Landscape design services: the drawing that makes bids comparable

One includes drainage, one assumes it away, one prices a smaller patio. The gap between totals is scope, and the totals do not show it.

Drainage and soil come before planting and paving. A patio laid before the water problem is solved gets lifted.

A lawn renovation, a fence line or one replanted bed can be described and priced directly.

We hold no data on what designers charge. Ask two or three how they charge and compare like with like.

The water problem was visible when the patio was built. The costliest sequencing mistake.

Each material chosen well, three years apart, with nothing tying them together.

With a worn line across the lawn beside it, because the route was drawn on paper, not for how people walk.

Rather than any line in the yard or the house.

Now one zone waters a bed and a lawn, because each extension was a small job.

Rather than to a level the design chose, leaving an awkward terrace above it.

Screening them was never anyone’s scope.

A plan allocates service space first; piecemeal work forgets it.

Where it arrives, where it goes and where it stops. It constrains everything drawn afterward; see drainage and grading.

The free USDA Web Soil Survey gives the mapped soil, drainage class and shrink-swell rating for your lot.

Measured closely enough to know whether a terrace needs a wall, and whether that wall crosses a permit threshold.

Across a day and a year, including what a deciduous tree does to a seating area in July and January.

And their root zones, where digging and paving carry consequences years later.

The lines on the plat that decide what can be built where.

How many people sit, where you eat, where the dog runs, where the bins go.

HOA covenants, watering limits and local ordinances on turf or hard surfaces. See HOA landscaping rules by state.

Concept, dimensioned layout, planting plan, construction details, phasing plan, and the format and scale of each.

How many are included, and what another one costs.

Who owns the drawings, and whether you may take them to any contractor.

Included, separate, or assumed from what you supply.

Base depths under paving, footing and drainage for walls, and drainage runs with named outlets. A plan view alone cannot be priced for these.

Who is responsible if a wall or a step needs an engineer.

Whether revising to suit is included or charged as new work.

Whether the designer reviews bids or visits during the build, and at what cost.

Whether the fee is credited against construction, and what happens to it if you build elsewhere.

Who checks covenants, setbacks, easements and permits against the design.

Botanical names, sizes and quantities, not only a rendered image.

Which drawings, at what scale, in what format?

And what does another round cost?

Can I take them to any contractor?

Or is that separate?

Hourly, a fixed fee, or a percentage of construction?

Is revising the design included?

If so, what does the design cost if I build elsewhere?

Who is responsible if it needs an engineer?

Where water stands and where the sun does not reach are what a plan needs first.

Look up your address on the Web Soil Survey and note the drainage class and shrink-swell rating.

Mark easements, setbacks and utility runs. A plan that crosses an easement gets redrawn.

Written down honestly: who sits where, where you eat, where the dog goes.

Decided before the first meeting and said out loud.

“This material” and “this much planting” are a brief; “this feeling” is not.