Wow--I am pretty impressed with the price of your LD. I just hired someone for $1,500 --that's $CAD mind you -- and was feeling very pleased about it. She promised a colored rendering showing multi-season activity in addition to the other steps yours had mentioned. She will deliver in late January. She is an award-winning former nursery-owning landscape designer.
Then she sent me a follow-up confirmation letter: it was semi-illiterate, with dribbling lettering falling off of the envelope, misspelling my street name.
what's the deal?
i'm hoping she's at least visually talented.

Get some recent references!

Very nice reading. That is what I would want if I hired a landscape architect. Keep writing.

Perhaps the degree in LA from a four or five year accredited college, the internship, and the licensing exam is doing what it is supposed to do. That is to present someone well trained to do this kind of work in a professional manner. That is not to say that it guarantees talent or satisfaction, or that those not going through the same training and meeting the same standards can not be wonderful to work with and have great results.

All the LA license is saying is that this person successfully went through a process that has been designed to make a professional of him. The licensing process is designed also to filter out those who do not have what it takes on every level of concern not just garden design.

Talent to arrange plants and layout landscapes is only a small part of what it takes to be a professional designer. In the end, that is what is being sought. The professionalism is what is used to get to the point where those other talents can be used.

Can someone be equally professional without going through the LA licensing process? Yes, but how do you know who is?

Can you go through the LA licensing process without becoming professional? Doubtful, it is designed to maximize potential and to filter out those who don't meet the standard. If you get through to the license, it is very unlikely that you are not a competent professional. Whether you are talented at arranging plants and laying out landscapes in a pleasing manner or not is less of a certainty.

To some extent I agree w/ laag but yet I know several PE's (Professional Engineers) who are not very adapt at designing street or sewer projects yet they have the education and the shingle to say they are a P.E.

Reading a book and taking a test and passing on the book subject(s) only proves you can read and remember.

Using creative thinking and designing an object or landscape takes something that education cannot always provide.

Some very intelligent and smart people carry an umbrella when it's raining but have no common sense to open it up to stop from getting wet. But hey . they got the umbrella just in case.

Keep us posted on your experiences and final tally.

Jake

Most of the LA exams (there were seven sections when I took it)are Plan problems. During the three full days of exams, at least four sections were each a half day long and consisted of four or five word problems and a base plan for each in order to draw out a plan that met all the standards and solved the word problem at the same time. They were not questions and answers. The remaining day was questions and answers on plant id, professional office procedures, and regulatory issues like zoning, conservation, and permit processes.

This exam is definitely not a study and regurgitation excercise. Any issue could take you down whether or not it was the primary objective of a particular section. Not following proper drafting procedures could fail you on a grading and drainage plan that was more about calculations than drafting. You could do perfect calculations and then not contour the plan well - you'd be done - see ya next year.

The exam does not get you licensed on its own. You have to have a degree from an accredited college (there are only about 70, if you think about it, that is not many when there is at least one state university in every state - see asla.org for accredited schools). Having the degree does not qualify you to take the exam. You also need 2 years of full time internship directly supervised by a licensed landscape architect.

The idea is that when you have successfully completed all three very different steps (BLA, 2 years internship, and passing a very complex hands on exam), it is unlikely that you just slid through the system.

Compare a random sampling of 100 people who have been through that process to a random sampling of 100 people who have decided that they want to be garden designers and I think you'd agree that the results will be lopsided.

In any case, the original poster is from Canada, where licensing regs may be very different from those in LA, so all the talk might not be relevant.

It is relevent. The same exam is used in 48 states and two provinces. I am nearly certain that one of those is Ontario and very certain that U of Guelph is a very highly respected accredited program.

It is clearly relevent when so many that are involved in landscape design have no idea what landscape architecture is and what it means. LA does not stand for Los Angeles in this thread, another reason why the explaination is relevent ;)

Anyone who has read my posts over the years knows that I do not regard landscape designers who are not LA's in a negative light and often recommend not using them to some posters with specific questions. I just think that sometimes when to opportunity to clarify what it is comes up, it should be done.

There used to be a lot of general statements thrown around such as "landscape architects design hardscapes and know little about plants while landscape designers know a great deal about plants and how to design with them". We don't see that so much anymore because I and others have taken the time to explain it from time to time.

