Maximize Your Budget by Hiring a Professional Landscape Designer
Written by Wayne Lamarre · Last Updated February 10th, 2023
Maximizing Your Budget: The Benefits of Hiring a Professional Landscape Designer
The benefits of hiring a professional landscape designer are numerous. But perhaps none is more important than ensuring that every dollar spent is worth it when considering revitalizing your landscape or constructing a new outdoor living space. After all, your backyard or front yard landscape should be an escape from your day-to-day life indoors and is a place of outdoor comfort, enjoyment, and relaxation.
But designing and constructing a landscape is a challenging task. Especially considering the balance that has to be struck between getting everything you want within a budget that makes sense for your long-term plans for your home. This is where the benefit of hiring a professional landscape designer pays big dividends when it comes to maximizing your landscape construction budget.
With a combination of deep experience, formal education, and industry expertise, a professional landscape design process can creatively organize the right hardscape and softscape features to maximize your budget. A professional knows how to design for longevity and sustainability, ensuring that your space lasts year after year while still looking beautiful. They are also trained in methods and tools used for visual communication, such as hand-drawn or computer renderings in both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional formats, so you clearly understand what the project will look like when it's complete.
All things considered, landscape design is an investment that gets you what you want and makes better use of your construction budget. It's the surefire way to add significantly more value to any landscape construction project without breaking the bank.
By investing in a landscape designer, not only do you ensure that every dollar spent is well-considered, but you can also trust that your outdoor living space will meet all of your needs and desires. This post explores the benefits of hiring a professional landscape designer and how the process and services they provide will help you build an outdoor living dream with maximum value.
To understand the real benefit of hiring a professional landscape designer, let's first take a look at the landscape design process.
Key takeaways from this landscape design article from Nest Outdoors:
- A process that helps you make informed decisions about your landscape is a wise financial investment.
- Designing for longevity and sustainability stretch your dollar.
- A professional landscape designer can help you avoid mistakes and ensure every dollar is well considered.
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You don't need to know exactly what you want before hiring a professional landscape designer.
- The landscape design process is a positive, often exciting experience that almost always delivers more than you expected.
Understanding the landscape design process
The design process is full of complexity. It balances many factors that can seem overwhelming and confusing, especially if you're considering a landscaping project for the first time. A landscape design professional understands the process of uncovering and understanding your wants and needs and creatively designs viable options that work within your personal style and the context and conditions of your property. This is skillfully done to make all the difference between a successful project and a potentially frustrating experience.
Essentially, the landscape design process's end product is a detailed plan that considers form, function, and sustainability in a customized solution outlining your outdoor space's design, layout, and features.
Form, function, and sustainability in landscape design
- Form encompasses lines, scale, space, texture, and color for plants and hardscape materials. These visual aspects come together to create a pleasing aesthetic environment.
- Function refers to how the landscape is used: for example, creating enough room to entertain on a patio, connecting spaces with walkways and landscape lighting, and providing shade or privacy in certain areas.
- Sustainability involves developing designs that manage stormwater to promote infiltration, mitigate or eliminate erosion, conserve natural resources, and promote and preserve ecosystems while coexisting with your new outdoor space.
The landscape design process typically considers many elements, such as:
- Site analysis, including topographical data and drainage conditions, existing vegetation, sun exposure, and any other site-specific information.
- Design development and layout, including the planning of features like patios, decks, retaining walls, outdoor kitchens, pools, fire pits, and plant selection, to name a few.
- Construction documentation, such as drawings of hardscapes and softscape areas in both 2 and 3 dimensions.
- Landscape lighting design options to highlight special features, provide safety and security at night and create an inviting evening atmosphere.
- Plant material selection that is both aesthetic and functional.
- Grading for erosion control or stormwater management.
- Selection of materials to ensure long-term performance in all weather conditions and fit the architectural style of your home as well as your personal preferences.
- Ongoing maintenance considerations.
It's a collaboration between you and the landscape designer that creates the right outcome. With the right landscape designer, the process is enjoyable, surprising, and exciting as you watch concepts develop into final buildable construction plans.
