I have literally seen awful designs that people have paid good money for. There are bad designers out there. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of bad designs that people have paid $500 I even got one once that the homeowner claimed to have spent $5000 for such a design! How do you avoid this? The problem is so prevalent that I dare say I redo at least one or two of these designs every year. This is so unfortunate!
Often a client calls a landscape contractor and he shows up and tells the homeowner that they need to get a design and then he can give them a bid. Then the landscaper hires a designer (with no skill, some just don’t vet out their designers well). The homeowner for whatever reason trusts the landscape contractor and writes out a check for $500 or whatever the landscape contractor asks for). Sometimes the design work is even just turned over to a project manager who really has no idea how to design. The majority of his work is to make sure sod is laid straight and crews are scheduled staying busy. A couple weeks later the landscape contractor or landscape designer or whoever brings out a design with very little to no imput from the homeowner. The homeowner feels burned and discouraged (as he should). Then the homeowner decides to take matters into his own hands and vets out a real quality designer.
Hopefully I can give you some pointers to avoid this in the future.
See their work! Just ask them to email you some plans. Contact at least 2 or 3 designers and have them email their work. (Make sure they are sharing their own work and not somebody elses – once I had a friend in the landscape industry ask me if I could email him one of my plans so that he could forward it to someone interested in hiring him to do a design for him. I asked him why he would sent one of my plans if they are wanting him to do the work. There are tricky people out there.
Check their work: Are their designs accurate? In other words have they taken the time to get the details right. For example, public sidewalks are usually 4-5 ft wide, if a designer has only drawn it at 3 ft wide then you know they may not have their design accurate. An inaccurate design can mean an inaccurate landscape bid, and can cause a lot of problems in the design-build process. If a designer gets numbers wrong, like for example if a designer doesn’t measure your yard accurately like if they draw it at 100 ft wide and your yard is only 80ft wide you could be paying for an extra 20ft in landscaping than you should. Also that means the patio the designer put in may not fit the way he or her designed it.
Ask for references: Drive by some homes they have designed. If they have no problem sharing references that’s good they are probably reputable. However don’t be too hard on a designer if you drive by a house that hasn’t been maintained. Unfortunately, the way a homeowner maintains the landscape has nothing to do with the quality of the designer. You could have an exceptional design but if it hasn’t been maintained well that should not be help against the designer.
Make sure you like their style! Compare the two or three designers. Each has their own style. Do you have a modern home and want a modern landscape. Ask specifically if they can show you some designs with a modern style. If you want a mountain or rugged theme ask to see designs more along those lines.
Be curious and grateful for their help. I had one potential client that I had done a rough draft for (it was through a landscape contractor that had hope to get the job and I owned him a favor) so I had never actually spoke with this client. But I told the landscaper I would do a rough draft for this homeowner if he promised not to give him a copy of the plan that I did. According to the landscape contractor the homeowner loved the plan and would be calling me to have me make a few small changes. The homeowner called with the attitude that his home and design was going to be so good that I should do some preliminary work for free to see if I would earn the “privilege” to design it. Don’t have that attitude, a good designer is very busy and doesn’t need to work for free earn your business. As a designer I never want to work for someone that feels that entitled to my time. I just told him you’ve seen my work and I’m not interested in “earning his business” so I didn’t do the work for him.