Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design Landscape Designer 2Apr 28, 2006 12:57 pm Hi Alto,
$5K is a lot to pay for plans of any sort. A Landscpae Architect can have a uni degree just like the rest of us, but it doesn't mean they can get paid what they would like to be paid...these guys must be pretty special. Especially as these plans are without costings, even estimates would help! Then again if this is a gun crew then they could just be charging their normal fees, as they might not be able to produce quality results fo less. Or they don't want to do your job. $5K would still want to provide plans for an award winning garden (and fence and lighting system). Give some landscpaing contractors a call and see if they can't provide a slightly less hardcore set of plans/ estimates. Respect, all. Earl Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 4Apr 30, 2006 8:37 pm I'm still very much in the early stages of choosing a landscape designer. I intend to see a few more before I commit.
I got the fright of my life when i heard $5k for drawings. Based on his hourly fee it worked out to around 60 hours worth of work. I'm a financial planner who develops pretty complex plans and don't spend much more time than 20 hours preparing a strategy document - I can't understand how there would be more than 30 hours worth of work for the designer. Does anyone have an idea how much landscape plans front and back including fencing, lighting and irrigation should cost??? Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 6Apr 11, 2007 5:11 pm We had a Landscape Designer prepare a full design for submission with our DA. His cost was $2,750 (including GST).
This included detailed drawings, pool design, driveway layout, plant schedule for a 3,200m2 block. In other works, a very thorough design. He was probably the most helpful out of all the consultants/advisors we dealt with. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 7Apr 11, 2007 6:00 pm I'm naturally suspicious of designers. There's often too much emphasis on display and impact, just like a display apartments where everything is arranged for show rather than living.
Most of the garden makeover shows I've seen always seem to use elements which would just generate hours of useless toil: Complex edges, 'weed traps', silly little patches of isolated lawn, randomly placed trees needing edge trimming, stepping stones to nowhere, benches no one will ever sit on, gaudy 'art' pieces loved only by spiders, and tinkling water features in tiny yards guaranteed to drive the neighbours nuts and to go mouldy or be mosquito breeeding ponds. Is there such a thing as a garden ergonomics engineer ? Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 8Apr 19, 2007 10:44 am Personally I hate garden makeover shows because they seem to see the need to remove all plants and lawn and replace with concrete and stone. Gardens are about plants period.
The sort of plants they use are some of the dullest and most boring imaginable and what ever happened to trees? I have often thought of changing career and becoming a landscape designer but to be honest unless I can do the complete design myself with no interference from the owner, I would just always be iritated. bad taste and stupid design requirements would likely spoil what I am trying to create. Another thing is the rates, $5000 for your garden design may seem a lot but for a week and a half of work, that seems pretty reasonable to me. Sure you can always get it cheaper someplace else but you get what you pay for in these sorts of things. For a budget, you get design rules, for a full price you get creativity. Sorry to rant a bit but it irks me too often, probably because of the prevelance of garden makeover programs. I do actually watch all the gardening programs (in many cases just to make snide comments - to my long suffering wife) and think gardening australia is probably the best. And you know what that means..... ...don't miss it 3xb Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 9Apr 27, 2007 5:00 pm $5000 is indeed a lot!
We have a small land about 700m2, it only cost us about $800 to do a simple design -- we don't like too many trees or too complicate stuffs. The price also includes further modifications until council approval. The design was latter knock back by council because they don't allow us to remove a tree, and he updated it accordingly. We latter changed our mind with some plants and the location of brick fence. As this was totally different from original discussion and he charged $30/hour for the changes. Which is reasonable. Suggest to shop around and get a few more quotes... Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 10Apr 27, 2007 11:25 pm lol @ 3timesbuilda at your Gardening Australia joke!!
I think a lot of the garden design programs (ie computer programs) help a lot but you have to be ready to research like crazy. Ie, what plants will grow well etc etc. I do believe that plans are best before you start, no matter whether you do these or someone else does. Clearly, whoever put the front garden in at our place didn't have a well thought out plan and it shows. We have been trying to put some theme to their madness ever since (ie removing/moving trees etc). We considered a landscape gardener but after six months planning and thinking of what we personally want and need we have created a very well thought out plan (complete with drawings and selected plants) by ourselves. We seek professional advice for all sorts of things, I can't see why this would be any different, unless you have a good idea of what you want. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 11Jun 13, 2007 10:11 am It all depends on the 'requirement'. 5K may be acceptable for a 1M property... but not worth it for a smaller gardens.
3xb was complaining about interference from owner. I understand you perfectly mate. I do web design and it’s always an issue At the end of the day, it's their business and they should be happy about what they are getting. - devank Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 12Jun 13, 2007 4:31 pm Just another thought....
