The Garden Design Process
What exactly happens when you approach Midfeather Garden Design about giving your garden a facelift? This part of the web site reveals all!
- Initial Consultation
- Gift Consultation
- Concept Plan
- Costing and Detailing
- Building the Garden
- Maintaining the Garden
- Ongoing Consultancy
- Lighting
Initial Consultation
Our designer, Anthea Elston, visits you at your home for a free of charge initial consultation.
This consultation will cover;
- What you want to get out of the redesign
- Needs of all those who use the garden – including pets
- Your likes and dislikes
- The amount of time, if any, you want to spend maintaining the garden
- The amount of money you want to spend on the redesign
Gift Consultation
You can also give someone a consultation with the designer as a gift. We operate a gift voucher service so that you can give someone an hour of our designer’s time for £50 or up to 3 hours for £100 to advise them on any aspect of their garden or to introduce them to the design process.
Concept Plan
If you decide you want to take it further, the next stage is the concept plan – cost generally between £350 and £400, depending upon the size of garden.
The designer comes back, measures up your garden, including measuring any changes in level, and pin pointing the location of plants or other features that you want to remain in the garden after the redesign.
A base plan is drawn up, showing your gardens basic dimensions, and the designer then works to create a new design, which incorporates all the ideas you discussed at the initial consultation plus gives it some coherence and definition - and a bit of a wow factor. The type of hard landscaping materials and planting to be used will also be shown, but not yet in detail. This is still at the ideas stage.
The designer arranges a convenient date and time to return, and presents you with the concept plan, which should surprise and delight you.
Costing and Detailing
The next stage in getting the concept plan turned into reality is to get it costed up. Midfeather can manage this process for you, liaising with contractors to arrange up to three quotations for the project.
In addition, it is likely that further, more detailed plans will be required, such as planting plans for each area of planting, and materials will need to sourced and specified – both services which Midfeather is happy to offer. Planting plans and details are costed on an hourly rate basis, but generally cost between £150 and £200 per plan, depending upon size and complexity. Plant and material sourcing are charged out on an hourly rate basis.
Alternatively, you may wish to run the project yourself, and get quotations yourself – or even build the garden yourself if you have skills in this area.
Building the Garden
Once you have selected a contractor, Midfeather can project manage the build for you. This can be advisable, particularly on larger jobs where there might be a main contractor and several sub-contractors – getting the right people on site at the right time can be a challenge! We can do this liaison work for you, and set up a programme of site visits to ensure that all is progressing as it should, on budget and on schedule. It also means we can address any problems which might arise at once, and that any last minute changes that you might want to make can be swiftly integrated into the original design. This would be costed on an hourly rate basis, and we would give you a written estimate of cost before undertaking this work.
Maintaining the Garden
Once the build is complete, we can devise a maintenance programme for you, or any garden maintenance contractor you employ so that you know exactly what needs to be done to keep your new garden looking as good as the day it was finished – in fact, it should keep getting better and better, as plants grow and develop and materials weather in. We also offer a yearly advisory visit to address any queries which may come up as time goes by. Cost will depend upon the size and complexity of the garden.
Ongoing Consultancy
For our standard hourly rate of £35 per hour, we can provide ongoing consultancy and support with design, planting or project management. You can keep in touch by email or phone, and we can undertake regular review visits at a frequency to suit you and your garden.
Lighting
We are now able to offer a garden lighting service via an association with Eight Oaks Electricals. We can design and advise on lighting and water feature implementation and they will provide a quotation for carrying out the work.
Any of the services detailed above can also be given as a gift voucher – see the Gift Vouchers section on this web site for more details.