Importance of Landscape Design
Developing a landscape design is the first step involved in creating your new landscape. A landscape design not only determines which plants will be planted; it is also a time to determine where those trees, shrubs, and flowers will be planted. Just like the construction of a bridge begins with an engineer’s blueprint, the installation of most landscapes begins with a landscape design. Plants are quite expensive, so planting the wrong mix of plants, or the right plants in the wrong location is a waste of money, and detracts from your property’s appearance. You can end up with a much more desirable look when you see the design before planting. While it is difficult to imagine what the final mature size of plants looks like, with our landscape design software, we can do growth projections, enabling us to see what a plant’s growth will look like many years in the future. This allows us to select plants that won’t quickly outgrow their location, and results in a much longer-lasting landscape.
“A good rule of thumb is that landscape design costs approximately 10% of the overall landscape project.”
Costs of Landscape Design
While we use advanced computer-imaging landscape design software, which can save time over creating a landscape design by hand, a landscape design is not simple to create. It can take a number of hours to consult with the customer about their wishes for their property, select the correct plants, and develop the design. There are typically multiple revisions to the design that are necessary to achieve a design that the customer is satisfied with. We charge on a per-project basis for our design services and typically include a minimum of two revisions. The cost Paul’s Landscaping of NY, LLC charges to create a landscape design varies depending upon the overall size of the design project. A good rule of thumb is that landscape design costs approximately 10% of the overall landscape project. For a very basic $1,000 front yard planting project for example, we would charge around $100 to develop a landscape design with two revisions. Larger projects tend to be slightly less than 10% design cost.
Why We Charge For Landscape Design
There are some landscaping companies that advertise “free landscape designs”. But as the old saying goes, you often get what you pay for. There are typically strings attached, such as requiring you to hire the company to install the plants, and the design might be a highly standardized design that isn’t a great fit for your property. We believe in giving our customers a unique design; a design that is tailored to their property and tailored to their wishes. According to Fixr.com, it costs an average of $40,000 for an architect to develop and oversee a design for a new, 2,500 square foot house. While quite expensive, it can prevent major mistakes, such as building a garage on the wrong side of the house or installing too few windows. Similarly, a few hundred dollars spent on landscape design can prevent costly mistakes, such as planting a large tree too close to the house, only to have to remove it a few years later. Because of the importance of landscape design, it takes time to get it right. Thus, we charge for our time and expertise.
