So you want a garden!
(food for the heart)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT vs. GARDEN DESIGNER

A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT is trained on paper and the field. They are great with detail regarding swales, drainage, hardscapes, and big overviews. Their plant vocabulary generally has strict boundaries… (i.e. their plant world is often a rather small one in that their training is set up that way.) They are often used on new home/commercial sites to get the basic plan on paper. They often do not think of long term maintenance or long term growth patterns.

A GARDEN DESIGNER is someone who knows how to work the soil, sets the plants, knows a huge variety of plant material and have very good knowledge of what works in various environments. They are the people who put the soul into the garden.

Often the  garden designer will provide a paper design, but they are careful to say out loud that often the plan will stray from the paper once the  plants are set out  in the “to be” garden. Garden designers are about creating rooms made of plants, stone, trellises, bird houses and the like. Landscape architects and garden designers are different visionaries who often work well together and sometimes…not.