Installment #2

Collaway - my price is also $Canadian. My drawings are not in colour. My LA did say that his assistant would do some/most of the work drawing things up. Makes one wonder how much of the work is from the LA and how much is from someone with much less training?

I've now received several emails with pictures of stone steps similar to the ones the LA was proposing, and I have received a scale drawing. The drawing is very well done.

The pics have been helpful, but none show exactly what the final version will be like.

The drawing is very interesting. He has made one of the side beds much larger than I had visualized it, creating much more of a closed room our of the patio. The patio faces out to quite a large side/back yard which then leads to a forest and hill. My vision has always been to leave this as open as possible, since you can't see any neighbours anyway. The more closed design makes some sense since it will make the patio seem more intimate. Score one for the LA.

However, this design makes it more cumbersome to get the water hose to the side of the house. I'll add a short cut to the bed to solve this problem. So the LA is not perfect :)

The LA did not direct me to a dealer of the patio material who is right here in town, where we both live. After selling the product for years (according to him) he should have known that the local dealer had them on display. Much better than a picture.

He has changed his mind about the colour of the stone - which is a good thing. Shows he is really thinking about the project.

The LA went ahead and added suggested plantings, even though I had said this was not required. I am glad he did not listen to me. Not that I will use his exact suggestions, but his ideas of types of plants, the density and the variety have given me things to think about. His plan is certainly very different from what I was visualizing.

He has planted much more densely than I ever would, using plants the will get wider and taller than anything I had planned. He has also used a lot of evergreen plants, something I will do more of so that it looks good all year round.

He also used fewer types of plants, and more of each type. Many of his plants are 'common' and not very exciting, for example low growing Junipers. As a plant collector this goes against my need to collect plants. But I have to admit that in this area I want things to look more polished, and using more of one type will accomplish that. Some more common plants may be boring to a collector, but they can be more reliable - when has a Juniper looked bad?

His planting scheme is slanted towards native plants. A common Red Osier dogwood in a prime location? I don't think so. He had never asked me about my planting preference.

A Cornus racemosa in a very prominent location right in front of a main viewing window (from the house). This is a tall plant that would cover the window and hide the garden view from inside the house??

I plan to add a river uphill form the waterfall and he has covered most of this area with taller growing plants. In a few years it will be a jungle. Since this area backs onto a natural forest, I think the river area needs to be much more open.

One thing I did find unusual is that many of his 'plant names' are either incorrect, or just don't seem to exist (or at least not in my reference books or on the Internet). He has obviously spent quite a bit of time drawing plant locations and naming them, so it is hard to understand why so many names are wrong. Not what I would have expected from an LA, and clearly someone with less plant knowledge would have a hard time following the plan.

I think that both of us have some good ideas about the plants and the combined effort will result in a better design for me than if I had done it myself. Maybe this is one of the big values in using an LA. Not that we follow them blindly, but that we take their ideas and meld them into our own vision.

Overall, I am quite pleased so far.

Next step - working out some minor details, and getting quotes.

Nice thread, MT.

I just have one side comment. I am always a little perplexed by folks who feel constrained by the location of such a mundane, subordinate object as a water hose. This is a case where the tail is wagging the dog.

"However, this design makes it more cumbersome to get the water hose to the side of the house. I'll add a short cut to the bed to solve this problem. So the LA is not perfect :)"

It is such an easy and relatively inexpensive task for a DIYer or especially, a professional plumber to correct. In an hour or two you can install one or more additional hose bibbs around most (granted, probably not all) locations around the foundation of the house. It would certainly take far less time than to create an additonal path -- and then you are still stuck with dragging the darn hose around.

Consider having an additional hose bibb or two. Trust me... you will be glad you did.

IronBelly

Yes, interesting information. Keep it coming. So you have spent $595 so far? Are you all done with the plan or will the LA be giving you an updated one? At some point it would be interesting to see the plan. I am not sure that at this point you want to open it up to the whole world to critique.

I suspect that for the vast majority of homeowners a "common" Red Osier dogwood IS a very unusual plant...especially one of the variegated cultivars.

- Brent

That's a great price for a plan. Around here a hand-drafted, color rendered planting plan would cost you $1,200- $2,000 depending on the size of the yard. If you have a landscape designer do it or a CAD drawing, it would be in the $500- $1,000 range.

