What Actually Happens When You Have a Garden Designed

Most people have had a kitchen fitted, or an extension built. Very few have had a garden designed, so when they start looking into it they are not quite sure what they are buying, how long it takes, or what they will have at the end of it.

This is the whole process, stage by stage, as it actually runs. It is how we do it at First Light. Other designers work differently, and one difference is worth flagging at the outset: we design and build. That means we can take a project from a first phone call right through to a finished garden and handle everything in between, and as you will see, it changes the process in ways that matter, particularly around cost.

Stage one: the consultation call

Everything starts with a free phone call with one of our designers, usually about fifteen or twenty minutes. There is no charge and no obligation, and nobody comes to the house at this point.

It is a straightforward conversation. What is not working in the garden now, how you would like to use it, whether there are children or dogs to think about, how much maintenance you realistically want to take on, and roughly what you have in mind to spend. If you can send photos over beforehand, or a rough sketch, or even a video walking around, it makes an enormous difference. It is remarkable how much can be read from a few photographs about levels, aspect, access and what the garden is fighting against.

Talking about budget this early can feel awkward, but it is the most useful thing you can do. A designer who knows the number designs to it. A designer who does not is guessing, and the guess is usually wrong in one direction or the other.

Stage two: the written proposal

After the call you receive a written proposal by email. It opens with our notes from the conversation, and it is worth reading that part carefully. If we have misunderstood something about your garden, this is where you will spot it, before anyone has been paid anything.

The proposal then sets out early guidance on likely build costs, whether a survey is needed, and the two design packages with their fees.

Stage three: choosing a package

We offer two.

The Standard Package is a complete, buildable garden design: a site meeting and full survey, a detailed written brief, a CAD layout plan, a mood board setting the material direction, a planting mood board with trees and structural planting specified, a finished levels plan, key dimensions, two rounds of amendments and concept costings along the way. It is everything a landscaper needs to price the job accurately and build it correctly.

The 3D Plus Package includes all of that and adds a full 3D model of the garden, photo-realistic visuals and a video walkthrough.

The question worth asking is not which is better, but how much of your garden is changing. If the layout is broadly staying put and you are confident reading a plan, Standard is usually plenty. If the levels are being reworked, retaining walls are going in, or there are new structures, a 2D plan is genuinely difficult to picture standing in. That is what the 3D is for. Not presentation, but checking an expensive structural decision before it is built rather than after.

Stage four: the site meeting and survey

Once you have chosen, we come to the garden. We walk it with you, take a full survey, and go through levels, access, drainage, aspect, what stays and what goes.

Where a garden is significantly tiered or has retaining walls, we may recommend a topographical survey, carried out by an independent surveyor at around £550 plus VAT on top of the design fee. It is not needed on most flat gardens. Where levels are complicated it is money extremely well spent, because designing steps, retaining and drainage from estimated heights is precisely how expensive mistakes happen.

Stage five: the written design brief

You then receive a written design brief, setting out the vision for the garden, the objectives, and a section on each area covering what it needs to do.

This step surprises people, but it is the one that prevents the most disappointment. Read it properly and correct anything that is not right. Nothing is drawn until the brief is agreed, so a misunderstanding caught here costs a five-minute email. Caught after the concept is drawn, it costs one of your amendment rounds.

Stage six: the concept design, and concept costings

Now the design itself. You will see a layout, materials, levels and the shape of the space.

Alongside it come concept costings, a realistic view of what the concept would cost to build, given to you while everything can still be changed. This matters more than almost anything else in the process.

It is also where being a design-and-build company earns its keep. Because we construct the gardens we design, the costings come from people who know what things actually cost to build rather than from an estimate at arm's length. If the concept is running ahead of your budget, this is the point to scale things back, by simplifying a specification, changing a material, reducing the extent of the work or phasing it, and the design carries on developing around a figure that works for you.

We would never promise to hit a budget exactly. Until a garden is surveyed and designed, nobody honestly can. But a design drawn with no reference to build cost is how people end up with a beautiful set of drawings they cannot afford to build, and nobody is served by that.

Stage seven: two rounds of amendments

Both packages include two rounds of amendments, and most people use them. Every client has their own preferences, and seeing a drawing is usually when those preferences become clear. That is the design process working as intended, not a sign anything has gone wrong.

What planting is included?

Every design sets the planting direction for the garden. Trees, hedges and the key structural and architectural planting are specified, and a planting mood board sets the style, colours and feel of the borders, so you have a clear framework to work to.

How far you take it from there is up to you, and people differ. If you would like a full border-by-border planting plan, with every plant chosen, supplied and planted for you, we can produce one. Plenty of clients would rather do their own planting, or build the borders up gradually over a few seasons. And where a garden already has established plants worth keeping, we design around them rather than clearing the lot and starting again.

The detailed planting is drawn once the final layout is confirmed and the borders can be measured exactly, so it is designed around the finished garden rather than an early concept.

Stage eight: the build quotation

With the design finalised, the garden can be properly quoted. A real price against a real drawing, rather than an estimate against an idea.

You are under no obligation to build with us. The design is yours and it is buildable by any competent landscaper. But this is the point at which designing and building under one roof earns its keep, and it is worth explaining why.

Why design and build together

The traditional route is to pay a designer, receive a set of drawings, and then go looking for a contractor to build them. It works, but there is a well-known gap in the middle of it. Drawings come back from tender considerably more expensive than anyone expected. Details get reinterpreted on site by people who were not in the room when they were decided. And when something does not work, the designer and the builder each point at the other.

Because we do both, none of that arises. The design is grounded in real construction costs from the very first concept, which is what makes the concept costings meaningful rather than a guess. The people who drew your garden are the people building it, so nothing is lost in translation. And one company is accountable for the finished result. There is nobody else to point at.

It also makes the whole thing considerably less work for you. One point of contact, one programme, one team, from the first phone call through to the last plant going in.

How long does all this take?

From the site meeting to the finished design, allow around three weeks, assuming the brief and the amendments come back to us reasonably promptly. The pace is set by that more than by the drawing work.

The build is booked separately, and we are currently taking bookings around three to four months ahead, more in spring, which is always the busiest part of the year. Put those together and a garden you want to be enjoying next summer is one to start thinking about now.

That is the one piece of advice we would give: start earlier than feels necessary. Gardens are almost always thought about in April, by which point that summer's best build slots have gone. Autumn and winter are the ideal time to design, being the least useful time to be in the garden and the most useful time to be planning it. And because we build all year round, an autumn start means the garden is ready for spring rather than being built through it.

If you are thinking about your garden, the consultation call is free and there is no obligation at the end of it. It takes fifteen or twenty minutes, and you will come away with a much clearer idea of what is possible and what it is likely to cost.