Think about it. Why are they cheap? Right away it means they are not spending a lot of time on your project. They are not coming to your site to measure it, experience it, and become aware of what exactly is going on in and around it. They are not familiar with your area other than by looking up the hardiness zone and annual rainfall. They do not know the cultural or environmental context of your site, city, or project. They are not going to physically inventory the site, measure locations of existing features, or measure and/or analyze the topograhy. They can only guess at your soil type based on what a book tells them is common in your area, or by your input. They are not meeting with YOU and getting a chance to understand YOU. Half of a landscape design is the site, the other half is the people who are using the site. Anyone can sell you a package that includes plans, renderings, photo mockups, and all the trimmings. But, no matter who produces these things, it is all based on input. A good local person is going to gather that input first hand and is going to interact with you and your site directly. He/she will already have a deep first hand knowledge of local regulations, local context, local environmental conditions, and direct experience with remarkably similar projects. Furthermore, they will be able to show you photos (perhaps actual sites) of actual built work for you to understand the actual results. PLEASE NOTICE WHETHER OR NOT THE ONLINE FOLKS ARE SHOWING YOU BUILT WORK! Typically, they show a before picture that is an actual shot of the site "before" it was done. Then they show an "after" photo which is not truly an after, but a concept image. This should tell you two things. One is that the results must not look good enough to post a true after picture of. The second is that they view the concept photo as being the actual conclusion of the project which makes it the "after". Price is determined by value. Much of the perceived value is the convenience of not having to find the right person to do your job. If your values are consistant with what you are going to get from the online designer, it is the right move for you. If your values are weighted more heavily toward the things that they will not provide for you, it is not the right move for you. It might take a while for you to find the right person in terms of price, personality, talent, and knowledge to work for you, but there are plenty out there. You may have to wait until your budget comes up to matching what you want out of your designer. The question is do you lower your values to match your budget, or raise your budget to match your values? (budget is not all money, it is time and effort in finding the right person as well, in this case)

I gave her a suggested plant list based on my own research, but what you saw were her selections, some of hers and some of mine. The dry creek and rock mulch are . . . not being vacuumed or blown and still a problem, although the scope of the problem has lessened this year, thankfully. So, not as urgent. I'd still like to fix it, but pretty broke right now. If I do anything else this season, it will be on the small side strip next to the driveway pad.

I'm not saying that online design is superior to local design, just that it's do-able, and probably in many cases, adequate. It has the potential to be much less expensive, if someone figures out how to deliver the services. Personally I believe, like many other offerings via the Internet, that it will be a viable option for the future. It's entirely dependent on information collected and provided by the client and it takes a fair amount of information in order to produce good design. The weak point, as I see it, is getting the client to provide this information. We see here how reticent people are about providing decent photos. It might take a hundred or more well organized photos and a lot of words. Now, it's pretty much theoretical as I don't believe anyone has worked out a slick, comprehensive method of accomplishing this. Nevertheless, depending on client needs, I think there is a great deal that can be offered if someone wants to make the effort. I've had a few occasions to help people via remote and say that from my perspective, it's MUCH more time consuming trying to get a client to collect information as opposed to just doing it myself. There is also the future potential to employ some very sophisticated technology in order to collect data. Personally, I'd like to be the smart dude who figured out how to make many millions by coming up with the "go to" web site for landscape design! However, I think it will be one very expensive website that relies on software tools yet to be invented. I would work on this if I could first win the MegaMillions lottery.

"And these [site conditions and client understanding] are not at all easily achieved online!!" The times they are a changin.' We could say the same thing about local doctor visits, but today even surgery is being done by remote. Technology is making inroads into whatever profession it can, and surely landscape design is not immune to these innovations. When you think about it, design is commonly done by remote. Rarely does anyone create design on site. Instead, they collect information and take it back to the office where they perform the work. We used to work off of paper photographs. Today, high quality imagery can be transported to anywhere in the world in seconds ... a huge advance in our profession. Most any information can be gathered in some way without a site visit. Is it perfect yet? No! But it's happening and no doubt will eventually go in this direction. There are a lot of people who are far more interested in saving money and having convenience than they are in absolute, high cost perfection ... especially if we're just talking about planting plans or very simple 2-D hardscape. And this is not to say that high quality work can't be done. It can. I've done a fair amount of work by remote and say the most difficult aspect of it is having a client collect information. They can be reluctant to get what is needed. (As people can see from the photographs that are usually supplied to this forum!) Sometimes their accuracy is off. It usually takes more of the designer's time but in the end, it's workable. And it's probably not that far away before laser scanning will solve a lot of the problems.