Whether you are a client of ours thinking about hiring a landscape designer or you are someone who is interested in a position as a landscape designer at our company, you might be interested in what to expect.
What is the day in the life of a landscape designer like at Yellowstone Landscape?
No matter which perspective you’re coming from, we want to talk about what’s involved with landscape design at Yellowstone Landscape so that you can have a better idea of what to anticipate.
What to Expect from a Landscape Designer as a Client
If you are a Yellowstone client, you might be wondering what’s involved with working with one of our landscape designers. So, to start off this article, we’ll cover what the experience is like to work with our landscape designers.
If you are interested in a career as a landscape designer at Yellowstone, this section might give you some insight as to what our clients expect from us (and in turn what we expect from our designers).
A Complimentary Service for Existing Clients
The first thing that we want you to know is that for our current landscape maintenance clients, we offer landscape design as a complimentary service. That means that we won’t ask you to pay any design fee as long as we’re the ones doing the installation work.
If you are a current maintenance client and we’re already caring for your property, but you’ve decided you have an area that could use enhancements, then we’ll bring our landscape designer on site. They will come up with some great ideas (while also listening to yours) and create detailed photo renderings for you to review.
When an Image is Worth a Thousand Words
Our landscape designers fully understand that clients like you often need images to have a good understanding of what your finished project will look like. That’s why our designers create renderings that show before and after views with your selected new plant material installed.
They will also create renderings that show what the landscape design will look like once the plant material is fully matured. It’s often very difficult for clients to visualize what the property will look like down the road, once the plants have fully grown in. We definitely like to show both versions (initial installation and full maturity), so that you don’t have any surprises down the road.
Plant Expertise
It’s also important to know our landscape designers are incredibly familiar with native plant material as well as plants that will work well on your specific property. This is really critical because you want your landscape to look its best and perform well long after its installed.
Too often, landscapes decline not because of poor care, rather because of poor plant selection in the first place.
Responsible landscape design can’t just be about what looks good from an aesthetic standpoint. While that’s definitely critical, a landscape designer must also know where plants will perform best on the property (taking into account conditions like full-sun, shade, or partial shade) and the amount of water required to keep the plants healthy.
Expert Guidance
Our landscape designers work very closely with our clients, discussing their wants and needs, then combining that information with their own horticultural expertise about what will work best in the space. Our designers can even help with cost expectations and what is going to work well with your budget.
While many amatuer landscape designers out there are really good at creating beautiful designs, they don’t always have the horticultural experience and knowledge to work within varied amounts in our clients’ budgets. But our landscape designers are able to help with all of these areas to get our clients the best results.
And since we don’t charge our existing maintenance clients for these design services, all the money that you have set aside for enhancement work will actually go toward the installation.
What to Expect from a Career as a Landscape Designer
Of course, if you’re reading this article because you’re interested in being a landscape designer with Yellowstone Landscape, you might be interested in more information about this career path.
A Typical Day for a Landscape Designer
A typical day for a landscape designer involves going out to three or four different locations for customers and looking at their site with them, or with members of our maintenance teams.
This includes taking photos and talking to clients about their wants and needs for their landscape.
Our landscape designers are also always making visits to local nurseries and seeing what new plant material is available.
As far as technical work, there is a lot of work with Photoshop and creating renderings that help show before/after shots using your photographs. CAD and technical drawings are certainly important, too, but our maintenance clients appreciate being able to see with their own eyes what their enhanced landscapes will look like through simple photographs.
Once the Work Begins
Once the work begins, the landscape designer’s job still isn't done. They often try to be on-site during the installation, making sure that it’s installed to the specifications of the design. This helps to ensure that the plant material and its design are exactly what both the designer and the client intended.
Taking Landscape Design Seriously
Responsible and creative landscape design is something that we take seriously because we know that it’s a critical way to ensure that our enhancement projects end up exactly as our clients intended them to be.
We also love coming up with landscape design ideas for our clients that will help to make their properties better and more enjoyable spaces. Enhancement projects go a really long way in increasing the value but also the enjoyment of a property and we love being involved with them.
Our landscape designers have ideas beyond plant material, often suggesting hardscape elements (like decomposed granite and rock) that can also really enhance your property. They also have great ideas for holiday enhancements that can make a property more festive and appealing.
Whether it’s a front entryway or some other area of your property that you want to enhance, good landscape design is ultimately at the heart of getting amazing results and that’s not something that we take lightly.
And if you’re someone who is considering a career with Yellowstone Landscape, we want you to know how much we value the landscape professionals who work for our company. Ultimately, it is your wonderful work that helps make our clients happy.
If you’re someone interested in a career with Yellowstone Landscape, we’d love to connect with you.
Are you ready to feel confident in making a wise choice for commercial property landscaping? Request a consultation today. We’ll meet to learn more about your property and its challenges and come up with a comprehensive plan to take care of all of the details for you.