I agree with what Laag posted. I've been through steps 1. BLA degree, 2. Worked under the supervision of a Landscape Architect but have never done 3. Take the test. It's been enough years now since I graduated that I'm pretty confident I couldn't pass the test- but I'm a fabulous landscape designer with a very deep knowledge of local plants. It doesn't always pay to be a Landscape Architect depending upon local laws. You have a lot more expenses for licensure maintenance and insurance than you'd have to pay as a designer. Since I work in a parallel field (City Planning), it hasn't made sense for me to sit for the exam anyway. I'd like to do it someday though. I feel like I did 90% of the work to get the license then quit right before the finish line. Time will tell. I'll probably do it when the financial benefit to me outweighs the annual cost- but it will take A LOT of studying!

You are just as vulnerable to be uninsured for "errors & omissions" as a designer with an LA license as without. It is different than construction liability insurance. I would wager that most designers don't even know what that is.

The annual cost of having an LA license is $57 in Massachusetts. It was $100 in Idaho, the last time I had one there(2000). Errors and omissions insurance costs if you are licensed as an LA because you have the credentials to make you a lower risk.

I thought the CAD$1500 my designer is charging was pretty reasonable. It WILL include planting schemes (that to me is the point, as I'm pretty inexperienced). I think the price reflects that I live in a fairly big city, and consulting with any type of pro for help in planning would cost that here.
I realized, though, that I don't know if she is a designer or a LA. I chose her by viewing about 7 or 8 websites of local people and her work resonated most with me. Funny how the Internet is so central to me now that I never even entertained the idea of investigating someone who didn't have a website (nor would I unless I had a recommendation from a friend about a specific professional).

Ironbelly - I agree with you 100% about extra water outlets - except the #%**& that built the house finished the basement ceiling before doing this. Now it is a major reno job.

Even an inexperienced architect building a house - who had any forethought about gardening would not have put it right were a patio was sure to go one day.

Adding the path will take a few minutes - throw a few flags on the ground between plants.

Brent - I've actually only spent $95 - but I do owe another $500 once the design is done. I think I'll get another plan, or at least a parts list and design specs that I can take to contractors.

Bindersbee - this is a hand drawn black and white. The patio is about 30 x 25 ft. The whole garden area on the plan is about 50 x 50 ft, but other than the patio, the rest is just plants - no hardscape or even paths.

Here is a pic of the plan. The colors are mine - so don't blame the LA for the poor job.

Pink = patio and flagstone
Green/yellow = plantings

The part of the house to the left in the picture is the sun room - almost all glass, with very tall center ceiling.

The river will come down a natural hill. The water fall going into the pond will be about 2.5 ft above water level. The drawing is not quite right for the river. There will actually be another pond above the one drawn with a short rivere section connecting the two.

There are 3 sugar maples on the hill (10" dia trunks).

{{gwi:53728}}

This is a picture of the hill last summer before I ripped up the back yard. The pond will replace the original ring of rocks with the front edge of the pond just about where the rocks are, and the back cut into the hill. The river will start near the top of the hill in the bushes (which has been thinned out)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/madtripper/picsfromnewhouse039-1.jpg

This is a picture of the back of the house showing the sun room and my fall project - laying water and hydro around the yard. The hill is to the left of this picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/madtripper/IMGP1766.jpg

I find it interesting that people perceive a difference in value whether a plan is drawn using pens or a printer. Those are simply just methods for getting a design onto paper and have very little to do with the value of the design or of the designer.

Well, laag, I think that can be true, as long as the designer with the printer took the time to follow through with the creative process that should precede every design - which includes the sketch, crumple, toss routine.

As long as the designer employs these critical brainstorming activities to create the design rather than simply pointing and clicking their way to a finished-looking plan, then I agree, pen vs. printer has no relevance to value of design or designer.

One can sketch, crumple, and toss on a screen just as easily. In fact more easily.

The danger is when the person doing the drafting believes that they are working with a design tool rather than a drafting tool.

