It should come has no surprise that uninspired, house-hugging landscape designs and unapologetically bare-minimum yard installations are two of my biggest pet peeves. However, there is something that bothers me even more, and it’s a travesty I find a thousand times more upsetting and depressing:

It's when I see a residential landscape that clearly cost the homeowner a significant investment of both time and money, and yet, despite all the time and money spent, the end result is still not very successful or pretty. My heart sinks just thinking about this.

It’s one thing for a homeowner to decide they aren’t even going to try, but it’s another thing to see someone try really hard... and fail. So many examples are coming to mind that I’m getting a tad emotional just thinking about it!

It’s easy to blame the homeowner in these situations, and I’ll often hear gossipy neighbors point at a certain house on their street and say things like, “What were they thinking?!” And yes, I’m not going to lie, I’ve even been guilty of thinking such a thing myself, even though I know better.

Rarely does a person set out to purposefully create something ugly or wackadoo in their in yard. However, you usually get what you pay for; and if the homeowner decided that (even though they have no experience or expertise in landscape design whatsoever) they would save a bit of money by trying to design the yard themselves, well... I rest my case. It should come as no surprise when the end result is bizarre or even downright terrible -- why wouldn't it be?!

I truly believe that most people would not attempt to forgo a landscape designer and attempt to design their own landscape if they only knew what all was involved before they started, before it was too late and they were in over their heads. Personally, the second I find myself wanting to attempt something large in scale, ambitious in design, or beyond the scope of my skillsets, I know it’s time to consult a professional.

But these telltale situations might not be as glaringly obvious to you as they are to me, so I am now going to list for you some of the situations where I would recommend you stop trying to do things yourself and call a landscape designer.

1. If you don’t really know your plants.

Maybe you are new to the area, or maybe plants have just never been your thing (nor do you want to suddenly make them your thing now). You just want to have a beautiful yard that you can be proud of.

Or maybe you know enough about plants and landscaping to feel strongly about what styles you do and don’t like, on an aesthetic level, but you don’t have the time (or interest) to spend your nights and weekends learning all about the growth habits and growing requirements of North Texas plants.

I feel this exact same way about cars, for example. I know what I like, visually, and how I want my vehicle to perform, but I have no desire whatsoever to learn about the mechanics of what’s happening underneath the hood. Therefore, I will gladly pay a professional auto mechanic to work on my vehicle. So should you involve a landscape designer if you don't really know your plants or how they will behave in your particular climate and soil.

Just like I wouldn’t pop open the hood and start messing with things I know nothing about and have no intention of learning— and just optimistically hope for the best— nor should you do this with your yard. The expense of involving a landscape designer from the get-go will always be cheaper than making a lot of ill-informed decisions that have to be fixed later down the road.

Now you’ve incurred three costs: the cost of doing it incorrectly, the cost of having to undo or fix the failed first attempt, and finally the cost to do it right. Just pay the nominal consultation fee to involves a professional designer and move forward with the peace of mind that someone who does this professionally will be steering the ship.

2. When your vision involves unconventional or unusual elements.

Having grown up in the nursery business, I happen to know a great deal about plants. And what I don’t know, I can always go to Covington’s and quickly get the information I need from one of our horticulture experts. So I have that covered!

However, many times I will want to achieve something that I’ve either never seen done before, or I’ve seen it done in another part of the world, where the climate and growing conditions are vastly different from ours here in Texas.

And if it isn’t (and you are someone like me, who won’t take no for an answer) the next step is to have your designer help you figure out how you can achieve that same look or feel, but using plants and techniques that are suitable for our area. I have come to learn that almost anything is possible, you just have to get the right people involved. And that starts with a great designer. You want someone who will listen to your vision (and look at all the hundreds of inspiration photos you’ve gathered up!) and come up with a realistic game plan of how to achieve it.

This whole process will become exponentially easier if you have found a designer who is not only knowledgeable about plants and technically proficient at his or her craft, but also educated about art, culture, and the various permutations of landscape design throughout history and international civilizations. You might know a great guy with a truck, a few shovels, and a decent working knowledge of his plant material, but is he really the right person to have conversations with about what distinguishes an English courtyard from a Spanish style zaguán? Or what architectural elements will communicate the subtle austerity of Scandinavian design aesthetics? Probably not. And if he is, please tell him to come up to Covington’s and apply for a job, we’d love to talk to this person!

