Happy New Year to all! You know I'm not a professional designer, this is from the perspective of a rank amateur...

We had a beautiful blanket of fresh snowfall last night, and I enjoyed seeing what made the cut in the winter garden.

I am relatively new at gardening, and quickly discovered that winter interest is extremely important in a cold climate. I have learned to pick plants according to how they will look in winter, that was one of the first mistakes I've made. Plants that are evergreen, have long bloom times, sturdy stems and colorful bark or berries are what have worked for me in my garden.

In my front yard, I started by ripping out the overgrown yews and arborvitaes that were covering the front windows and pressing against the soffits.

Now I find that I actually like both of these in the right setting, so I may replace them elsewhere in the garden. I especially wish I had just relocated the little arborvitae, I think it was 'Holmstrup', and a replacement will take some years to mature.

Later, I widened the beds in order to create a welcoming, generous entryway. My front steps are off to one side, with a small bed between the driveway and steps, and a larger bed under the front windows. I am trying to layer the shrubs and grasses, with perennials and groundcover skirting the edges.

I circled a gas lamp-post with perennials, but will replace them next spring with more substantial shrub roses.

I replaced the yews with a line of three 'Shamrock' inkberries, which looked really sad. The following spring, we grouped them closer together at the corner of the house. The closer spacing was an improvement, but next spring I'm going to plant a small tree, and maybe circle the tree underneath with the inkberries.

What worked in the smaller bed, on one side of the steps, was a couple of shrubs and a grass, so I repeated them on the bigger side the following spring. When everything catches up, I think it will look really nice.

The single greatest tool for me has been the digital camera. It helps me analyze what it is I'm seeing and responding to, from the comfort of my desk chair.

Different people do things in different ways.

People who have a tremendous amount of leads will usually charge a "consultation fee" to meet on site. That basically prequalifies a potential client, reduces the amount of leads and time spent servicing them, and compensates for time that could be used for billable work. These are typically busy garden centers, very reputable design/build landscapers, and only those with recognizable names. They simply can not dedicate the amount of time to respond to everyone in a meaningful way, so they cut it down to the people who most value the opportunity.

Other designers will do an initial meeting at no cost if the job sounds like it may be worth checking out. Most design/build landscapers will do a free initial visit as well because building the work is where the money is.

I don't charge for initial meetings. My method is to find out what I can on the phone to assess whether I think it is a job that is right for me. If it seems to be, I'll meet on site to discuss it further. I feel like I have no commitment or obligation since I'm not charging. That gives me the option to split if I feel it is not going anywhere. However, I don't think I've ever used that option.

I'm kind of an assess and improvise kind of guy. I don't have a questionaire or a set of questions that I ask. The first thing that I do is have the prospect tell me what they want to do with the site. That tells me more about them then they would typically want to volunteer. I read them by what they say, how they say it, what they wear, how they decorate, what they drive, the stuff that they have, and what seems to be important to them even if they are trying to recite things that they read or saw on HGTV.

They usually seem somewhat doubtful about me at this point because I'm not telling them what I would do, but keep asking them what they would like to do.

At some point I fell like I know enough and I start explaining why some of their ideas are good and point out conflicts with the ideas that are not so good (which makes them decide thy are not so good rather than me just saying so).

I start to describe how I see the site laid out for them. It starts of with very general statements like having the front of the house be the presentation to your guests and the passing public and another area being well tied to the kitchen as an entertaining area, .... you get the idea. The whole time I have to relate everything to things that they have told me or that I have perceived in order to understand the reasoning and to make sure I'm understanding them correctly. And at the same time I have to make them aware of situations on the site that support or conflict with all of these - then what can we do to enhance the good and mitigate the bad. Pretty soon they are either going to feel like I absolutely understand them and their site and they want to hire me, or they won't.

Somewhere along the line I adopted a notion that takes away a lot of stress and regret from my life. That notion is that any idea that I can convey into a landscape built by a third party by walking around, talking, and gesturing must be pretty simple and therefore of little value. Read that again because I think it is what gets me most of my design jobs.

