Design Consultations

The process always starts off with our booking a Design Consultation with you at your home, or if it is a commercial project at the site to be developed. This meeting will usually be held by Pat Fox, our lead designer & managing partner, and the meeting usually lasts about 1 hour, and is best if carried out on site, during day light hours.  We charge a nominal fee of £50* for this consultation, which is fully refundable off any further design work commissioned.  During this meeting we would provide you with an abundance of ideas for how you could develop your garden, and would also provide you with an opportunity to review our portfolio of work.   This allows you the opportunity to examine other gardens undertaken by our practise, where we will show you before & after pictures of projects completed, together with an array of plan drawings to show how our work can be visualised ahead of the construction stage.

*Local appointments only, for appointments 5 miles plus additional travel time may be charged.

Budgets

It is a good idea at this early stage to have an idea of the amount of budget that you wish to spend on the total project.  We can show you examples of previous work undertaken and provide you with an indication of the budget spent.  We can also help you to understand the areas that drive costs up, and so help you to come to a realistic budget for the project in mind. However, it is not an exact science, and it is impossible to ‘design to a fixed price’.  Once the project has been specified (see later) and the quotes received, it is not uncommon to have to ‘tweak’ the design at that stage to resolve budgetary issues.  Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised…….

Written Estimate for Design Fees

As part of the above consultation process we would then follow up with a basic written brief, outlining the main objectives, criteria of the garden project, together with a written estimate for our design fee to execute an overall Presentation Plan for the site.  Should you decide to go ahead with a commission we would then ask for a 50% deposit (the balance is payable on receipt of the final plan) and for you to sign and return the design estimate document.  Once these are received we would then schedule your garden project into our work programme.

One-Off Consultations

Of course for some clients, you may decide that a single consultation is all that you require, Aralia Garden Design are happy to work on this basis should you wish.