Looking at the plan above, I see that dogwood in front of the window and, whether one likes the idea of blocking the view from the window is debatable, but planting it three feet away from the house or 2 feet from a patio is probably not. That designer (check the LA license with your province) most likely drew the patio prior to the placement of the tree and did not redraft the entire plan to make it fit. That edit would take very little time to do in Autocad or another professional cad program which may have increased the liklihood of the edit being made. It was not made. Maybe it was not made because the designer does not feel that there is a problem planting it that close, or maybe the designer did not want to redraw the entire plan. A cad user could be equally as lazy or equally willing to place that dogwood in that circumstance.

What method of putting ink (or graphite, or crayon,..) the designer uses should not set his value. The information communicated on that piece of paper should.

We have probably all seen beautiful looking plans that were not very good designs and some crudely drafted plans that were really good designs.

It is usually a good idea to shape your beds in response to the plants that are being placed in them rather than putting an undue constraint on the planting or forcing plants into them which simply don't fit. That will often mean crumpling and tossing (or clicking and dragging, or otherwise redrafting on screen) after some work has already been done. No one likes to go backwards no matter what media he uses. It is the integrity of the designer which will or will not make that edit happen.

All that I am saying is that the media that your designer uses should not make you feel that his design should cost more or cost less. Many people believe that cad is quick and easy. I can draw by hand much faster than in cad, if there are no edits. Yet, I can draw a much more precise and better looking plan in cad (I do not have a smooth drawing hand).

As a designer who started with hand drawn and hand colored plans, for many years now I've been using the computer exclusively. I find the computer to be a tool that enhances my creativity, not a substitute for it.

To some clients, just seeing their name and address on a blueprint is enough. And for some, seeing a pretty watercolor or marker rendering is exciting, regardless of the soundness of the design. There is a range of competency and creativity independent of whether the tools of plan generation are pencils, pens, instruments, markers, watercolors or computer and printer. My "product" as a designer is primarily an actual landscape/hardscape, not the rendering itself. Secondarily, if not involved with implementation, my product is the design that the rendering represents.

As one who's original education and career track was in art, I respect hand rendering. My point is the computer (actually the applications) is a wonderful DESIGN tool. Not designing for me, but enhancing my creativity. If I wish the hand rendered look, I can create the design, print and then overlay with vellum and hand render or print the outlines and hand color and/or hand letter. I would never give up the computer tool in the design process.

We had our final meeting before getting quotes last week. We went over the plan, discussed final stone color etc. By now we are in agreement with the plan, and did not have too much more to discuss.

Went over things that need to be done before the construction crew arrives, including moving down spout, and getting the pond in place.

The pond is actually a bit of a problem since I am doing it myself. What comes first the pond or the patio? Makes sense to have the pond in place ready to go before laying flags, but getting the right height for the edge of the pond is easier if the patio was in place, especially since the area is already quite dug up. Decided the pond must come first. Hope I leave enough linner for small changes in height.

Received the next and final drawings - 4 copies - one for me and one for each quote. These are the same as the original drawing, except some construction notes on the side. I expected a better list for the construction people. The LD also gave me three names of people he uses, and people he trusts to get the right kind of stone.

One issue still outstanding. The sun room passed city inspection, but the temperary steps did not. Because of the height (4 steps) they need a railing or the steps must wrap around. The LA was not too keen on contacting the city to approve his plan but was sure the current plan would pass. I'll have to check with the city to make sure the thing passes.

One thing I like to do with contractors is prepare a fairly detailed list of the job. For example in this case, I will move the down spout, and the top soil will not be removed. I'll also keep any extra flags for other garden jobs. I'll note the fact that thet will ahve to work around the septic tank and exit line. This way there is less change of a miscommunication.

I also plan to lay a flag path around the back and side of the house - so I will be ordering an additional 4 skids - 80 sq ft each - so my LA tells me.

Next step - get 3 quotes.

Got quotes from the 3 companies LA suggested. After several weeks I rejected all three. Not one of them gave me a quote that matched the requirements. One got it right after 3 tries, and one never did get it right. None of them seemed to care - one did not even come out to see the site and only worked from the drawing.

Found my own company who seemed to be more interested in the job.

He suggested going with stone from India, which looked real nice. But I insisted seeing a finished job. Terrible look. The stone from India was all different colors and the size made it difficult to lay in a random patern.