What does that mean? It simply means that I will tell my prospect any and all ideas that I have for their project prior to signing a contract. I'll do that with people who I don't think will hire me and I'll do that with people who tell me that they have two more designers looking at the project after me. I simply don't worry that I'm giving away brilliant ideas.

My notion is that if my ideas are briliant, they will want to hire me and that they can not duplicate what I would do if they don't hire me. If they can duplicate my ideas, they obviously were not so unique or brilliant to begin with, so there is no harm done to me. Either way, I sleep well.

I tink that a lot of designers worry about people picking their brains and tend to be vague or play their cards close to their vests. It does not seem to be a good way to provide someone with a reason to hire you, if you do that.

I'm more willing to invest an hour of verbally giving out all the design ideas that I have to someone who is looking for a designer than I am to spend hundreds of dollars fishing for prospects in a sea of newspaper readers.

If someone meets with me, they usually hire me.

Different person here.
I am not sure if mine is a mellowed approach or a jaundiced approach, either way I don't feel the need to chase every opportunity like I once did, I have no capacity for fools. The first thing is actually many things, a conglomeration if you will and it comes all at once. If the main question before we have even discussed 'what' is 'how much' then I have to accept that I have better things to do.

I am well aware that I am in a very small minority in that I never ask what the budget is. I rely on what they are asking for and all of the hints both subtle and overt. My belief is that only a fool would ask for something that he is incapable of buying. If I do not see a fool in front of me, I don't have a need to ask. If I do see a fool, I won't be doing the job, so it really does not matter.

The second to last thing that I want to do is to keep a running estimate of what I am putting into a job and constantly adjust to stay on target. The last thing that I want to do is eliminate things from the design which they told me they wanted. I probably got that way from working in design/build where we were hoping to make bigger and better land$capes.

Although I am not working design/build anymore, I hate to disappoint and find that people are much happier seeing their vision even if they have to back away a bit. It very rarely happens that they reduce even when it prices higher than expected.

The door was opened so I'm going to walk through it. I have a bit of a problem with deemed worthiness. It's easy to say one does not suffer fools, but sometimes spotting the fool depends on who's looking. In an equal universe, a potential client could sense being regarded with an air of disdain for not allowing complete artistic license. But I guess, when one reaches certain heights, it's just as easy to pick up one's toys and go as it is not to bring toys to the game in the first place.

But the idiom is more accurately "doesn't suffer fools gladly". And the word gladly gives a little wiggle room in that service could be reluctantly provided and a compromised principle set aside maybe just a little. Is it possible this kind of attitude might have cost clients that would have been beneficial to cultivate - financially or to be able to add another blockbuster to the portfolio?

Along the way in my working career, I gladly suffered a fool or two; even an idiot on occasion. It's the way of the world and a touch of suffering every now and again is how we learn to get along in it.

Duluth,

You are reading way more into it than is there. If you read my earlier post, you would have seen that I set myself up so that I can cut and run, but I also said that I have not used that.

My reference to the word "fool" was in regard to someone asking for things they could not come close to affording. I have not run into this problem in recent memory. The "fool" would be someone for 500 ff of stonewall, 2,000 sf of bluestone patio, large plantings with somewhat mature plants and having no budget to build it.

Honestly, budget never comes up. I have had people dump terms like "we're not the Rockefellas" to hint at not going over board. But, I can not remember anyone saying "our budget is $x. It is not because I work for gazillionaires. It is because they don't want to give me a number to shoot for in case I can do it for less. These are big purchases and like we all are with such things, we don't want to tell the seller how much we will go up to.

I also never said that I would turn my nose up to the "fool" and not work for him. I said that I won't be doing the job. A person who does not understand the relative cost of their wish list is also likely to find the cost of design work to be more than he thought and they won't hire me or anyone else to do design work. People on a budget tend to want to keep the tangable "stuff" on their wish lists and will dump the cost of a less tangable thing such as design work.