The benefits of hiring a professional landscape designer
Stating that hiring a professional landscape designer can make a massive difference in the outcome of your landscaping project is not an understatement. You need a professional that brings years of experience earned through countless projects that result in a deep level of expertise. Great designers also bring an abundance of creativity to the table. The combination of these skills saves time and money and delivers a finished product that is original and well thought out.
A professional landscape designer guides you in making informed decisions about the hardscape materials, plants, and different features you want to include in your outdoor space. Their insight bridges the gap between what you want and what is possible on your property, making your landscaping project as beautiful, desirable, efficient, and sustainable as possible.
Investing in landscape design ensures a great outcome for your project before a shovel touches the ground.
Wayne Lamarre - Owner Nest Outdoors
Why a professional landscape designer can help you save money in the long run
While it may seem counterintuitive, working with a professional landscape designer can help you save money in the long run. You will get the most return for your construction investment when you make informed decisions during the design process. They introduce a preconstruction process that not only gets you a dream outcome but, in the end, is cost-effective by helping you avoid wasted time and costly mistakes. It all helps ensure that every dollar spent during construction is well considered. Furthermore, a well-designed landscape can add value to your home and improve its
And with the overall look, function, and feel of your landscape professionally improved, you increase the daily living value and future resale value when the time comes.
Designing for Longevity and Sustainability
You want your investment in a well-designed landscape to last and be enjoyed for years. And that isn't easy to accomplish without a landscape industry expert's approach to adequately designing, planning, and implementing your project.
The last thing you want is for the beauty and stability of your outdoor oasis's hardscape or softscape elements to be short-lived. Because the designer takes the time to know the ins and outs of your property, they can arrive at a practical and long-lasting sustainable plan. It will consider factors such as microclimates, soil conditions, sunlight exposure, and water drainage, all elements in creating sustainability across the seasons and years. You can rest easy knowing that years down the line, your patio and walls will hold up to the changing seasons and freeze-thaw cycles and that your plant material, like trees, shrubs, and perennials, are well-suited to your local conditions and will thrive in the long run.
Designing a landscape that endures changing weather conditions
One of the challenges of landscape design is that weather can be unpredictable. Whatever is proposed in your landscape design must endure all weather conditions. This applies to structural elements like patios, decks, retaining walls, and the selection of all plant materials.
For a New Hampshire landscape design, it's hard to beat natural materials like bluestone, fieldstone, and granite, as they were forged to withstand anything mother nature can dish out. Choosing the right native, hardy plants and trees that withstand our sweltering and bitter cold seasonal temperatures are essential. The longevity and durability of your design are just another benefits of professional guidance.
We offer design-build services exclusively because it's how we can deliver the most value to every client.
Nest Outdoors
The role of a landscape designer in helping you visualize the final product
Visualizing the final outcome of your landscape design project can be a difficult task without the help of a professional landscape designer. They have the skills and experience to create detailed illustrations, renderings, and 3D models that show exactly what your outdoor space will look like once completed. This helps you understand the size, scale, and overall look and feel of your new outdoor space, allowing you to make any necessary changes before construction begins. With a landscape designer by your side, you can feel confident in your design decisions and know that you are making an informed choice.
How a landscape designer can help you make the right decisions
When you engage in the design process, you will quickly learn there are lots of decisions to be made. And without a bit of guidance and an explanation of the pros and cons, that decision-making process could be overwhelming.
There are lots of choices to be made and landscape trends to consider, from the type of plants and materials to be used to the overall layout of the space. It helps to have your expert walk you through all the options and answer any question that comes to mind along the way. They know how decisions impact the budget and, perhaps more importantly, how you will ultimately enjoy your choices over the long run. They understand the benefits and drawbacks of everything under consideration. They can help you make the best choices and mediate different opinions between you and anyone making decisions about your project, like your spouse or significant other.
You end up with design options that suit your needs and budget by making informed decisions every step of the way.
The importance of balancing aesthetics, functionality, and cost in your landscape design
Your project's final outcome should look good, function well AND be within your desired budget. This balancing act is always in play when creating a design for your outdoor space. By assessing your design's overall aesthetic, functionality, and cost, a landscape designer can help ensure that your project is successful as measured in multiple ways.