The patio is now done. It was a big job, and I had to keep a close eye on the company doing the work. The stairs worked out great. But there were problems along the way.

They did not know how to lay 3 different size slabs in a random patern. They thought random meant all of one size in the same row. They had no idea how to add top soil to a new bed. They left the weed barrier (holding back the soil between rocks), showing some 12" above soil level. Their idea of fixing damage to the grass consisted in throwing down some soil and adding seeds - neither soil or seeds were racked.

Is it really so hard for a company with "Landscape" in their company name to know some of these things?

They claimed they also did ponds and tried to convince me to allow them to do mine. Luckily I declined. They had no idea how to edge the pond. They were going to just add 8" of loose sand to the sides and lay flag on top with only the liner keeping the sand in place. I had to show them how to edge the pond first with large bricks so that there was a stable edge.

With a constant eye on their work, it ended up quite good. But I had to fix a number of things after they left. The flag next to the pond, was layed so it wobbled, and as they cut the flag it split - but they layed it anyway. I missed this during the job, while I was helping them lay the stones in a 'real' random pattern.

If I had not watched them, they would have had to come back and re-lay the complete patio.

So did I pick a poor outfit? Maybe. After the job was finished, I attended the local garden open house in town. One of the gardens had been done by one of the companies I did not select. It was a poor job. The side flag path was so uneven that it was difficult to walk on. It was actually dangerous. They would not have been a bette choice.

I'm sorry to hear that your experience was less than stellar. Did you have the opportunity to personally view completed projects from any of the companies involved in the bid process? You certainly seem to have put up with way more than I would have.

Dave

I'm glad that you took the time to complete the story. It really points out a lot to people who are thinking about taking on a project.

I think the most important thing that it points out is that is the effort you put into it from the get go and with the follow through. You showed a lot of people that you can't just pick a name out of the phone book and turn it over to them and wait for perfection.

There is a certain amount of work locating a designer or LA who you feel is going to be able to do a good job AND be able to work with you. That is not an easy task and sometimes you have to settle for less than the ideal candidate for one reason or another. Sometimes it is price and other times it is availability.

After that you have to get it built. You can sometimes pay the designer/LA to manage the project. Sometimes they are really good at it and other times they are not. Sometimes they have strong ties with certain contractors whom they have worked with because they work well together or because they know that the contractor is so capable that it won't take a lot of effort to manage them. Other times they just want to get the pay day and hire someone and hope for the best.

But, a lot of the time the outcome is really in the hands of the property owner. That can be because they don't want to pay more for the designer's recommended contractor who may be the best one to mesh with the designer. It also could be that the PO does not feel that the project management is in the budget or worth the money so they contract it on their own.

Some contractors are great at somethings and not so good at other things. Some crunch the numbers tight to land a job and then fight every expense (cut corners to manage the budget, often by simply hurrying to keep labor costs down) to keep the job reasonably profitable. Others are great at most everything and charge a lot of money so they can give it everything it needs and not be hurrying or trying to save nickels and dimes, but they are often seen as over priced. Some are just plain over priced even though they are not that terrific.

This thread really illustrated most of this stuff.

The biggest tip that MadTripper gives is to watch everything and don't let things slip by. You have to have real time quality control. That is what a Project Manager is supposed to do. If done properly, it clearly takes on a great responsibility and takes a lot of time - read "it costs a lot" into that. In the absence of a good project manager, you as the property owner are left to be the project manager. You essentially have to earn the money that you save by being that manager.

MadTripper was up to the task, but many will not be.

How do you know if your designer/LA who wants to get paid to manage your project is up to the task? You really have to talk to others who he has done this for. One of the qualities it takes is to have a sort of commanding personality. That is not the same personality most people want to deal with in the design process is it?

If you feel that you can push a contractor around better than your designer, it might be best to manage the job yourself.

I believe that he best situation is to find a designer/LA who works with a contractor or two very closely whom you can afford. They rely on each others success as a mutual benefit. The contractor is less likely to walk all over the designer and the designer is less likely to walk all over you. That is definitely in your best interest.

It is way to easy to be in a situation where you a re trying to control the designer, he is trying to control the contractor, and the contractor is trying to get done and walk away with a profit (sometimes because they are spun around in circles by the others and sometimes because they just want to take the money and run.

It is never text book.