That is all that I meant.

If you ask me for a patio of a certain size and some certain plants, they will be in the plan. Then I'll calculate an estimate on it after the design is done. Then your choice is whether you want to pay (someone else) that much, or whether you want to reduce the plan to fit your budget. It is not an elitist thing. It is the way most people go about other things like buying furniture.

Do you run in and tell a sales associate that yu have $6k to spend on your living room, or do you ask to see the things you want in it and then make informed decisions? It is the same thing.

I don't like a sales person asking me "how much do you want to spend?" because I know he'll look to use it all up. I suspect that is why people don't tell me their budgets. I don't want to look like a weasel sales guy, so I don't ask it. I will point out that they never volunteer it on their own, so that tells me that they don't really want me to know.

Money matters.

It doesn't matter where we stand in the design field, pro, experienced amateur, or rank beginner, the money issue plays some part from the first. One of the most common factoids that surfaces in initial posts here is "and the project has to cost next to nothing because we have no money to sspare." There's nothing wrong with that, but clearly money, even when only casually considered, plays a part from the beginning. I need to catch up with the pergola tunnel thread, but a rapid-fire discussion of costs shifted the design issues dramatically. Money can change the rate of implementation, determine who will design / build, determine the choice of materials, and help prioritize needs.

I went and reread a note in my garden journal about plans for the spring. In essence it reads "Since we have no money, what can I do to take a small step toward my eventual goals for the landscape". So, without even being conscious of it, the "first thing" I did in my current planning was touch base with my current financial reality.

Another thing that we do without really realizing it is to assess "personnel". Comments like "I'm not very handy" or "I'm an experienced gardener" or "I planted my new tree upside down" etc. point to the skill level of the person with the highest vested interest in the particular landscape. That person's desire to learn, to take one of IB's adult ed classes, to make mistakes and make them again, to enjoy the whole messy adventure of working the land into an environment that does what we want it to do, to recognize the need to get skilled help for design and/or installation--all of these things bubble in the background of the next project or the blank slate of our next home. Someone has to do the work. Will that someone be me or someone I pay to accomplish some part of the job that I cannot accomplish skillfully, creatively, if at all, on my own.

When I meet with professionals--doctors, lawyers, plumbers, accountants, landscape designers, etc.--I have the "right of refusal", too. If there's something screwy about the person, if there's an attitude that doesn't feel "right" to me, if I begin to doubt the skill or attention to my needs, then I will politely deal with the person, pay them for initial service if necessary, and not call on them again. I don't hear Tony or Andrew complaining about my right to do so. All they are saying, I think, is that there are some encounters with potential clients that are simply not particularly worth pursuing.

I'm also curious about initial conversations with potential clients. Is it more fun to deal with a smart, engaged client living in a relatively mundane setting or take on a site with gorgeous potential owned by a self-absorbed plutocrat who has no appreciation of design beyond its surface message of broadcasting their wealth. Or, are these grossly overdrawn caricatures of what you come across in your profession? Andrew, is it more fun to polish up fairly clear ideas from clients, optimizing what they want, or working with someone who is very vague about what they want? I think I can see advantages and pitfalls to both. Or, for that matter, are these initial stages sort of a purgatory you have to live with in order to get to the stage of the process that you really enjoy? I mean, I can imagine enjoyment just in walking a new site and exercising the grey matter with initial potential and ideas, possibly even the challenges presented by the personality of the clients as well.

Wellspring

Wellspring states..."I am more curious about initial conversations with potential clients."

When meeting for an initial consulatation with two or more persons present my first job is to figure out which person is dominate. Then comes the tricky part, trying to quietly discover the 'dreams" of the less dominate person without being obvious. Somehow I have to mesh their thoughts together into a discussion that satisfies both, solves site problems and fits the character of the property. Each consultation is different and there really is no way to discuss the subject except to say that the abililty to observe and to think quickly on one's feet is a 'must' in this business.

