Choosing between DIY landscape projects and hiring a landscape architect in Colorado is challenging for a few different reasons. You may ask yourself whether you have the experience or time to finish your project by yourself. You may also worry that hiring a landscape designer will compromise your design.
Professional landscape designers specialize in bringing your dream project to life. That said, you want to make sure your project’s scope is large enough to warrant a landscape designer’s input.
If you have a grandiose plan to rip out your entire front lawn and install elaborate rock formations and fountains, you will most likely want to consult with a professional. However, if you’re looking to add some pleasing flower arrangements to your backyard, you might want to treat it as a therapeutic summer project.
This blog discusses the questions that you should ask yourself while considering hiring a landscape designer. It also covers what landscape designers can help you accomplish if you have substantial landscaping needs. Continue reading to discover how landscape designers can bring your landscape design to life.
What Does a Landscape Designer Do?
Hiring a landscape designer helps you map out your project in its entirety. They will consult with you to create a vision for your outdoor space and consider numerous factors such as:
- Your climate
- Your space’s sun exposure
- Your budget
- Your space’s dimensions
Landscape designers may also communicate any landscape design trends that fit your preferences.
What’s the Difference Between a Landscaper, Landscape Designer, and Landscape Architect?
Before deciding who you want to hire to complete your landscaping job, you should understand the difference between a landscaper, a landscape designer, and a landscape architect.
Landscaper
Landscapers perform lawn upkeep such as planting or removing trees and shrubbery, modifying and replacing existing plants and materials, mulching, creating planting beds, and performing lawn work such as installing sod or seeding a new lawn.
Landscapers can also perform regular maintenance services such as mowing your lawn, raking leaves, or edging around your plant beds. Landscapers can perform these services weekly, monthly, or on a seasonal basis.
Landscaping Designer
Landscaping designers are more specific in their fields and tend to have horticulture, botany, or nursery backgrounds. These professionals understand how to craft blueprints or drawings to design landscapes.
These blueprints map out plants’ ideal placements, plant beds’ structures, and the materials needed to fill the plant beds. Landscaping designers help you avoid mistakes that could have damaging effects down the road, such as planting the wrong plants in the wrong location, using unsuitable soil for plants, or trying to place structures on uneven ground.
The Associate of Professional Landscape Designers defines landscaping designers as professionals who perfect concepts such as proportion, balance, perspective, color, and texture. Because they have a background in mastering these concepts, they can provide a service level that landscapers cannot.
Landscape Architect
Landscape architects have at least a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture. These professionals must pass exams for the state to certify them as architects.
These architects specialize in dealing with landscape architecture styles such as:
- Outdoor structure designs such as gazebos
- Retaining walls
- Irrigation and drainage systems
- Placing service lines, entries, and driveways
Licensed landscape architects can also plan commercial settings such as public outdoor spaces, campuses, gardens, retail centers, resorts, transportation centers, and waterfront developments. They also contract to restore places changed by human contacts such as national parks and forests.
Reasons to Use a Landscape Designer
The reasons for using a landscape designer depend on your specific job, but they have many benefits, such as project management and site analysis.
Project Conception
Creating a finalized vision of your project is a difficult task without having a qualified professional’s guidance. Landscape designers can help bring your landscape ideas to light with their experience. They can also provide insight into whether your ideas are feasible given your plot of land.
Analyzing Your Site
Your site has unique attributes that you need to account for in your location’s larger ecosystem. For example, your landscape designer will know the best shrubs for sustainable landscapes in Colorado. Your landscape designer will be able to understand how specific plants fare in your climate, as well as the best soils to use for your landscape. These smaller details dictate how to plan your landscaping project’s larger design elements.
Design
Once you have all of your ideas on a canvass, landscape designers can provide a thorough analysis to see how the conceptual designs fit into your plot. There are multiple ways to complete any landscaping job, and your landscape designer can show you the best one. These attributes also help to ensure your landscape design’s sustainability.
Planning Construction
Having ideas and visions for your landscape design is an excellent step to making a beautiful landscape design. Still, landscape designers understand the construction elements and timeline it takes to make those visions reality. When you have a landscape designer on your team, you won’t have to worry about the job getting away from you, postponing it, or trying to figure out how to incorporate the vision you have in your head.
Sticking to a Budget
The main benefit of having a landscape designer is that they understand how to plan effectively. You won’t have to waste your weekends racking your brain on plans to finish the project. A landscape designer will create a comprehensive budget for your project to know precisely how much it will cost and whether it’s financially feasible to continue.
Project Management
Having a consigliere to guide you through the construction process eliminates the burden of worrying whether you will be satisfied with the project or whether it will finish on-time. Projects always have unforeseen circumstances. Landscape designers are valuable resources throughout this process because they can explain the problem while devising a solution.
Using a Landscape Designer Takes the Guesswork Out of Your Project
Unless your project is tiny and you’re sure you won’t need any input, contracting a landscape designer is your best bet. These professionals will help guide you through the process while maintaining your project’s integrity.
If you only need minimal upkeep, a landscaping service will suffice, but if you need more intensive work done, consider utilizing a landscape designer.
