Design fees will vary widely as to region and the experience, skill level and reputation of the designer. In my area, that fee range would be considered a bargain for a master plan for a property that size, especially if a third of it was refunded! I wouldn't consider it for less than twice that amount.

It might depend on what her definition of 'master plan' is - ie a single rendered drawing vs working drawings that include all the necessary specs for a contractor that is not affiliated with the nursery.

She's offering you a third off because they'd be using plants etc from their nursery, which means her design will likely not contemplate material from other sources.

If she works at the nursery itself, I would pay her a visit and look at her portfolio to see what you'd get for your money. That much should be free.

Bogart, yes, you are exactly right that these would not be working drawings. She mentioned something about the design-build process and how a lot of will be worked out later.
But assuming her work is good, is it worth paying this much for a rendering, given that we may or may not use this nursery for all or part of the work?

I would not accept plans that you cannot take elsewhere. The way this is structured seems like you're paying a design fee for using their plants. That may be fine if you use them, but you're not necessarily going to get the best advice--it may be somewhat (not entirely) driven by what they have at the nursery.

On the other hand, the price is fairly low for design. Either that's because it won't be a very thorough/thougtful design or because they figure they'll make the money back in plant sales.

buildinginva said "She mentioned something about the design-build process and how a lot of will be worked out later."

When things are "worked out later" it means that the plan was deficient at the start. In a way she is being truthful with you; you will be buying only a concept or half baked plan ... but at a good price ... maybe.

To answer the original question: I think that sounds a little high for a design, even one that incorporates hardscaping as well as landscape design. Your post made the landscape part sound fairly simple (a few plants here, a couple trees there) but there is a lot more that goes into a truly good site plan. You'd be paying for the best, though, so make sure you'd be getting it.

As to the other issue: the flip side is that in truth it WILL be worked out later. Take it from me, I have recently spent a ton and I do mean a ton of money on a major hardscaping project and what we anticipated at the beginning of the project has changed and morphed many times in the intervening 10 months. Some of that has been due to budget, some due to natural features, some due to permitting issues, and some due to our preferences (upgrading certain materials, etc.). I would not necessarily assume that this person is a scammer just because she acknowledged that the actual build out would end up being different than the original conceptual plan. It will. She's just telling you up front.

However, a note of caution: I don't know about your area, but in my town, permits have been an absolute nightmare. We ended up having to spend an extra $15K on drainage to address the possibility of a 100-year rain event (!!!!) because of the amount of square footage of hardscaping we put in: 1200 square feet, over 3.5 acres. I say this to say that you should definitely plan for a lot of unexpected expenses that even the best contractors or LAs cannot always anticipate.

The $75 fee is to make sure that you are committed. It is the way designers who have a lot of calls (often popular nurseries) from prospects "pre-qualify" their clients. If you have more people calling you out to their site than you can handle, it is how you make sure that there is some seriousness at the other end. Otherwise you can spend hours with people who just want to pick your brain, or talk, or don't really know if they want to do something or not.

That initial visit should give both you and the designer the opportunity to learn about each other. If the designer is good at demonstrating knowledge and an understanding of you, your goals, and is forthcoming with interesting ideas that make you feel like you can benefit by her services then it will be worth the money. If she does not, then being out $75 is better than being out $500 or $1,000 or whatever.

The important thing is that after the $75 consultation, a good design professional (more skills than just drawing plans) will leave you with a very clear understanding of what (s)he is worth to you. Hopefully the price and your goals will match up.

You have to understand that a busy nursery designer can replace the time spent on a dead lead with time spent on a good lead and that fee goes a long way in doing that. The $75 fee cuts out a lot of dead leads as well as a few good ones, but the volume is high enough that they can afford to lose those few. ...and saving wasted time has a value of its own.

First off, to address the issue of "only plants from that nursery" BS... I'm an independent designer, handling the design work for a large nursery chain in NoVA. Since your design brief doesn't sound like any of *my* current prospects, I'm pretty sure I know who you're working with. If I'm right, there isn't a plant out there that your designer doesn't have access to.

As for the fee...for me, the goal is to perform meticulous site analysis so that barring a major change in what you want mid-stream, the built work looks like the drawing. However, I get what your designer is saying. What you need to ferret out at the consultation is, will your design be buildable? Will it be based on accurate site info, and will it be thoroughly worked out, so that everything works and can be built?

As for the $75, that's a pretty standard initial consult fee around here. Like laag says, it's money well spent as an interview step for YOU. You want a designer who will design for you, not for his or her ego. It really does take spending some time to determine if there's a fit there, and especially this time of year, that time comes with a cost. Speaking of, time to take the show on the road.

Oh, and the design fee? Sounds like a great deal, as long as you click with the designer and like the portfolio of work she's designed.

Notice that many here are saying "designer". That is what is usual here at a garden center - a garden designer comes out and helps you figure out how to work their stock into your yard. A simple inexpensive plan is used to get it on paper. The point of garden centers offering this is to help move inventory.

If you have actually gotten a landscape architect to come out from a garden center that would probably explain the higher fees later. Maybe they are working there for awhile as a sort of internship, to become familiar with more plants than they encountered in school. Or they bought into the garden center? Here I'm used to landscape architects owning or interning for landscape architecture firms, and costing thousands of dollars for just about everything.