Consultations can run from..."landscape it and send me the bill" to a client who has to micro-manage every aspect to the dreamer with a low budget. You learn over time how to work with each type, always alert to key words such as "My dogs are part of the family" and "I'm allergic to" plus color preferences. The initial consultation is the time when each party sizes up the other. How that all plays out depends on the 'conversation' that takes place.

Out of curiousity...have those of you in the selling business ever noticed that it is easier to sell a job on a day when the barometer is high? I learned to never go on consultations when the barometer was low or dropping rapidly. You might want to keep track of this thought as you work. I think you will notice a correlation between barometer readings and acceptance of your ideas.

I should have made the point of my remarks a little more direct. My reaction was not to your posts, laag, but rather (and maybe knee-jerk on my part) to the one sandwiched between your two postings.

It would be silly of me to take issue with a client attempting to engage a professional - or a professional not wanting every project that comes down the pike - when there's a mutual understanding that goals, finances, temperaments make entering into an agreement impossible. What I was taking issue with is the implication that it is always the client who is the schmoe.

And what about the rest of us? Wellspring asked in the initial post. First things are different now than they might have been X number of years ago. Getting older and a little less spry means thinking of ways to compensate for what has become too hard or too much. It could mean surrendering perennial beds back to lawn, or to trees and shrubbery in lieu of blooming perennials. Or throwing in the towel with fending off deer and removing the ravaged arborvitae and other favorite targets. The bottom line for me is no longer a budgetary issue; the bottom line is addressing my need for an environment I enjoy being in and have the physical ability to maintain.

"What I was taking issue with is the implication that it is always the client who is the schmoe." I think Wellspring covered this.
In every situation a designer meets it is necessary to balance the possibilities a site presents with the needs and desires of the client together with a budget (real or assessed). In turn the client does their own assessment of the designers personality and portfolio. There are times when the chemistry makes honey and other times when it makes vinegar, all I am saying is that personally (and this was what was asked of us) I no longer feel the need to drink anything sour. The process when applied enables an economic solution to be found, not cheap not a rip off but a coming together of affordable possibilities. The implication being that if designer and client are on separate pages who knows what horror story will result.

>>where does the design process begin for you? What can be particularly frustrating, fulfilling, essential about "first things"? Anyone willing to provide practical, specific examples? As an amateur, the first motivator is the need for "xxxx". This could be curb appeal, or a desire to have cut flowers for the inside of the house, or a need to keep the hillside from taking half your house along with it as it slides downwards during an especially wet winter. Might even be as simple as a need to suppress weeds, especially when one lives in an area prone to summer hillside fires.

All amateurs vastly underestimate what it costs a professional to do something. That's pretty much a given. And landscaping is almost always at the bottom of the list, especially when it costs so much money to buy/maintain the dwelling just purchased. It took us 12 yrs before we had enough money to start landscaping (the house actually bankrupted us, when our partners defaulted).

So we started small, in phases. Reading the Sunset Garden Book cover-to-cover, and finding gardening forums like this and the "other one", really helped. I read voraciously, observed microclimates, and drew out scaled drawings. I paid a landscape designer for two hours of her time to run some ideas by her. I would never have hired her even if I could have afforded her work, she was contemptuous of our entire neighborhood. Still, she thought my plans were good and had some helpful suggestions to make, so it was worth it.

I kept interviewing and found a great gardener who does all our "heavy work" but lets me do everything else. My DH and I did all the design work, and about half the hardscape install too. It was hard work, but very fulfilling. We also saved a bundle of money, putting in about $65K worth of landscaping for an expenditure of about $8K.

I'd say research and planning are the two areas most lacking in amateur gardeners, and probably where most pros find it the most frustrating to deal with the public. I think a pro like Michele (now gone from this forum but still on the "other" one) would certainly have done a much better job (both design and install) than we did. OTOH, our house is a very modest cottage in a gentrifying starter home neighborhood. Her fabulous designs would be so much better than our house is actually worthy of, despite the fact we have one of the most over-improved homes on our block!

