Do You Need A Landscape Designer?
Hiring a professional landscape designer or landscape architect—depending on your needs and the scope of your project—could be one of the best and most beautiful investment decisions you’ll ever make. And it can be an investment indeed. One rule of thumb for planning a budget for major landscaping is to allocate 5 to 10 percent of your home’s value. To put that guideline in context, research from Virginia Tech shows that landscaping can represent 15 percent of your home’s overall worth—plus the plants, trees and shrubs of a landscaping design literally grow in value over time as seedlings become mature plantings. That’s the closest you’ll ever get to a true money tree!
Since you might be spending a substantial amount on improvements, you want the eye of someone who knows how to “paint” with plants and hard structures to create the oasis you’re looking for. The more complex your vision for your outdoor space, the more important it is to hire a properly trained and experienced landscape specialist. Are you looking for a pro to select plantings and flowers for the area around your deck? Then a garden or landscape designer could be the professional for you.
Think of a landscape designer just as you would an interior designer for inside of your home. In the words of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, landscape designers are skilled practitioners of fundamental design concepts—proportion, unity, balance, perspective, color and texture—who can realize a fully integrated design. They have a comprehensive knowledge of plants so that you get the right plant that grows to the right size for the right place in your garden. They can maximize the land you have and design components that work together and flow from one into the other. And they can make the space not only suit your tastes, but also your ability to maintain it whether you want a low- or no-maintenance outdoor room or a garden concept you can nurture and build on. Whatever your vision, a landscape pro can turn it into a reality.
Jennifer Noyes, the Lead Landscape Designer at Creative Contour, is a skilled professional that has been designing landscapes her whole life. Whatever your needs and vision, she can create a beautiful installation to match. Call or click here for a consultation.