Transform Your Home - Landscaping & Garden Design Advice
Chris Williams, October 2016
Garden Design Melbourne
A beautiful private garden can transform your life, providing a sanctuary, living and entertaining space while adding value to your home. At Van Leeuwen Green we believe that design is the foundation for creating a successful garden or landscape. Getting garden design advice simply means that expert thought goes into assessing the potential of a space. Quality garden and landscape design helps you work through ideas, dreams and expectations, so that an agreed plan helps transform that space into a special garden place. This is especially true for a city like Melbourne with a rich tradition in garden design, from public parks to residential garden and landscape designs.
Good design will mean your garden will look better
Looking better includes developing a coherent theme or style, developing views (from house to garden, within the garden and to features outside the garden), matching the style of garden to that of the house, selecting beautiful plants and materials, creating beautiful combinations of colours and textures, or creating exciting features. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the garden will contain a comfortable and inviting sense of proportion and space.
Good Design will mean that your Garden will be More Functional and Practical
The location of practical elements will be convenient and appropriate in relation to pathways, privacy, and the location of house features such as doors and windows. (For example, clotheslines should be located near a laundry door but away from entertaining areas, while paved entertaining areas should be large enough to comfortably accommodate the desired seating and be located close to the house). You will have easy access to various parts of the garden and you will have shelter and privacy where it’s needed.
Good design will save you money
You will avoid making mistakes that are costly to alter later (such as inappropriate location of paths, inadequate drainage, and poor tree selection). You will reduce the risk of installing hard landscaping design features that ultimately fail. The plantings will be long lived and require less maintenance.
Having a design will give you flexibility and control in the construction of the garden
Design gives you an opportunity to make sure that the garden is exactly what you want before construction actually begins. A full design process allows you to explore the cost of various ideas without having to implement them first and gives you much greater input into the design process. You will also have a blueprint for the coherent long-term development of the garden if your budget does not allow complete development in ‘one hit’. All quotes from Van Leeuwen Green will be based on the specifications provided in the design.
Making it happen: organising the design
Van Leeuwen Green offers a range of design options that cover the full range of budgets, gardens and design goals. Costs for design depend on a number of factors, including:
- The size of the area to be designed: All else being equal, the cost of design rises with increasing size of the space.
- The complexity of the design requirements: Increasing complexity of design features, in terms of both their total number and in terms of how elaborate they are, increases the cost of design. Site factors such as steeply sloping ground can also require increased design input.
- The number of required visits to the site and revisions to final design plans: Design quotes are based on the number of site visits required to set the brief, investigate the site and produce a concept plan and/or final design plan. Additional design work, including site visits and drafting, incurs extra charges.
The end result of the design process is an aesthetically pleasing garden and landscape design that adds value and pleasure to your home as much as a new kitchen or renovation! Contact Van Leeuwen Green if you’d like to know more about our design services or see more examples of our landscaping designs Melbourne.