It's frustrating to see the old-style "static" front yards still around - lawn and stiff upright shrubs shoved tightly against the house walls. Some people have removed the grass and planted a variety of plants, but clearly without any plan or sense of proportion. I still see people plopping redwood seedlings into our postage-stamp-sized front yards (10x20' on average), for goodness' sakes!

Trouble is, you pros have to educate your clients, and that takes a lot of time and energy. I post a lot on the financial forums - having worked for an independent CFP, I'm a big believer in paying for the expertise of someone with real fiduciary responsibility to his/her clients. But most folks are totally against paying for such financial expertise, even as they complain they've had rotten luck with their various brokers and unlicensed advisors.

It's not that they want something for nothing, but they consistently underestimate how much that advice can be worth. It's why that "10% of your property value = landscaping" theorem is so popular - you have to start somewhere, and it at least gets novices to THINK about how much good landscaping is worth overall to their property values.

Thinkingthinking. In a minute I'd like to touch base a bit with something PrairieGirl said. By the way, PrairieGirl, where on the prairie do you call home? I'm in Springfield, IL.

Some of you will think I'm weird, but I'm still feeling sort of surprised that cost and "who will do the work" are my two first considerations. I think I might have answered my own post by talking about how my learning curve in the garden has shifted my starting point over time. Nothing special here, just the usual first focus on plants, plants, plants. Then I slowly started thinking more about contexts for the plants. Now for several years I've been getting better about thinking through the functions of different spaces around the yard and how these spaces connect and inter-relate. Progress, I suppose. My best accomplishment has probably been getting pretty good at articulating the steps of a design process to others. Now if I could just practice what I preach.

PrairieGirl mentions using her digital camera as a tool for design in her garden. For me it's notetaking. I have verbally mapped out the different areas of my garden. My notes include primary goals for each area, transitions, measurements, materials, problems, things I've tried that didn't work, things I've tried that did work, and thoughts about plants. My actual progress toward major goals has been very slow. That money and labor thing again. But the image emerging from the notes is better this year than the year before. It's almost embarrassing to read the notes from six years ago. In that sense I've learned a great deal. Andslowly we move toward achieving the big picture

Wellspring

I think that it is very difficult for many people who participate in this forum to understand that most of the people who hire landscape designers do it because they want someone else to do it. Once they know what the prospective designer is all about, they either feel comfortable turning the job over to them or they don't. It is not a design charette that the homeowner is involved in at every minute of the process. The client is very important in the predesign phase and brought in for review and revision meetings, but it is not landscape design school.

I have not worked with many hands on people. I believe that they want the role of designer more than they want to build things. Look at some of the posts in this thread alone. Most take the position of being in control of the design and needing only people to help with construction or planting. You are not the people who hire designers to take control of your project. You have a totally different mind set.

Believe it or not, I have designed many not so small landscapes that cost quite a bit to have built and never met the client or even spoke with them. The contractor was the go between and did not spend much time with them either. The company was well known, the portfolio was very indicative of the type of landscape it would be, and they had complete confidence in the process. They don't want to romp around the nursery looking at plants.

They want something that "looks like that", but that fits their house and their agenda of what they want to do. They hire maintenance people. They want to show up on weekends to a lawn that does not need mowing and everything just right. They are not the DIY types.

Many of you are the hands on type which is great. But, you are the last people who will want to turn your project over to a designer and pay him a grand or two to tell you what to do. The exception is that if you get stuck on a problem, you might seek help for that part that you need help with or you may want someone to draft up a long term plan of your ideas.

Most of us don't want to be given a minimal amount of work that holds the highest liability, so we are not enthusiastically responsive to these requests. Then the DIYers think that designers are snobs or only want to work for the rich.

It is kind of like an insurance company. They spread the liabilty over a greater portion of the population than just the high risk people. We tend to take on higher responsibilities when the overall compensation is worth the risk. But, we won't come out in the middle of someone else's project to assume the responsibility of the drainage for a couple of hours of pay.

