breakdowns, unexpected buried ‘treasure’ in the garden and staff going sick – but at least I can control as many aspects of the build as possible.
How Else Has Garden Design Made Me A Better Landscaper?
Putting it simply, I, as a landscaper, could draw a practical garden design. I know the best place to put a patio, a path and a shed. I’ve got a good idea which materials would suit any given property, and, because I love plants, I can come up with a half decent planting plan. Heck, I can even use Sketchup to make a 3D plan. But whatever I do, it just won’t have that intangible ‘something’ that a good garden designer brings to the mix. I don’t know what it is.
What I do know, is that the artistic quality that a designers brain brings to a garden, is almost definitely what turns a well built garden into a stylish haven. It’s like the difference between a trestle table and a designer dining table. They both do the same thing but one has considerably more wow factor than the other.
So building a professionally designed garden ultimately brings me in more work. I get word of mouth referrals and I have some great pictures for my website and social media. Win Win.
Are There Disadvantages To Working With A Garden Designer?
I know from experience that working with a garden designer can be an absolute joy, or it can be a teeth-gritting experience. Great garden designers understand the landscaping process. They develop buildable plans that don’t keep changing as the project evolves, and they leave the landscapers to manage the project and get things done. Less great garden designers have weak plans that look great on paper but are not necessarily practical when it comes to building or maintaining the garden.
Personally, I try to be patient and flexible when a client or a garden designer humms and harrs and requests changes to a design part way through a build. I can understand where they are coming from. But to me, if they are asking for lots of changes…then the design was not quite right in the first place. I’m happy when designers visit the site from time to time to check on progress and bring doughnuts, but I’d rather they weren’t frequent visitors. It’s difficult enough for my teams to deliver a garden on time without having lots of interruptions along the way.
And that’s why I developed My Garden Design
A Garden Design Service That Delivers Great Designs And Nothing More
My Garden Design is a garden design service developed with the landscaper’s needs in mind. Great, professionally drawn designs, delivered quickly and to meet the client’s brief to a tee. All of the designs are created by experienced, capable garden designers and then double checked by a landscaper (me) to ensure that they are buildable.
That’s all we do. We don’t try to project manage, to change the design part way through the build, to specify materials (you know what’s available from your suppliers), or to stop you working while we ask questions. Sadly we don’t deliver doughnuts either, but I’m sure you can find a way around that easily enough.
So if you want a simple, uncomplicated, garden design service to help you build the sort of gardens that look good on your portfolio and win you more work – call or email me (Paul Baker) to organise a demonstration of our online garden design portal. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Learn more about the My Garden Design service for landscapers
