How Much Does A Garden Design Cost?
Unfortunately the question “how much does a garden designer cost” is a difficult question to answer in just a few words.
(It can also be confusing to get a sensible answer on-line - not least because this query is ‘googled’ frequently and so you can end up on a poorly written page designed to generate money from adverts.)
The reason for the difficulty is that, as with any other design profession, the cost of producing a landscape or garden design depends on a range of factors. These include (but are not limited to):
- What features would you like in your garden? A formal fountain is more complex to design than a small wildlife pond for example.
- What style of garden would you like? A space relying on large areas of paving for example is much more costly than where the main feature is a lawn.
- How much of the garden will be planted, and how much set to lawn or meadow?
- How large is your garden (as a larger garden may require more features)?
- What style of planting do you like? Modernist blocks of grasses will take less time to specify than a complex perennial matrix for example.
- Will any space be left to naturalise without direct intervention?
It is also worth noting that a smaller garden is not always proportionally less expensive to design (and subsequently build) than a larger garden based on area alone. This is because most people want to achieve similar things from their garden, whatever its size, and so want similar features incorporating. The design challenge when it comes to a small garden is in the fine detailing and finish - as the entire space is immediately visible all of the time.
At Haddon Studio our design fees (i.e. how much does a garden designer cost) are based on the time-taken to undertake the different elements of the design. These design elements are summarised under ‘Our Process’, but we explain them in more detail when we have our first discussions with prospective new clients.
Alongside paying for a designer’s time you will also be paying for their expertise (as you do for any other consultant - like an architect or engineer) and for the quality and detail of the design documents that are produced.
In addition there are overheads to consider in any business - and for a professional these will always include Professional Indemnity Insurance and Public Liability Insurance, alongside costs of accounting, running a website, software costs and so forth.
As a rule of thumb, for most designs we undertake, the cost of that design falls somewhere between 8% to 16% of the budget allocated to build the garden - although this depends on both our minimum fee (as noted below) and on the complexity of the design and detailing (and therefore the time taken to produce the drawings and documents).
At Haddon Studio, we have found that, where a budget is relatively modest, we still need to charge a minimum fee to undertake a design to cover all of the phases and to ensure these are undertaken properly and with due consideration to a clients’ needs, Health and Safety, and the production of a professional end product. We do not cut corners and so need to undertake at least a minimum amount of work when producing a design.
It should also be stated that the cost of building a garden using an appropriate and professional landscape contractor is often greater than a client who has never had a garden built, or who has only had one built years ago, initially thinks. We therefore work with our clients from the very beginning to ensure that they have an understanding of the likely build costs to achieve what they wish - and we review this at the different design stages to ensure that the estimated, likely cost of implementation our design is understood. Our guide to budgeting for a new garden can help to understand what a garden is likely to cost to build.