Gardeners tend to take the perspective that a designer is there to help you with your design. There are plenty of others out there who believe that a designer is someone to turn the project over to. There is a huge difference.

Some of you are going to think that means the designer does what he wants and ignores the client - not at all.

Not all of you have that perspective, but I think some do and that is understandable.

How many of you are interested in hiring a designer?

How many are interested in being hired as a designer?

My guess is that most of us on this forum will go with the latter.

LOL After re-reading my post, I see how rambling and disjointed I write after a night of homespun debauchery, thank you for bearing with me.

Wellspring, my grandma's house was the "little house on the prairie" that I grew up in, in Markham, IL. I've attached a link, if you're interested in reading more, the prairie has thankfully been preserved and restored by a group called Friends of the Indian Boundary Prairies.

I wish you could see the accompanying photo, it shows a girl wearing a straw hat and a white dress, standing in a field of grass and yellow wildflowers, encircled by a ring of trees. Beyond the trees is the tollway, you could hear the whine of truck tires all night, mixed in with the hum of the cicadas and cricket songs.

A few years ago, I drove down the dead-end frontage road with my daughter, to show her where I had lived. The few people who live there now, as before, came down to the end of their driveways to see who was coming to visit, some smiling shyly, others suspicious and guarded. All were welcoming when I told them who we were, and why we came. In spite of our perceived differences, due to isolation and fear, we share a love of the wildness of that place.

laag~you have really touched on something when you say "Gardeners tend to take the perspective that a designer is there to help you with your design." I can hear the internal sigh that must accompany the news that a potential client likes to garden a little, LOL.

PG,

There is no sigh because they don't call. That is the point that I'm trying to make.

There are some who do a little gardening, but they either want to add things when we're through or want a reserved area for their perennials or veggies.

The only person who I did work for in the last ten years who was a designer/gardener type wanted the grading and hardscape designed. I worked for one of the most respected landscape/masonry companies in the area at the time.

She had a rough idea of how she wanted it laid out, but needed a real plan with grading and elevations and actual measurements so that she could have masons bid on and follow the plan.
The idea was to hire cheaper guys who could put stone together, but who had no vision and aesthetic judgement. Her strategy was to get it designed by the people who are good at that without paying the full price to do the whole job. This is the type of thing that I tried to explain earlier - about trying to hire out the high risk design things hoping that it will only add up to a few hours (the insurance analogy).
It was billed hourly and the hours added up because some of her ideas did not physically work and she had to keep changing her mind. In the end, she had a good plan with all that she needed and the company that I worked for got paid well for the design (her husband was not happy paying for the design, though). I did not get back onto the property to see how well the mason followed the plan. I was only to show planting beds, she was going to do the plant design.
I am not comfortable with the idea of doing that again because the assuption of the client is that it is going to be quick, easy, and cheap and the liability is sold for short money. It will take time to cover that liability and the changes by the client take time, so it has to be billed hourly. The potential for the bill being higher than expected is high. I like to bill flat rates so that the client does not get soured as the process unfolds. It is also easier to sell design work when uncertainty of cost is taken away.

So you are saying what, exactly? I think you are saying that the consultation that a gardener might expect is one that fine tunes their own ideas, making them presentable to contractors to bid on. And since the likelihood of the design company installing the plan is low, those jobs are best avoided? Nothing wrong with that, I just want clarification.

I think laag has a good point. In the remodeling forum a while back there was a spirited discussion about the opposing viewpoints of general contractors versus homeowners. Many HO thought paying hourly instead of having a flat-fee contract made more sense, or even DIY GC'ing. The GCs, OTOH, explained why time and materials contracts could often result in high expenditures, not lower. They tried to explain, as laag and some of the others have done here, that every pro has to have some way of "winnowing out" low-percentage clients as soon as possible. There's no other way to stay in business, these days.

