How To Be A Good Landscape Client

Last week, I posted about how to find and hire a good landscaper–there’s a lot of wanky people out there who want your business but shouldn’t have it! But let’s be fair: once you have a good landscaper, you’ve entered a relationship, so what’s your part in keeping the love between you? Well, I’ll tell you! I’ve been in business for over 8 years now and I have to say, I’ve got some of the best clients out there. Here’s what makes them good:

Awesome clients Jacque, Ricky & Sherry

• They tell me what their budget is. Sometimes people don’t know what good landscaping costs, but they’re still thinking, “Wow, I sure hope this doesn’t go over the 8K I put aside in savings.” That’s good information for me to have so I don’t design a 20K project that has no hope of seeing the light of day!
• They have a clear idea of what they want. Or at least what they don’t want. And, really, it’s my job to help people define what they want either by showing pictures of gardens and/or plants, or by talking about how they want to use the garden. But do your part by letting your landscaper know that you hate orange, have allergies, or you eventually want your garden to go on rainwater.
• They respect my time. I go to the ends of the earth for my clients, but I have to say I’ve been driven to have an early happy hour when I’m asked to totally remove a section of design that seemed pivotal, but give them a breakdown of each item in one bed. When you hire a carpenter to build you a deck, do you ask how much the nails cost? Of course you don’t. Expect your landscaper to estimate basic categories of materials and labor, but don’t expect or ask them to break down every element into a line item.
• They are reasonable. Sometimes things happen that are beyond anyone’s control–a particular plant is not available, or the cost of the Blanco limestone chop rock went up, or machinery broke and we need to stop and fix it. Or, let’s be honest, your landscaper is a human being and he or she may mess up (oops, cut through your cable line or sorry, didn’t call you back as quickly as we should have). But if we stay in communication with one another, it’s usually okay.
• They understand their landscaper needs to make a living. Look, I know that there are landscapers out there who charge exorbitant fees. Most of us don’t. We just want to do what we love and make a decent living in the process. So please, for the love of all things green and growing, don’t ask us to give you our wholesale discount or come down on our design fees or tell us you could hire a day laborer for cheaper. Our time, our expertise, our experience is all worth something!

If you’ve gotten this far, I don’t even need to tell you not to call your landscaper at 7 pm on a Friday to stop by and look at one plant, or not to be three sheets to the wind before a landscape meeting. You’re smart, you know what you want and you know that things cost what they cost. Let’s all bring our best selves to the table and focus on getting you something like this:

Yard of the Month awarded to client the month after our work was done! Yessss!

Tagged as: client, landscape, landscaper, yard of the month project