Anonymous wrote:This is Op. we paid Merrifield to come out for a consult. $75. Well, she told us the names of a couple of our plants, advised us to extend the patio and just put in a ton of flagstone - giant flagstone patio, flagstone walkway, flagstone stop. Said drainage is not a concern even after we told her we get standing water after light rain. I asked what we could plant with existing shrubs, and her answer was more daffodils which we already have. So I paid for the design consult, which didn’t really help us. I may give Meadow Farms a shot next if people have been happy with them.

Oh and no cost estimate was given for her suggestions. So she advised us to put in a giant patio and “some more” daffodils, collected $75 and left. She didn’t take any measurements or follow up with a cost proposal.

This is Op. we paid Merrifield to come out for a consult. $75. Well, she told us the names of a couple of our plants, advised us to extend the patio and just put in a ton of flagstone - giant flagstone patio, flagstone walkway, flagstone stop. Said drainage is not a concern even after we told her we get standing water after light rain. I asked what we could plant with existing shrubs, and her answer was more daffodils which we already have. So I paid for the design consult, which didn’t really help us. I may give Meadow Farms a shot next if people have been happy with them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

If you're not ready to "green light the landscaping", what in the world would be the incentive for a landscape designer to do all of this for free??? C'mon, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of consultation are you looking for? Someone just to come and talk generally about what you want to do and give you a broad ballpark of what it might cost (acknowledging that nothing can be set for certain until you've come up with a design, picked plants and other materials, etc.)? You can find plenty of landscape designers who will do that for free, but no one is going to give you their design ideas for free. Too many people would take those free ideas and then execute them for less on their own and the designer makes nothing for their time.

I’m certainly not looking for a scaled drawing or anything, though a rough sketch would be wonderful. I’m really just looking to have someone come look at my yard and give me a sense of how to deal with the old garden — walkways are needed, need a shed for storage, need new plants and am not sure what we have is weeds vs good stuff, and what to do with our retaining wall made up of rotting railroad ties. It’s my chance to reshape the yard and I have zero idea of what to do and when. So an idea of what zones the yard might have, whether I should keep or replace walkways, where to situate a shed, which plants I have and which I could add that might do well... that kind of thing.

I don’t want to make any changes until I see what comes up this spring and summer. The beds are full of things that I can’t identify.

There is no way that anyone is going to do all of this for free.

According to this article - http://bord-eaux.com/design-of-the-decorative-lighting-of-the-croft/, for the house from the outside, there are two types of lighting: accenting and flooding. Focusing on the details, showing the features, for example, of brickwork, the relief of decorative stone, steps, or porch, we direct a beam of light across the surface, highlighting irregularities and deepening the twilight between them. The closer the light to the object, the longer the shadows become, and the structure acquires a gothic appearance.

Meadow Farms has landscapers who will come out to your property and they will give you a sketch for $49. They ultimately want you to buy their plants and hire the landscape team to install, but it is not necessary.

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

OP, you are so annoying. How do you expect someone to spend their time at your house, share their knowledge, educate you and not compensate them? And yet, you call landscape designers angry and defensive??
And no, i am not a landscape designer. But you are the one who wants professional help, doesn't want to commit to their project/plan (so that they can be compensated) and don't want to pay for the consultation. I just don't understand your logic. People need to be paid if you expect professional quality work/knowledge share.

Try some classes at HD or Lowe's, i am sure they have something for folks who like DYI.
Buy books, take a class, you will still have to spend money AND time if you don't want to hire someone.

https://www.universalclass.com/i/course/landscaping-101.htm

You could Google "Garden Coach." They aren't landscape designers and don't do the design and install, they help you identify plants, talk about what you could do, how to figure out a design you'll like, etc. You'll pay maybe $100.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

OP, we were in a very similar situation to you several years ago. New homeowners, knew nothing about gardening but had an abundance of plants (previous homeowner was a pro gardener) and just needed some ideas to start. We PAID for someone to come out for an hour and answer our questions. No real plan involved (maybe a pen sketch), but he told us what all the plants were, how to care for them, and suggested some things we could change down the road. You don't have to spend a lot of money, or commit to any sort of landscape plan, but you do need to compensate professionals for their time. (I think we paid $100 for the hour?)

Couldn't agree more with the bolded. It's just tacky to expect someone to provide their expertise for free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

OP, we were in a very similar situation to you several years ago. New homeowners, knew nothing about gardening but had an abundance of plants (previous homeowner was a pro gardener) and just needed some ideas to start. We PAID for someone to come out for an hour and answer our questions. No real plan involved (maybe a pen sketch), but he told us what all the plants were, how to care for them, and suggested some things we could change down the road. You don't have to spend a lot of money, or commit to any sort of landscape plan, but you do need to compensate professionals for their time. (I think we paid $100 for the hour?)

Better Homes and Gardens online offers free design layouts for preplanned gardens: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

So, you want someone with some expertise to drive out to your house, spend an hour or two talking to you about what problems you have, what plants you have, what to think about in terms of what to keep, what to replace, what jobs might be a priority, what jobs can wait, where is safe to put beds and what types of plants will work best.

You expect someone who only gets paid on a per job basis to take time out of their schedule to come out and do this for you, for free and with no guarantee that you'll hire them to do any additional work and that you might take what they've told you and hire out to some low cost company to do the work that (s)he recommended.

Why do you think anyone should do this? You are comparing this to other home improvement companies like a kitchen or bathroom refitter or a contractor who will do a consultation for a home renovation or addition. The difference is that the majority of those customers often will price out 2 or 3 and will pick one of the 2 or 3 companies to do the work. In a case like yours, you are trying to get educated for free and in this type of situation, most homeowners are not necessarily going to go back to the person who only did the consultation for the work. Many of them will just do work as described on a smaller scale, doing some themselves, hiring out small individual jobs to some smaller company.

We did what you wanted, but we paid for a design. It involved a landscape professional coming, and doing all that you wanted and giving us a drafted document of recommendations. We paid for that. After the design, other things came up and we have only done a few of the smaller tasks ourselves, but we didn't just use the designer for free. We paid him for a design and we have the design. If our priorities change again and we can do some of the bigger projects, we'll go back to this designer to have him help us with those larger jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.

OP
sounds like you want someone to "hold you hand" a little bit and talk you through some of stages, what stuff can be done now, what can wait, what needs to be done by pros, and what can be done by you...
I'm willing to help you out, no hard sell as I don't work for a commercial entity anymore. but I have resources and know the people to point you towards if it come to that.

If you want to chat let me know. alot can be done just looking at pictures street views, google earth, ect and give you some of my opinions.. but willing to do a site visit in you are local to NOVA

Anonymous wrote:You could take pictures and go to Merrifield Garden Center and they will talk with you. It could be a starting point.

You can also post pics online at the Gardenweb or similar, and people offer helpful suggestions.

Both are free! Good luck.

Thank you! I’ll check out Gardenweb. To PPs calling me cheap, that’s fine and I can see why you landscape designers would be angry or defensive. But I’m just not ready to commit to a full overhaul just yet. We did do some work inside the house and perhaps that process was what made me more apprehensive about the outdoor stuff. I wish we had waited on some interior changes so we could see how the house worked for us first. And we paid $500 for a bathroom reno design we hated and didn’t end up using. Both are the kinds of mistakes I don’t want to make with the landscaping, so I want to take my time, see what plants come up in the next few months, and talk to lots of people and think everything over before committing to full design work with drawings, etc. I’m happy to pay professionals for their work, and I do, but I’m not ready to green light the landscaping yet.