A former neighbor claimed a landscape architect told her it would cost $16,000 just to design a wood deck to come off the front of her house. Surely there was some kind of misunderstanding there, but you get the idea. A registered landscape architect of long experience I know I believe to be currently billing time at 100 dollars per hour, and last I knew was still drawing plans by hand. So a big project often takes many hours to produce - just at the drawing table.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts. Sounds like it could be a good deal, assuming it's the right match.

bboy - actually this person has almost 30 years of experience, and used own a firm, but decided to leave it for lifestyle reasons, to spend more time with young kids.

I'm not at all sure it is reasonable to make the assumption that a) because the designer is associated with a retail nursery, they are somehow less skilled/experienced than one operating on their own or affiliated with a design/build company, or that b) they are just going to push their own plants.

Many retail nurseries have landscape segments to their business that provide both quality design and installation services or sometimes, one or the other. It's a very lucrative sideline. And there is nothing to limit their ability to locate and source a huge range of plants, over and above what they may offer for retail sale. Retail sales are quite different from landscape stock and often, comes from different sources. I can think of at least a dozen such companies locally that operate in this manner and that are responsible for some stunning, even award-winning landscapes.

Regardless of their source of employment or affiliation, if the designer/architect can offer a portfolio of completed work you can view, offers the level of experience you think appropriate and has a personality/rapport/ability to listen and successfully interpret your needs, you are on the right track. The initial interview should solidify all of this.

It is always interesting to see how some of the responses to these sorts of questions often says more about the person replying than it does about the original question! What I am seeing in some of these replies, is that there is often some anger/professional jealousy(?) directed towards people who do landscape design. On the other hand, some of the replies from people here who actually practice residential landscape design seem very straight forward and to the point. Do my biases show yet? As someone who also does design and installation for a living, I prefer to work for clients who appreciate what I do and can bring to their project, and the degree of rapport is often rather quickly determined at the first consultation. Looking at someone's portfolio is a good way to get the measure of their talent; but I often find that a direct referral from friends or neighbors is even better. I prefer to bring a potential new client to actually visit some of the gardens I've designed/installed, and this usually clinches the deal for me. Hopefully the original poster has gotten enough feed back here to make an informed decision, as well as a better sense of what further questions to ask, or actions to take to best make a decision...

About nursery designers and experience:

Nurseries have a great volume of customers and many look to them for design. Any designer working in a busy nursery is going to gain a lot of experience in less time than someone with a website and newspaper ad. There is also sometimes the assumption that a nursery designer had no experience or training prior to working in the nursery - I don't know why.

Designers who work out of nurseries do so because it takes them from under a rock and puts them in front of the people who are looking for them at the time that they are needed. These are generally very busy designers working on very diverse projects.

The fishing guide that lives next to the lake is not necessarily the worse choice unless he moved there yesterday or started fishing last week.

I would, however, generalize that the experience is largely planting design rather than landscape design in a bigger context. If the need is very plant oriented, most will be well experienced. If the need goes further than that, many will not have that broader background, but some may. You need to check out any designer to see that the skill set matches your job no matter if they are landscape architects, design/build contractors, or any other type of designer.

The value of any of us is relative to the values of the client and how we compare with others who meet the needs of the job at hand. Sometimes the design/build guys are the best value because they'll absorb some or all of the design cost to get the installation contract. The nursery may do the same in order to move product. However, the nursery often has a huge volume of leads which has a huge value of its own, so the price may be more relative to demand than to marketing needs.

I would, however, generalize that the experience is largely planting design rather than landscape design in a bigger context. If the need is very plant oriented, most will be well experienced. If the need goes further than that, many will not have that broader background, but some may. You need to check out any designer to see that the skill set matches your job no matter if they are landscape architects, design/build contractors, or any other type of designer.

I think this is a very broad generalization that may not prove to be very correct :-) It's very much akin to generalizing that landscape architects have very little first-hand plant knowledge because most LA accredited colleges and universities do not provide plant ID classes as part of the curriculum.

You will find very broad skill sets under both situations. And you can find very limited skill sets under both as well. How and where a designer/LA practices or obtains their client leads is independent of their ability - or lack thereof - to do the job. The only way to confidently measure their skills, experience and ability to address your needs is to view past work and interview them thoroughly, in much the same way they will be interviewing YOU to see if the pending partnership is a good fit.

>Maybe they are working there for awhile as a sort of internship, to become familiar with more plants than they encountered in school. Or they bought into the garden center?were suggested possible reasons among many others why this particular landscape architect would come from a garden center and want to charge thousands of dollars where this was apparently not expected by the original poster.

I know a landscape architect myself who also operates a rare plant nursery. There are hundreds of different landscape architects and garden designers operating just in my local market, all with their own careers and personalities.

many will not have that broader background, but some may.

I don't think it is very off base at all. I also don't think that the generalization that landscape architects have very little knowledge of plants when they come out of school is off base either.

It is much harder to get site planning experience than it is to get plant composition experience in any case.

Experience is dependent on what you are called upon to do. Certainly, some nurseries in some locations have built up experience and reputations that go beyond planting design. I do believe that there are far more smaller nurseries with more limited design functions than there are those with such a broad site planning service.

The note was in support of nursery and other designers. I'm kind of surprised by the reaction.

Ask anyone who is a book person how much money they have spent dabbling in garden design for their little patch. Money well spent in the study and contemplation stage but then somebody else gets a 'designer' out to their place to ghost write that book as an autobiography. They say that this may only cost them $75 or possibly $1500, is this a bargain? Who do you trust to tell your story and how much is that worth?