>>Most of us don't want to be given a minimal amount of work that holds the highest liability, so we are not enthusiastically responsive to these requests.Totally understandable, and thank you for pointing out that difference between us "hands on" types and those clients that want a "total look" installed from A-Z. That is a critical point, and an area which has caused a lot of emotion in certain discussions here.

There are some instances where knowledgeable gardeners may in fact hire a designer/horticulturist to assist with garden design. A few examples here in California come to mind, such as Ganna Walska's Lotus Land in Montecito, California. Ms. Walska had definite ideas of the plants she wanted to use, and was very involved in procuring/selecting the plants, but had a designer assist with the layout of the individual garden areas, and had used multiple experts in their field when it came time to design/select for the Palm garden, the Aloe garden, the Bromeliad garden, the Cycad garden, etc. Another example is the first Garden Conservancy project here in California, the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. Ruth hired a well known local nurseryman, the original owner of Western Hills Nursery up in the Russian River area to do the garden layout. Ruth reserved the plant placement for herself, however.

I would concur with Laag, that generally most real gardeners prefer to do their own planting design, and I seldom get involved with projects where the designer knows exactly what plants they want to use, although I certainly work with some homeowners who become quite hands on with the whole process, but generally more in the locations of plants, rather than the individual selection of plants. On the other hand, these sorts of clients get more individual treatment on my part, as I often end of bringing the nursery to their garden, and let them indicate which plants they like and want for their gardens, and which to take back. I always make it clear that this is specialized service, and they are paying for the extra time involved.

I think I prefer to have my new clients come to me via previous client referrals, on the whole, as this tends to self-select people who are already intune with the type of gardens I like to install. I also tend to get a lot of referrals from general contractors, kitchen designers, interior designers who have been part of the project team on other projects I have done, and are familiar with my work.

To answer the question about whether I get more excited about projects with huge budgets more so than small budget ones, I can definitely say that I do work for small budget clients from time to time, and can quite enjoy it as well, but it is always more difficult to fight the temptation to give extra time away in order to give the client more impact with the final project, and I have to remind myself that I am not doing this as a hobby, but to make a living. I am more willing to take on such lower budget clients if they have the energy and resources to do much of their own labor installation with a little direction from me. This allows for stretching their budget to include more materials as the labor costs have been reduced by their efforts.

PG,

What I'm trying to say is that only people who want to turn the project over to someone else will look to hire a designer. Or to put it more directly, it is not up to me to decide not to work for a devoted gardener because they will not be offering me or other designers any work.

I think that Bahia made a great point that some devoted gardeners will use designers. But note that he mentioned that they deferred the responsibility and control of each of those particular design jobs to those designers who were hired for their specialty.

Getting back onto track of what "first things" might be, it is definitely to establish whether or not the client and designer are going to have a compatible working relationship. Part of that is the business side that Jkom talked a bit about. The designer needs to make the client feel like they have an idea of what they will get for their money. The designer also has to make sure not to put a fixed price on an open ended project.

I like to go back to the office and think through what the particular client needs in terms of meetings, plans, documents, revisions, and other services to efficiently get the where they need to be. I write all of that into a contract and put a fixed price on it. It clearly states that anything else is extra and will be billed hourly. There is an appendix to the contract that covers all of the details including responsibilities in case of termination (one or the other deciding not to complete the project).

I have very rarely had to go into the "hourly mode" because the clients know the contract and try to stay within the terms. This really works out great for both parties because the plan stays on track. Neither the client nor designer go off on tangents and the process moves forward with both time and expense efficiency. When it is done, each gets out of it what was expected. Everyone is happy.

