A good landscape design goes beyond choosing beautiful plants. It’s about creating spaces that are both functional and inspiring. Whether renovating or creating a new one, our garden design services ensure a seamless journey from concept to completion. In the video below, we explain what goes into designing a garden and how your input helps shape the final outcome.
The guide below walks you through each step in more detail, helping you understand the timelines involved and what to expect when working with us.
What are the steps involved in designing a garden?
1. Initial Consultation
We come to you to look at your outdoor space and talk about your design brief. Together, we will go through your likes and dislikes and uncover what it is that your garden design needs to address.
We will discuss your wishes, your preferred plants and materials, and go through different scenarios of how to make the most of your outdoor space.
We will also document your garden’s conditions and check for existing plants and their health. To create garden plans, we typically take on-site measurements. If a more detailed assessment is required, we may recommend a professional surveyor.
Duration: 2-3 hours
2. Design Brief and Quote Acceptance
After the meeting, we will prepare a Design Brief and Quote Proposal for your review and acceptance. The Brief is an essential a written record from the previous meeting that captures your goals, preferences, and requirements that guides the whole design process. This way, you will have a chance from the very beginning to make sure that everything important to you will be carefully considered in our garden design services.
Duration: within 1-2 days
3. Concept Selection
In the next step, we take all the gathered information and develop options that align with the brief and site conditions. The garden planning process is both an exploration of ideas and a structured approach to outdoor space making. To this effect, we will prepare mood boards and planting palettes for inspiration, design concept drawings to convey the potential variants from which you choose the one you would like to develop further.
Duration: design work approx. 1 week, meeting 1-2 hours
4. Design Review
Once ready, we will meet with you again and go through the more detailed variants step by step. Generally, three detailed variants are presented at this stage, or as agreed in the design brief. You will be able to decide what works best and give feedback to stir the design in your preferred direction. If you feel that you need to see more variants and add additional review points, you can request these for an additional fee.
Duration: meeting 1-2 hours, design work approx. 1 week
4. Final Design Check
After we implement and refine your preferred design choices to completion, we present the fully resolved design for your approval. This final review allows you to confirm that you are satisfied with the outcome, do not require any further revisions, and are ready for us to issue the complete supporting design documentation.
Duration: 1-2 hours
5. Design Documentation Handover
At this stage we carefully document the intended design. You will receive a CAD-drawn plans. Each of them including the Landscape Concept Plan, Hardscapes Layout Plan, Softscapes Layout Plan, Planting Plan, Planting Soil Specification, and other construction details and specification where necessary.
We also provide a Planting and Maintenance Notes, which give you an overview of the plans we used and valuable information on how to care for them to ensure long-term health and appeal for your garden. For gardens designed around seasonal colour, a flowering calendar is provided so you can look forward to the changing display of blooms as different plants come into flower throughout the year.
A well-documented design will help you compare quotes from landscapers more effectively, ensuring clarity and consistency in execution.
Duration: within 2-3 days
Note: Estimated timelines may vary based on the specific needs of your project and the availability of both parties for meetings and feedback.
Other Design Services
Not every project will need the completion of all the steps mentioned above. We also offer a range of specialised garden design services that fit every job size. Whether you’re a homeowner or a trade professional, you’ll find our design services affordable and delivering stunning results, which you can trust.
Plans for Planning Permit
If you need landscape design for planning permission and a fast turnaround with a streamlined process, then this page is for you.
Planting Plans
Sometimes, planting alone can enhance garden’s overall appeal. Find out if this design service is the right one for you.
Detailed Construction Plans
More than just a builder’s guide, construction drawings help clients and your contractor to follow the design intent and achieve the best results.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you also implement the design and do all landscaping works?
No, we specialise in the design phase. Just as you engage an architect to design your house and a builder to build it, our expertise lies in the design as well. These are two distinct activities, each requiring different skills, approaches and ways of working. By choosing the right provider for the right job, you’ll get better value from each and more control over overall costs.
I want to implement myself; can you supply all the plants?
Yes, we can, and we are quite good at this. We organise the deliveries from multiple locations in the right timeframe and for competitive prices. Our planting designs are prepared with availability in mind. However, the plant supply is seasonal and less consistent for rarer plants. Part of our service is also in finding the right alternatives which maintain the design intent, if you agree to them.
Which locations do you service?
We offer site visits within the entire Sydney Metropolitan and Blue Mountains area. We provide landscape design services also for entire NSW, provided that a professionally prepared site survey is available. This option is particularly useful for streamlined landscape designs required for planning permission.
Can I make changes to the design?
Absolutely! After we present the initial concept, we’ll go through it together and fine-tune it until it feels just right. Each service is tailored to an optimal number of revisions, taking into account the price and scope of the work. However, if you require additional revisions, our flexible pricing allows for adjustments.
Talk to us today to see how our affordable landscape design services can benefit your garden!