Designing your garden should go hand-in-hand with your home renovation project to ensure that both inside and outside complement each other. We asked local Garden Designer, Laura Anstiss, to share more about why working with a Garden Designer is important…
Engaging a designer to design a garden is something that most people do only once in their lives, and hence don’t know what to expect. Here are 5 reasons to use a garden designer:
- The world of garden design can be a tricky one to navigate, especially as so many people use the terminology interchangeably.
- Garden design straddles the arts and sciences so, therefore, hiring a fully experienced, qualified, and professional design team should be a priority when it comes to designing your landscape.
- Sometimes it’s not even about idea generation, it’s about knowing what is possible. By working with a professional garden designer you can be assured that what is designed will be able to be developed and sustained.
- By engaging a designer you are employing a professional who, in addition to flair, imagination, and sound aesthetic judgement, should have appropriate training, experience, and be committed to CPD. A garden or landscape designer plays the same role with a garden as an architect does when designing a house or extension.
- Perfecting a garden design no matter what outdoor space you have, requires a fair amount of thought and care.
Once you have decided to engage a garden designer, there are several things to think about before speaking with them.
Establishing a design brief ahead of landscaping a garden is essential and should be the first stage of your garden planning process.
You will need an understanding of any problems that need to be solved and, of course, of all the goals you want to achieve with your garden project.
Spend time talking with family and friends about why you’re taking on this project, ahead of diving into and drawing up your specific garden design aims. This will help you determine whether you should need to employ a professional garden designer.
Spending 5 to 15 per cent of the house value on the garden isn’t unrealistic and in turn, will add a similar, if not larger amount, to the value of your home. This might seem a lot, but consider what you might spend on a quality kitchen or bathroom and how much this adds to the value of your home and quality of life.
And what about landscape designs for planning permission?
It is always great news if the local authority has granted planning permission for your project, it does not always stop there.
It is common for any extensive refurbishment or new build projects to satisfy several planning conditions before any construction work can start and landscape drawings may be one of them.
In certain cases, the local planning authority may require scaled and detailed plans of your landscape scheme showing the position of hedges, trees, walls, etc. If required this can be a prerequisite of getting planning approval.
If your local authority has given your building works the go-ahead but requested detailed landscape drawings to fully discharge the conditions, this is where we can step in. to produce all the necessary drawings requested by the planning authority.
If you would like to contact Laura to speak about your garden design, here are her details:
Laura Anstiss, Director at Oakmore Green Ltd
laura@oakmoregreen.co.uk
www.oakmoregreen.co.uk