Creating the beautiful gardens and outdoor living spaces our clients dream of takes care, coordination and know-how. And whether it's a courtyard space or a large-scale landscape garden, every project and every client is unique.
The following steps provide a useful overview of the 'typical' garden design process.
Every garden design project starts with an initial consultation and site visit. These early conversations are an opportunity for us to discuss and agree the functional and aesthetic requirements and aspirations for your garden, to create an agreed 'client brief'.
This a foundational information-gathering stage of the garden design process. It usually includes a site visit by Colm Joseph to undertake a detailed analysis of your current garden and the commissioning of a topographic survey of the site.
Informed by the client brief and our site analysis, we get to work on the garden design ideas for your new garden. This results in an outline design proposal, presented to you in the form of a garden plan, a 3D CAD model of your garden, illustrations of your new garden, example images and material palettes, all helping you visualise how your new garden will look.
Once you're happy with the outline design proposal, we produce a final landscape masterplan drawing, which captures the agreed layout design of your new garden.
We then work to detail all aspects of the design, including hard landscape elements (construction drawings, specifications for paving, steps, walling, seating, water features, etc.), alongside all soft landscaping details (planting plans, specifications, plant schedules, tree selection, etc.). This step may include close coordination with other professionals involved in the project (architects, engineers, etc.) and planning applications, as needed.
We can recommend suitably high-quality professional landscape contractors from our network to undertake the garden build. We will help coordinate the quotation process on your behalf, either with a single, preferred contractor or via a restricted tender process in which two or more recommended contractors are invited to quote for the garden build.
With a professional landscape contractor in place, we will inspect the garden build on your behalf, helping ensure the garden is built as per our design and to the highest quality standards.
Gardens are living spaces open to the elements and to seasonal change and all gardens require some maintenance. During the project, we will communicate the key maintenance requirements for the new garden and advise clients on how to keep their garden looking beautiful for many years to come.