3. If your project requires complex, technical solutions.

If you thought researching and learning about plants was going to take up your nights and weekends, wait until you start looking into FRENCH DRAINS!

Obviously, when installing a water feature or outdoor kitchen into the yard, you will want a qualified designer to oversee the project; but even simple hardscape elements like retaining walls, pathways, and patios (basically anything that will drastically alter the existing lay of the land) can belie unforeseen complications with how rainwater and erosion will impact your property later down the line.

This goes back to my earlier recommendation that you hire a competent designer and installation team in the first place, rather than trying to do complex landscaping projects yourself, or wasting time and money trying to fix the mistakes of an unqualified team. This also brings me to my next point—one which might seem like a no-brainer and an obvious indication that it’s time to bring a designer on board— but you’d be surprised:

4. When the scope of your landscaping project is quite large.

The best outdoor living spaces often involve lighting, pools, irrigation, electricity and plumbing for kitchen elements… the list goes on. Every aspect of your landscape needs to function seamlessly with all the others. Do you really want to subcontract each team individually and oversee this massive project? You’d probably need to quit your day job and cancel all other obligations and make overseeing your new landscape installation your full-time job!

You might think that’s all I’d need to say about this, and yet, I often have people say to me, “But Ryan, we aren’t financially prepared to pull the trigger on everything all at once! We intend to gradually install all of these things over a period of many years ourselves!”

People think that their inability to move forward with everything all at once makes them a bad candidate for contacting a landscape designer. Not true!! If your vision is going to take several years to complete, all the MORE reason to have a designer draw you up a master plan for your yard. It is not only common but expected that many people will need to install all the various elements of their dream yard in stages, over a period of many years, as money becomes available.

My parents worked off the same master landscape plan for almost two decades! First came the pool, then the deck… then years later the stone pathways…. then years after that, the waterfall, the gazebo, and so on. The investment of the original landscape design ensured that there would be visual cohesion and practical functionality between all the different elements and outdoor living areas, and it gave them the ability to plot out their course for many years to come.

Suddenly, rather than having one really cool area that you are super proud of, you will have a whole yard of sparse mediocrity, that never really lives up to what you were imagining. Better to do a small area well, than a whole lot of areas poorly.

5. If you simply want the best.

And finally, it’s a good idea to involve a professional landscape designer (and an experienced installation team) if you simply want the best.

I have always been of the opinion that if you’re going to do a thing, why not do it right?

Whether you intend to spend $10,000 or $100,000, why would you spend a single penny on something that is not going be dazzling and spectacular? It could be just a small flower bed that you have in mind, or it could be a complete outdoor wonderland, with an open-air kitchen and multiple sitting areas and water features! But why would you start any journey without a map, and without the expectation that it was going to lead somewhere beautiful? Because isn’t that ultimately the end goal here? To improve your quality of life by adding something beautiful to your home?

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CONCLUSION: WHEN IN DOUBT, INVOLVE A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER

I don’t want to dwell on this too much, or come across as judgmental, but as I mentioned before, there is nothing more depressing to me than when I drive by a home and see a yard where untold amounts of time and money have clearly been sunk into the yard, and yet… yikes; for whatever reason, it’s still not very pretty.

This is just the worst, is it not? To have a landscape— something that’s sole purpose was to add beauty to the home— fail at the task of being beautiful? Or, if I’m being totally honest here about what I encounter most frequently, it’s not only yards that miss the mark of achieving something visually beautiful, it's landscape jobs that fly right past all that... and instead achieve something downright bizarre. I see so many homes where whatever is happening in the yard is so weird and misguided, that I have to believe what I’m witnessing was never their intended end game.

Like me under the hood of a car, they didn’t know what they were doing, and they probably also didn’t know that hiring a landscape designer is not only affordable but could have ultimately saved them a lot of money over time.

Or, conversely, maybe these are just bizarre people, and they succeeded in accomplishing exactly what they set out to achieve. In which case, awesome! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to each his own. But if you want something beautiful (or even deliberately bizarre!) in your yard and are unsure about exactly how to go about accomplishing it, then I recommend you contact a professional landscape designer.

You’ll be glad you did.

And so will your neighbors.