Pond Design
My client on this project is a Scotsman. He grew up on a large estate, was comfortable operating farm machinery, and wanted a project that would keep him busy for a few years. He loved a deal, and appreciated every one of my moneysaving ideas.
As I took all this in, I was reminded of how different each of my clients are. It’s one of the reasons I begin each design process by asking clients to fill out the extensive landscape questionnaire. It’s job is to help me see a client clearly enough that my suggestions will reflect their values and not my own.
My client was too thrifty to hire me for design initially so we met when he attended one of my classes at the College of Marin. When his garden was randomly drawn from the hat as the sample garden that I and students would practice design in, we all spent four hours looking at the best way to respond to his situation.
He had a large property – several acres. He also had neighbors who were loud sometimes, prompting the idea of introducing a source of white noise that would allow him to be on the deck without hearing them. A water feature came to mind. But knowing his thrift, I first suggested something less expensive: “What about a Bose system with speakers and a water track on an endless loop? It’s no maintenance and much cheaper and would provide you with all the white noise you wanted?”
The single most important idea I had was buying my client a piece of heavy equipment for the job. I knew that without heavy equipment, he would never be able to transform his acreage. This meant either contracting out for it to be done for around $60k or buying a used machine for $30k and teaching my client to use it.
I worked out that if he bought the machine for $30k, used it for two years, and then sold it, he could get the full $30k back or at most take a $10k hit and save a minimum of $50k on contracted equipment. This was an exciting idea. And given his experience with farm equipment as a child, I felt confident he could learn to operate it. I had taught myself how to use this same equipment early in my career when doing land development on Whidbey Island: an 045 Takeuchi excavator with a blade and thumb.
I negotiated and purchased the machine on my client’s behalf, giving him a few lessons. Having just seen how one idea had saved him $50k, my client was convinced that hiring me as a consultant was the thriftiest thing he could do. So he did.
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/
As I took all this in, I was reminded of how different each of my clients are. It’s one of the reasons I begin each design process by asking clients to fill out the extensive landscape questionnaire. It’s job is to help me see a client clearly enough that my suggestions will reflect their values and not my own.
My client was too thrifty to hire me for design initially so we met when he attended one of my classes at the College of Marin. When his garden was randomly drawn from the hat as the sample garden that I and students would practice design in, we all spent four hours looking at the best way to respond to his situation.
He had a large property – several acres. He also had neighbors who were loud sometimes, prompting the idea of introducing a source of white noise that would allow him to be on the deck without hearing them. A water feature came to mind. But knowing his thrift, I first suggested something less expensive: “What about a Bose system with speakers and a water track on an endless loop? It’s no maintenance and much cheaper and would provide you with all the white noise you wanted?”
The single most important idea I had was buying my client a piece of heavy equipment for the job. I knew that without heavy equipment, he would never be able to transform his acreage. This meant either contracting out for it to be done for around $60k or buying a used machine for $30k and teaching my client to use it.
I worked out that if he bought the machine for $30k, used it for two years, and then sold it, he could get the full $30k back or at most take a $10k hit and save a minimum of $50k on contracted equipment. This was an exciting idea. And given his experience with farm equipment as a child, I felt confident he could learn to operate it. I had taught myself how to use this same equipment early in my career when doing land development on Whidbey Island: an 045 Takeuchi excavator with a blade and thumb.
I negotiated and purchased the machine on my client’s behalf, giving him a few lessons. Having just seen how one idea had saved him $50k, my client was convinced that hiring me as a consultant was the thriftiest thing he could do. So he did.
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/
