Those are a lot of questions, but they are all very good ones that are not easy for people to find answers to. First, anyone who designs landscapes is a landscape designer. There is no criteria, licensing, or regulation(Oregon has some rules on what you can design without a license). There are horrible landscape designers, great landscape designers, and everything in between. There are landscape design associations and certification programs that are voluntary and try to establish a particular level of competency and professionalism. They also have dues and testing fees of its members which can make them a bit of an industry of their own in some cases. My belief is that some type of membership or certificate is better than none in that it shows some type of standard was met and/or a designer's commitment to becoming more competent and more professional. Landscape Architects are licensed professionals in 48 states. I believe it is Vermont and Colorado that they are not. The criteria for licensing is usually the same for most states, but there are variations. Typically, they require a candidate to pass a standard test called the Landscape Architect Registration Exam (LARE) which used to be six or seven sections that took three full days to take. It is slightly different now, but very similar. In most states they require a minimum of a Bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from an accredited Landscape Architecture program (I believe there are about 70 such universities and colleges that have accredited programs) to take the exam. Then you would also be required to work full time for two years under the direct supervision of a licensed landscape architect before taking the exam. That is basically six years of education followed by a rather tough exam. Whether an LD is an LA, or has a certificate, a membership in an organization, a degree, or has been taught through the school of experience, it is a very diverse field where one individual may be very competent in some parts of it and not so competent in others much like a good pediatrician might not be a great brain surgeon. So, you can not assume that any particular individual must be able to do "X" because they are called a "Y". This does not make it easy for the consumer, but it is reality. Your excavator guy has probably put in hundreds of driveways and does a good job. The problem is that your world is more than your driveway and having the foresight to make the driveway work with the rest of your landscape is probably not in his repetoire. It may be that the way the driveway is laid out and graded will be just fine with what follows. But, it could be a very limiting factor in what follows. Design/build is where you may find the best financial efficiency since the designing part of the operation is what drives sales in the construction part of the operation. It pays for a design/build firm to sell design work below what a design company would charge. The reason is, and I say this from experience, that once you bring a client through the design phase, they seldom want to switch to another company for installation. That means a high rate of sales in installation (where the money is). The negative is that the designer is working for the best interest of the company rather than for you. If you hire a designer, that person is working for you. Should you retain the designer to follow through the construction of the job, the designer is obligated to monitor the job for quality control and accept or reject all aspects of the job and let you know when the contractors have met their obligations for payment. This can cost you 10-20% on top of what the contractors bill. If a job is fairly straight forward, you may not need or feel like you want to pay your designer extra to oversee the project. Not all designers want to oversee projects because it involves a lot of responsibility and having to stand up to contractors who can be pretty tough. A nursery designer usually is for the purpose of selling stock from that particular nursery. Most contractors make the bulk of their money by marking up materials that they buy from sources that work best for them. The nursery the designer is working for might not be amongst the contractor's favorite sources which will be a conflict. This often means that you are limited to a smaller number of contractors who routinely do work for the nursery's designer or the nursery has their own staff installers. What this all means is that there is no easy answer. You have to talk to different people to find someone who matches your particular circumstances. My suggestion is that you work backwards. Find a similar style home with similar circumstances that has had this type of work done to it that appeals to you in a similar economic neighborhood. Then approach the homeowner by complementing them on the looks of their landscape and then find out who did it and what their experience was like. This should yield someone who is capable, local, affordable, and reasonable to work with no matter their title or educational background. I am an LA, by the way.

