How Does The Garden Design Process Work?

Tuesday, 10 September 2019

Most of the potential clients who contact us have never had a garden designed before and have no idea how it all works. We appreciate what a daunting thought it can be so we thought we would explain how our garden design process works…

Initial garden design consultation

When you contact us we will book you in for our initial FREE design consultation. We normally have a waiting list for these consultations so you may have to wait a wee while for us to come out. We always recommend clients think around 9 months ahead if possible to give us time to schedule that initial meeting, do a design and then book in our busy landscaping team. At the initial consultation, which normally last 1-2 hours, we will discuss all elements of your garden. Have a think before we come out about things like:

• what do you want to use the garden for?
• who will be using the garden?
• what sort of styles of garden do you like?
• what sort of materials, plants do you like?
• would you like any garden features such as sculpture, water features, lighting etc?
• will you need a laundry area?
• where will bins go?
• what storage is required?
• what is your budget?

Once we have collated lots of information and shown you our own portfolio of gardens, we will take lots of photographs of your garden and survey it. We can then send you our quote for designing your garden.

Interim meeting

Once you have given us the go ahead for your design, we start to make the magic happen. We CAD up your garden on the computer so we can see the layout, aspect etc and then we start doing some pencil sketches. We will normally do two different concepts to show you different ways your garden can work. More than that just creates confusion. We will then meet with you again to discuss these concepts and get your feedback. Sometimes one concept is exactly what a client wants. Commonly elements from both concepts go into the final design. At the interim meeting we will also have some rough costs for how much it will be for us to build your design for you. At this interim stage there is loads of flexibility so you can amend the design to suit your taste and budget as much as you like and we can discuss phasing your garden build if required. Once we have your feedback we can then do your final design pack.

Final garden design

Your garden design pack will include:

• A drawing of your existing garden for your reference
• A full colour, scaled design of your new garden
• A mood board giving a feel for the materials, plants, features etc proposed for your garden
• Detailed drawings where required for items such as construction drawings, elevation drawings, lighting layouts, planting plans etc
• Full costs for Vialii Gardens to build your garden for you
• Your invoice – you don’t need to pay a penny until we complete your design for you

Thereafter

Once you have perused your garden design pack, we very much hope you will use the Vialii Gardens landscaping team to bring your design to life. By using our in-house garden landscaping team we can ensure the design we have worked hard to perfect is created exactly as per the plan. We won’t change shapes, materials or planting style and we will work to the highest standards to create the perfect garden for you. Once complete we will provide you with your own bespoke plant care sheets so you can learn to look after your own garden. Unless you want our garden maintenance team to do that for you too!

If you have any other queries about garden design please get in touch and we will answer them for you.

Thanks

Vialii