I don't want a full on landscape design (and even if I did I wouldn't pay $5K) but I'm pretty hopeless with plants and knowing what goes best where so I'm going to get Waldecks (they are a big plant nursery not sure if they are in the Eastern States???) out to do a basic design for me...they charge around $200 and basically give you a drawing of where to plant what! And of course if you decide to buy the plants through them they offer you a discount! Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 13Jun 13, 2007 4:37 pm perthgirl - I think most nurseries in NSW do this too - quite often a basic plan is free as long as you buy your plants from them. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 14Jul 01, 2007 10:40 pm After witnessing an AllCastle built house auctioned for $1.4M the other day (< a href="http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/2007/06/others003-property-sales-update-epping.html" target="_">See this link from my blog</a>), we completely changed our mind regarding landscaping. Well, at least "if" we are going to sell our house in the future. We will definitely spend a few thousand dollars in landscaping (not all on the designing of course). A well presented landscape will definitely increase your house value a lot.
Cheers Allan http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/ Current stage: old house demolished, contract signed, waiting for excavation to start... Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 15Jul 02, 2007 9:02 am We had a landscaper do our new garden, as we are NOT gardeners!! Couldn't recommend it more. It was fantastic. We stipulated a broad outline of what we wanted, eg. natives, waterwise and low maintenance, but a bit of lawn for the kids to play on. Well, after 4 weeks while the plan was drawn up and 3 weeks of soil excavation and conditioning, retic laying, planting and mulching, we have a gorgeous, planned, reticulated garden. It was well worth the effort to get professionals in. It looks terrific and things like having the same sort of plants on the same watering stations, choosing plants for the right areas are things we wouldn't have known. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 16Jul 02, 2007 12:22 pm ahuang We will definitely spend a few thousand dollars in landscaping (not all on the designing of course). A well presented landscape will definitely increase your house value a lot. A few thousand or tens of thousands? We've been told that even a basic DIY landscaping job will be $6-10k for plants and turf. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 17Jul 02, 2007 12:29 pm stonecutter1309 ahuang We will definitely spend a few thousand dollars in landscaping (not all on the designing of course). A well presented landscape will definitely increase your house value a lot. A few thousand or tens of thousands? We've been told that even a basic DIY landscaping job will be $6-10k for plants and turf. That's possible... When the house was first built. Always not much $ left and landscape can wait. So we plan to put in min plants with min $. Will add others later as required. But if it's time to sell the house that would be a completely different story. I don't mind putting in extra $10K if that can get me extra $50K during auction! Cheers Allan http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/ Current stage: old house demolished, contract signed, waiting for excavation to start... Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 18Jul 02, 2007 5:03 pm Our landscaping for a 770 sqm block was approx $19000. This included a lot of soil removal and adding soil conditioner (4 days of bobcats moving earth), full garden reticulation, Sir Walter soft buffalo (expensive grass!) for the front and back yards, as well as all plants along 3 boundary lines, garden beds with a few trees and grasses and native grass trees (not cheap), some hedging plants for a retaining wall and mulching of all garden beds. Add on $4000 for extensive paving and our yard is finished. We possibly could have done it cheaper ourselves, but I am not a gardener and this way we have got a well-designed, cohesive looking garden with very usable spaces. Also we landscaped for our enjoyment as we are planning to live here forever!! You could do it cheaper for resale I'm sure. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 19Jul 03, 2007 8:56 am kezza Also we landscaped for our enjoyment as we are planning to live here forever!! Sworn the exact same thing twice so far. Really, this time it really is forever. Re: Landscape designer vs DIY 20Jul 08, 2007 10:54 pm Can someone explain why one has to spend thousands on lanscaping if one is in a million dollar estate? I am of the same opinion as3xb- all those pathways and pebbles and bushes with trimmed shapes are useless and i certainly dont like them. I would like to have my backyard full of fruit trees, herb and vegie patches which will my family can enjoy.Frontyard with large canopy decidious trees for shade, flowering shrubs like rhododendrons, hardy turf and decent driveway. I am building to live forever so it has to be practical. i dont feel comfortable to start considering 'resale' from day 1 ... fortunately (or unfortunately?) i happen to be in one of those estates here new homes are being sold for over a million dollars but it doesnt make sense to me why I should stretch my loan when I do not have the intention to sell for a long long time. Your build is relatively simple, I believe your job can be easily done by a good building designer, you really do not need to pay for the architect. Remember, architect's… 3 10989 Landscape Design Parramatta We have been doing a large amount of landscape design work in Sydney… 0 3 Need advice on the backyard plan above. Should I excavate and cut all of the dirt to level with the house slab or semi-excavate as per photo above? Both left and right… 0 24875 |