I guess it's time for me to go beyond a general interest in LA and decide what it is I want to do. What stirred my interest and question was the combination of outdoors work, creative work, nature, environment, and the fact that getting into LA with an engineering/geology background might easier than switching to something else "creative" that didn't involve the science/engineering side of LA. As it turns out, I am really less interested in that part though. So maybe LA is not the degree for me or at least overkill. I have since talked to two local industry professionals which has been another eye opener. It seems, the two work at opposite ends of the spectrum. One designs high-end backyard paradises, deals with planting and design. The other has a workload that consists mostly of landscaping the space around his company's architecture projects, and deals with irrigation issues, city codes, turf grass, and sprinkler systems. The latter doesn't sound nearly as much fun as the former. It sounds too much like engineering. The guy was great, almost a life saver, provided a wealth of information, and yet I came away thinking maybe I am peering down the wrong alley here. Maybe I shouldn't try to pursue LA but continue gardening at home. Anyway, I got a number of leads for additional people to talk to, and I will see what they say. I could see myself working on residential projects and even for some municipal department. 99% of the cities I see are in dire need of landscaping and protecting those small and shrinking green interstices. Maybe my green passion for nature and environment would be better spent somewhere else rather than possibly having to go to work for a company that's "landscaping" urban sprawl. I don't mean to offend anyone. I just think much of urban USA is not a nice place to live. Is LA the field for someone wanting to make a difference here, or should I look into urban planning ? Anyone ? I'm confused.

Hey everyone, I'm back! We met with the landscape designer who gave us some ideas for layout, materials and plantings (most of what he provided was non-evergreen perennials). We chewed on that for a while and had a local stone mason put in a walkway and a few small stone walls for us. Here's how things ended up: We were having a hard time with the area along the driveway because we plow in the winter and I was worried about hitting anything we put there with the plow. We ended up installing a small stone wall set back a bit from the driveway and put a small sweep in it that roughly echoed the geometry of the gazebo. We threw a few large stones in the mix for interest but, honestly, they may be moved, laid down or removed all together. As we try to think about plantings we find they're very much driving what our options are which we find is making things difficult. In the end there are a few things that, in hindsight, we'd tweak with the walkway and wall layout but overall we're please with how it all came together. So now we're onto plantings. Frankly this is the hardest part for us. We took a trip to to local nursery yesterday,(it was huge) were they have acres of plants discounted for fall, many are 40% off. We walked through, took photos of what we liked, but we're still struggling to decide how everything will fit together. There are definitely some nice rhododendrons we like and we'll probably grab. Worst case, if we don't like them in this bed we can move them somewhere else. Our goal is to get the 'bones' of the garden in this fall. However, as we walked around the garden center and tried to figure out what we should be considering it drove home the point that we didn't know how many we needed because we don't know where everything is going. We came back last night and tried doing a few layouts using the layout plan below. The brown is our bed area and each square measures 2'x2'. I note that we're definitely going to widen out the bed around the Gazebo. However, we're struggling. Around the gazebo we we're thinking of placing a rhododendron at each corner with some other summer flowering plant between them, something like a hydrangea or summersweet. We were thinking of carrying the rhododendron across the front of the house but we're worried it's going to become too repetitive. We're tried a few different layouts but we're sort of stuck. We're leaning away from any sort of small tree in the large flowerbed to the left since we're planting a large ornamental tree in our yard to the right of the house (where the small lilac bush is now). We also worry that putting a small tree in the bed would look odd with any sort of medium to large evergreen shrubs just 6-8 feet behind it? We seem to think so. That said, we totally recognize this isn't our bailiwick. Currently, we've kinda dismissed small trees as options. Maybe that's a mistake. We've gone back and forth a hundred times but we're definitely spinning our wheels. So, I'll put the question to those who have far more practice - how would you approach laying out the bones of this garden? We just want to be sure we have a good mix of evergreens in here, we were thinking rhododendrons or some other flowering shrub, since leaves are only on the trees for about 6 months of the year here.

I interviewed quite a few int. designers. I hired one, and she was very good, but I didnt share her aesthetic. I paid her hourly with a "not to exceed" amount. She was also very busy, and I decided it wasnt working out, but she did have good advice. I found another firm that I really like. They are charging hourly, with a retainer. I would recommend starting with the designers as soon as you are in the planning mode with the architect. They may have some ideas that you may want the architect to incorporate into the plan. For example, the first designer suggested I add hidden electric blinds..so the architect amended the drawings so we could build these in. The second designer also had ideas and we had to amend the plans to accomodate these as well. They work in CAD, which is great. I also have a landscape architect. They can have input which you also may want to incorporate into the design.

Thank you everyone for your input - some great info here for me to consider. As I have been researching landscape professionals, I have been concentrating on those who seem to have significant hardscaping experience, since I know our project is going to involve a new retaining wall and section of patio at a minimum, and possibly much more. Someone to help me choose plants and design plantings is a secondary concern, although I have certainly been paying attention to people's styles in that regard as I research. Anyway, the people I have emailed thus far are all design-build firms, which I assume will be the easiest way to deal with this project, especially given Revolutionary's note about not building what other people design. That is understandable and I'm sure most of these designers have a team of masons/contractors they work with to avoid that exact issue. It sounds as though paying a designer for a buildable set of plans to shop around to contractors will just end up costing a lot more in the end, for very little benefit - that is, as long as I can find a design-build firm where both the designer and builders are equally talented! Asking whether these designers are willing to chat on the phone first is a terrific idea - I will absolutely ask! Site consultations have been offered at anywhere from $200 for one hour to $375 for three hours, and while I don't find those fees outrageous for someone's expertise, I really don't want to agree to the fee only to find that I can't stand someone the moment I meet them, LOL.