Your landscape design is successful when:
- You love how it looks
- It functions to meet all your needs
- It makes sense for what you want to invest.
Success is reached when we strike the right balance between all three.
How the landscape design process is a budget development process
Not sure what landscape construction even costs or how much it will be to include everything you want? No problem. The landscape design process is also a budget development process.
Some people contact a landscape designer with a predetermined budget. That is prudent on one level, but usually, the predetermined dollar figure is not connected to any developed concept. The goal is to get you exactly what you want within a budget that makes sense but most people come to the design process with only a general idea of what they want and are unaware of what is possible on their property. We've time and again budgets stated on the first meeting that significantly expanded once we uncovered essential needs and associated real-life costs to desired elements.
The point is the best design process helps you arrive at the right amount to fund for your project and remain fiscally responsible while getting the most from every dollar you spend.
Maximizing your budget through effective landscape construction planning
A beautiful outdoor space is the result of thoughtful design then careful planning. Planning is a crucial step in a successful landscape construction project, and construction planning actually begins in the design process.
A landscape designer who is experienced in landscape construction considers how all landscape elements and features, from patios and outdoor kitchens to trees and shrubs, must be installed or constructed during the design process. In fact, many design choices are guided by the required construction method. This is particularly true of hardscape elements, as traditional or modern construction methods influence the sequence of construction or modifications in the design itself.
By understanding how designs need to be translated into real-life construction, mistakes in the field and wasted time are significantly reduced, if not outright eliminated, which are significant factors in maximizing your budget.
Ensuring That Every Dollar Spent is a Well-Considered One
We have a saying here at Nest Outdoors that states, "Landscape design ensures that every dollar spent during construction is a well-considered dollar."
It's as true of a statement as one can make on how landscape design can give the most return on your investment.
One of the best ways to maximize your budget is to go through a process that gives you more than you expected
"This was so much more than we expected!" is the feedback we get from our projects. And we never tire of hearing it. That phrase is proof that we took our client, a homeowner, who wants the most value for themselves and their family, and maximized every cent of the hard-earned money they trusted us with to deliver some outdoor happiness.
Conclusion: The main benefit of hiring a professional landscape designer is you get an outcome you love and top value for your investment
Value is always essential in any home improvement project, and landscaping is no exception.
With a professional landscape designer dedicated to your project, you can ensure that your construction budget will be utilized to its fullest potential. From choosing the right features and materials to carefully planning out each aspect of the design-build process, the goal is to help you make informed decisions that maximize enjoyment and overall value. Whether you have a large or modest budget, landscape design gives you a better return for every dollar spent.
FAQ - Benefits of hiring a professional landscape designer
Allocating 2-4% of your construction budget to landscape design is a typical range.
Smaller, less complex designs can be completed in a matter of weeks. Larger designs will generally take several months or more. The time it takes to complete your design depends on multiple factors.
Take a look at this helpful post to get a detailed answer: How long does it take to create a landscape design?
In short, they prevent you from throwing good money after bad. Landscape designers provide budget value upfront by learning about what you want, gathering the right data to know what's possible, and developing a design that incorporates durable materials, well-chosen plants, and proper construction methods. This means your project is not only everything you could imagine but will endure the test of time. The longer you enjoy your landscape, the longer it lasts, and the more your money buys you.
Formally speaking, a professional landscape designer provides a comprehensive design process, including site analysis, design development with ongoing maintenance considerations, and construction estimating. They provide visual communication tools, such as 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional renderings, to clearly understand the final product.
Informally, they provide peace of mind knowing that you finally have the perfect plan for your dream backyard.
Nope! the landscape design process is engineered to uncover your needs and desires. It helps you understand what is possible and help you compare options, and clarify the decision-making process. We also make great mediators between partners who have differing opinions.
About the author of this article
Related landscaping and outdoor living articles:
>When should you hire a landscape designer?
>New Hampshire landscape design trends for 2023
>5 ways a patio can raise your quality of life
It's time for better outdoor living!
Contact Nest Outdoors for your landscape design
Patio design concept for a landscape design client in Bedford, New Hampshire, from Nest Outdoors.
