I've heard good things about Simond's in Reisterstown/Randallstown.

Simonds is who I thought of first for your area. Sun Nurseries is in Howard County, they grow their own material. I have purchased trees there (happy) but I have never used the design services.

You can try Silver Run Nursery in the Westminster area, although I'm not sure if they'll travel that far. The guy who runs the operation is fabulous. Email me if you can't find the phone number and I'll look it up for you.

If there is a good nursery/garden center in your area which provides design services, you can sometimes get various degrees of design from them. Here in Central PA, if you take pictures and dimensions, a garden center may do a rough sketch for free (hoping that you will buy some materials there). For a nominal fee (perhaps $150 - 300) they will do a somewhat detailed plan with the stipulation that you buy a certain $ amount of material from them (sometimes that service would be free if you, let's say, buy $500 worth of plant material). Of course, if you want a very detailed plan, with softscape and hardscape, then it becomes more pricey. Design and installation, even on 0.6 acre could be very costly. I assume you plan to do the installation yourself, in stages. If so, even a comprehensive plan is nice to have at the beginning. You can always modify it as you implement the basic plan. Good Luck.

Hi Amanda,

I highly recommend Dejon Ernestl. He did a plan for me and my yard is smaller than yours. He's also excellent with large acerage. He's located in Baltimore. If you have trouble finding him let me know and I'll dig out his number.

Newt

Hahaha, 6/10 of an acre is a "smallish" yard?! Most people have miniscule yards compared to that--think "half-full", not "half-empty"!!

We are going with Simonds. After the four landscape designers who never returned my emails or phone calls, it was refreshing to deal with a company who promptly returned my calls and came out exactly when they said they would.
Also, the designer who came out seemed understanding that my husband and I want to schedule this plan over the next 3-5 years based on our finances. I love watching those garden shows where the whole yard is redone in one grand orgy of re-do, but that's just not financially possible for us.
I know our yard is isn't tee-tinsy, but it's not very grand either. Don't laugh, but I've seen displays at the garden shows that are larger than our front yard.

Thank you everyone for your help.