Hiring a Landscaping Contractor :

• Initial consultation
  • Free of charge.
  • Listen to your ideas and requirements.
  • Assess the scope of the work.
  • Take measurements and photographs of the site.
  • Explain how they work and provide a quotation for the design.
  • Ask Inhouse or fellow a landscape designer to visit you for an initial consultation. As a customer you don't have to go anywhere and all designs are worked out around each individual garden.
• Conceptual planning
  • A conceptual landscape plan, showing the layout of the garden, drawn to scale with ideas of types of materials and plants.
  • Further details provided such as anticipated cost of construction and duration of build.
• Detailed planning
  • Detailed plans showing hard and soft landscaping produced where required.
• Specification and quote
  • Ask to provide detailed specification and quote for the agreed design.
  • Is contract to be signed upon acceptance by both parties.
• Landscaping Development
  • All landscaping should project-managed and carried out by an in-house team.
  • Sub-contractors? Who are the they? who do they work for?
• Payment
  • Payment shpould be taken in stages. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, payment will follow a schedule similar to the following breakdown:
  • 30% deposit
  • 50% during
  • 20% on completion
  
  Most importantly, be sure you can get along with the landscaping contractor. You want a contractor who will explain what's going on as the project takes shape, who will discuss problems reasonably and who will work with you to make the result as good as it can be.
  
  After all it is your garden!

QUESTIONS?