My "first" involves the location and how the client will use the area. Sometimes it's obvious (front entry/curb appeal), but in the back it can range from "family games" to "entertaining" to "after work oasis". I often see right away the full potential of a space in my minds eye--based on any number of criteria--but that doesn't mean it would at all fit with how the client would use the space. Their answer to that question tells me what direction the rest of the planning will go in.

laag, you are very wise and I am in awe of your experience and the way you explain it practically. i do have a question though, and I apologise if you have explained this before in a different thread: You said above you don't talk about budget, and you describe all your ideas upfront. Is that when they decide (or not) to hire you, or do you come up with a proposal and accompanying estimate? Do you include drawings in your proposal, or just more verbal explanations? I think I am one of those who "plays my cards close to my vest" because I worry that by showing them a drawing of my ideas they WILL then copy it. Usually if it gets to the drawing stage of a proposal, I have a good idea that the client and I will work well together, and the drawing is a way of affirming that they will like what they get. I have noticed that I too have made note of body language and comments related to budget, but I still end up asking them what the budget was. I think I will stop that now, unless it is really unclear. Do you send them the proposal, or do you have another meeting to explain it?

Some of us may just be more compulsive about the money issue, but I generally do ask a couple of questions over the phone first before even setting up a first meeting, as to their intended scope of work, and whether they have a certain budget in mind. This usually makes it very obvious whether the two are in relationship to each other. If the scope of work seems way beyond the budget intended, I will usually elaborate on current costs of installation for various elements in their scope of work. If the client is still interested, and the project sounds like it would be an interesting one to do, and local enough to make an installation practical, then it usually follows that a first meeting will be set up. I may forgo charging for the initial consultation if it was a referral, if it is a cold call out of the phone book, I generally do prefer to charge something for the first visit, to qualify the potential client as a serious prospect.

It doesn't pay to meet with potential clients if they have seriously underestimated the costs to design/install a garden in our local market, or aren't willing to pay for a design or consultation fee.

I'm not saying that my way of not directly asking about budget is the right way. I believe it is not the norm at all. It just works for me and my situation and maybe my personality (which is very low key in person).

Rachel,

I do a free initial visit to meet the client and go over what they want to do. It generally takes an hour, but it is not uncommon for it to take two. I don't draw anything at that time. I get them to tell me what they think they want. That gives me the opportunity to understand more about them, how they live, and what they value. Then I'll tell them how I think the property should be developed using what I learned from them. Sometimes it is very general and other times very specific. I have no separation anxiety about throwing out my ideas - it took me a while to get to that point, but I really don't let it bother me that they might try to do these things without me, I really don't care and they can read me and know that I don't care. I'll show them a portfolio and point out things that I think are of interest to them. That reinforces that I understand where they are coming from or gives me a chance to correct misinterpretations that I might have made of them. Either way it solidifies our understanding of each other. We both learn about each other, but I am most definitely the facilitator of that and it is second nature to me (now).

I leave them with nothing but what I have said to them. I tell them that I want to go back to the office to think out exactly the scope of the work and will price it based upon that. Then I do just that and mail a proposal almost always with a flat fee and a very specific list of what I'll do, how many meetings, how many revisions, about how long it will take to design, how many shhets of plans and at what scale. I try to leave out as much uncertainty as possible. That covers my tail, but more importantly it makes it easier for the prospect to be able to decide if (s)he thinks it is wrth it or not.

If I get the signed contract and deposit, I'm happy. If I don't, I'm content that I could not do it for less and understand that someone else may fit their needs (financial or aesthetic) better than I do, or that their priorities don't allow for the cost. None of that is personal, so what is there to regret? If they were inspired by some ideas I tossed out in our meeting, I'm pleased that they were.

All I know is that the only difference in my life that comes from me openly giving out my ideas, opinions, and assessments when meeting with potential clients for an hour or two vs. spending that time with them being guarded is that the former gives them a lot more reasons to hire me than the latter. Either way, I'm only out that amount of time.

Like I said in my first post at the top of this thread, if you have lots of leads you can't afford to spend time with all of them. You have to prequalify. My own business is part time, so I am intentionally hard to find. I can't do many jobs because I don't have the time. People find me from third parties - word of mouth. That means they are somewhat prequalified, I suppose. But it also means that I'm not running around visiting potental clients every week. If I were, I'd go about it differently.