As a building designer in Oregon (not an Architect). Most states have laws that requires projects to be designed by a registered architect/engineer except for when it falls into the exemption status. These buildings are called "Exempt Buildings" and those that don't are called "Non-Exempt Buildings". As a general rule, exempt projects do not require an architect or engineer to stamp but can. To answer the person who asked how come someone who is not licensed can't be called an architect. Sure they can be called it but they can not refer to themselves or portray themselves under current law where the title use refers to a licensed person. Historically, the term architect means ANYONE who designs buildings and the practice of designing buildings is called architecture. When these Architect Acts were enacted, (in Oregon - in 1919), the act required that people are registered in order to use the title. In the beginning, those who have been practicing for an X number of years (usually 10 years) prior to the enactment were grandfathered in and can be licensed without examination but just by applying with proof of practice prior to then. Of course, for most places, no one can now be grandfathered in. The laws were enacted with a limited scope of exemption. This created a parallel universe of unlicensed designers who uses alternative titles to Architects and those who are licensed. This is a responsibility of unlicensed designers to ensure the public that they are not licensed designers. However, our practices on these exempt buildings are often the same as those who are licensed. If you were to call a spade a spade then building designers are simply unlicensed architects (IF YOU USE the older pre-Architect Act enactment meaning) but we just can't use the title in practice or advertisement. It's politics. Period. I rather not fight with Oregon Board of Architect Examiners while gaining myself several $5,000 fines. It only makes sense not to fight and argue when I can use title that technically is a synonym. It makes common sense that if you are licensed as an Architect in a particular State to use the title Architect. Now to the message regarding $1/sq.ft. design fee. If you think about the work, if it takes you 100 solid hours to work on one single project then you are slow. Especially, if your work is prescriptive. In the old days of early 1900s, we had this test where you have to be able to design a building (example: a city hall) in 24 hours to get licensed. Then again, most designers are basically charging $20 an hour and only working on the design about 4 hours and get the design completed in 5-8 weeks. Working on two projects at once. I usually work on the order of $1-4 per sq.ft. on a tabulated fee table based on various sq.ft. ranges. Then again, if I am involving different level of work and project sophistication. I work anywhere from 8 to 12 hours in a day and work anywhere from 5 to 7 days. So who really cares about the hourly rate since I don't work off that. It depends on project load. If you know the code and have basic door schedules, window schedules already templated, it won't take long to modify the template and insert it. Especially if you are using CAD. Most doors will have the same number of components for the door type. After awhile, it's pretty much already setup with minor adjustments. Rick Balkins, Building Designer

All I know is that I live in a home with Pella Prolines from the 90's and they behave exactly as all the lawsuits have alleged. Rotting and leaking, failures. On some of the windows, the rot is so bad you can literally put your finger through the mushy frame. I was told that if I participated in the class action suit, all I would get--besides a burden of paperwork--was a discount on more Pellas. The last thing I want in my house is more Pella windows. I have been slowly replacing the Pellas as I can afford it. I started with the Pella sliding glass door (the worst offender in the house! what idiot at Pella designed that thing?) which cost several thousand to replace with a Marvin Ultimate sliding glass door (my HOA requires wood-clad, and I decided to get the best). Then I replaced 5 bedroom casement windows last fall with Marvin Ultimates - just in time thank goodness for this past extreme winter. The bedroom comfort was like night and day to what it was before, even with record-breaking polar-vortex minus-20 degree temps. And next week I replace my kitchen's Pellas! Yay! The ice dams on the inside of the Pella kitchen windows this past winter had to be seen to be believed. I wish I could afford to do the whole house, but I have to do it room by room. I just keep saving every 6 months or so until I can afford to do another room and get rid of those horrendous Pellas. My windows contractor is very patient and understanding, This post was edited by Mrs_Nyefnyef on Fri, Jun 6, 14 at 20:55

There were two separate contracts with the design build team. I only signed one for the design. I think I had them modify the design contract not to include final construction plans. We did not move forward to the construction plans as I opted not to go forward with them. All I got from them was a few 8x11 sheets of papers with sketches for the design plan, most of which were my idea as to changes I wanted to implement in the house. The quote for the build phase was very expensive. The architect has a design phase and a construction drawing phase. I am paying as we go along. I have changed course with the project from what I initially wanted to do with the design build team. I started off wanting to do a master bathroom remodel, but have decided to do a master bedroom/bathroom addition. The architect has produced large architectural drawings for every change in the design phase. We are now in the construction phase of the drawings. I took the design plans to a contractor who gave me a ball park estimate. Since it was in my budget (and I know the ctr. cannot give me a true estimate without seeing the final plans), I had the architect move forward with the contsruction plans. That is where the project is now. So far, I am much happier with the architect/ contractor route.