laag - Thanks for the honest and thoughtful answer. I just wasn't sure about everything that was entailed. I don't want to annoy this guy, as he is very nice. He gave us a quote broken out for each "area' of the yard, is it ok to tell him we want to do this part now and wait on other parts?

It is not out of the ordinary for people to have to stagger some activities or pick what they can do now. Howver, you have to understand that the offer to do the work at a certain price is not necessarily going to stay at the same price indefinitely. The contractor will most likely rewrite the contract to reflect the work that you want to do now so that nothing is left hanging out there.

kudos Andrew. Excellent. Well written and precise.
Go to the top of the class. for others reading: this is not sarcasm, it is familiarity. Call me old fashioned.

While I agree entirely with laag on principal, I'm not sure I'd agree 100% on implementation :-)) It may very well be more of a regional situation, but it is not at all uncommon here for homeowners to obtain their own plant material to be installed by the landscape contractor of their choice. And this happens just as frequently with larger, established companies as it does with smaller, newer operations. Often it is done with both the designer/contractor and the client present at the nursery, wholesale or retail, with both providing input but just as often with just the homeowner, although most do not have access to wholesale sources.

It is certainly not considered unethical, but I would agree that not all landscapers would be comfortable or happy with this proposal. All you can do is ask. If you do obtain the plants on your own, I would certainly inquire of the wholesale nursery whether or not they offer any kind of warranty on their plants. Generally with wholesalers this is not common, as they are relying on the quality of their product and the knowledge/experience of the landscaper to effect planting success so the warranty is absent on their part. Most retail nurseries will offer a limited warranty of some kind, however.

Most landscape companies are in the business of selling labor. I am not saying I don't markup wholesale material 100% plus labor, but if the customer can provide the size of material they want to me to install, and either pay me to pickup or have it delivered. Then I will install at an hourly rate.

However, if I only provide labor, I only provide a workmanship warranty. I will straighten a leaning plant, etc., but not replace plants that die.

Scoutjr,
I see your original post was a while ago, but if you haven't had the work done yet, then I would like to offer my professional opinion. If the guy who gave you the quote gets offeneded or won't do the work unless you use his plants, then something is wrong and he is not the guy for you. Ultimately, landscaping is a service industry and you are the client, whom we are there to serve. Yes, it can be good if we get to use our own stock or source the plants wholesale, but to be honest, sometimes I'm not sure if the mark up even covers all that is entailed in fetching and caring for the plants. Anyway, the point is that if you are willing to pay for the labor (the cost of which includes appropriate overhead, ie. fuel, insurance, etc...) then we will plant whatever you want wherever you want. Of course we will tell you if we think it is not such a great idea, and we will not guarantee the health of the plants. It gets a little more complicated if you are hiring someone for a design/install, rather than just site work and planting. Still, the bottom line is that you are the buyer. When I am not a landscaper, I have a little bit of a life, and sometimes I have to hire contractors. I just had a guy come and repair some damaged sheetrock and trim, but I told him just to do the hard stuff, and I would do the finish work (painting, etc...)so I could save some money. He didn't say "oh no, either I do all of it or none of it". Is that a good analogy? Am I writing myself out of work?
Also, many clients do their landscaping projects in phases.
If we are reasonably sure that you are serious about actually doing phase 2, and phase 3 then it's really not so bad for us, as it guarantees future work.

Given the choice between going to a job where one can sell labor AND materials vs. going to one where only labor can be sold, the contractor will take the first job. When things are slow, they'll take what they can get. A good contractor in an area that is still relatively busy can not justify working for less money.

Some will say that it makes sense to do both. What is often overlooked is that you can't do both at the same time. That means the labor-only job is displacing the other job rather than being in addition to it. Then we get the posts about contractors not following up with proposals after meeting about the job. Those are the guys that can not justify burning part of the season on a lower paying job. These guys have bills year 'round and the work is seasonal in most places.

You can get people who do not have full schedules of labor/material jobs, for whatever reason, to do your work.

I don't think I'd take a job where the don't supply the plants. I'm a small company and it isn't worth my time if I'm not making sales on top of my labor. I also don't want to be responsible for plants I didn't select based on the setting they're going into. You can't just put a plant somewhere because it looks nice, it has to be the right plant for those conditions.

LOL!! I realize this is a very stale thread but couldn't let the above go without further comment :-) I can certainly understand why a small company that relies on marked up sales as much as labor would be reluctant to take on this scenario. But why in the world would you think you'd be responsible for plants that you didn't purchase?? In my area, if the contractor supplies the plants, he warranties them for a set period of time. If the client/homeowner supplies the plants, then they assume that responsibility of replacement if the plant fails. Why would this be any different elsewhere?

btw, unless the contractor is also a designer - and that's not always a routine occurrence - it is unusual for them to have any greater plant knowledge than the homeowner might. It may be that the homeowner is working off a plan prepared by a designer that does offer an appropriate selection/placement of plants. Or it could just as easily be that the client/homeowner is quite knowledgeable about plants to begin with but just doesn't want to personally undertake all the labor involved with installing a new landscape. I would be very reluctant to assume that all contractors or someone hired to plant would automatically know better than the client about what to plant where..........IME, this is just not at all a typical situation!!

@gardengal I won't work with any material I can't warranty because I've been down that road. You can state that you're not responsible for customer-supplied plants. They can even verbally agree, and then sign off on it. And then six months later when the plants they bought poof, some clients will come back and demand you replace them at your cost because you're the one who planted them, it must be your fault (never mind that they've never watered or dealt with insect or disease issues). And that's when you find out the wife you never met is a lawyer, or they threaten you with social media damage, and so after much back and forth it's cheaper and simpler to just eat it and move on. Nope, not interested. My markup covers not only profit, but it allows me to stand behind every part of the job. I want to sell a complete, turnkey installation, not a series of odd jobs.

Besides, I've spent years developing relationships with killer growers and wholesale nurseries. I can get better quality plant material and still keep the client within 5-10% of what they'd pay at a garden center. As far as I'm concerned that's a win for everyone involved.