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Cover Story: Step by step
1 Feb, 2007 By: Jamie J. Gooch Landscape ManagementProspective clients, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, arrive at your office for an initial meeting. They walk up a beautifully landscaped path and are greeted at the door. They are escorted down a hallway displaying numerous landscape awards.
In your conference room, they see beautiful photographs of your past work on the walls. Mrs. Jones is thinking she made the right choice by contacting your company. Mr. Jones is thinking about how much a new landscape is going to cost. He speaks first.
"We just want a patio," he says. "Nothing too fancy."
This is a common scenario for landscape design-build companies. It could lead to Mr. and Mrs. Jones having a modest patio designed and installed by your company that summer. Or, it could lead to a long relationship between the Joneses and your company. If the sales rep and designer are listening to the clients and asking the right questions, it often becomes apparent that the clients don't think they can afford what they really want. A master design, installed in stages, could be the perfect fit.
 High-End project developed in stages |
Client benefits
"A master plan can get the focus off the budget, assuming you're forthright with the client and get them looking at things they might want to add later," says Rick Doesburg, president of Thornton Landscape, Maineville, OH. "Ideally, it can save the client money and time over the long haul by looking at the big picture."
Those savings come from planning. A master plan makes it easy to avoid installing something the client will need torn out to accommodate a future project. It also helps the various phases of the project to work together.
"Maybe the client wants a circle driveway someday, and we're designing the walks and drive," Doesburg offers as an example. "We can design the way the main drive approaches the garage so it can easily accept a circle driveway in the future. That's harder to do and costs more if it's not planned."
 Mastering Maintenance |
Miles Kuperus, president of Farmside Landscape & Design in Wantage, NJ, agrees that planning yields efficiencies. Kuperus, director of the Design/Build/Installation Specialty Group for the Professional Landcare Network, says a master plan can address infrastructure requirements that make future builds on the site go more smoothly.
"If you have a master plan that includes infrastructure, such as drainage, irrigation and lighting, you can build that infrastructure for the future," he says. "For instance, you can install the drainage needed to allow for future projects to tie into that. With irrigation, you can install a control box that is able to receive additional zones that will be needed later. The same thing can be done with lighting."
A master plan also allows a design-build company to install footings for future structures when other earth moving work on the site is being done, Kuperus says. This shortens the time the client is inconvenienced by the noise and mess that excavating machinery can cause.
 Rick Doesburg, Thornton Landscape |
Zoning is another potential mess that can be lessened with a master plan. A plan can shine a spotlight on problems with what clients may ultimately want to accomplish in their landscapes. Kuperus sites one of his state's zoning laws as an example.
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