The presentation meeting is the point at which landscape design services in Inver Grove Heights, MN become a decision rather than a conversation. A plan is on the table, a rendering is on the screen, and it looks good, which is what renderings are for. A design is a construction document as much as a picture, and reading it properly saves the revisions that otherwise surface halfway through a build.
River Heights Outdoor Solutions began in a small garage in South Minneapolis in 2007 and has designed, built and maintained landscapes across the Twin Cities metro since. In that time the most useful thing we have learned about the presentation meeting is that homeowners rarely know what they are allowed to ask.
What Should A Finished Design Actually Show You?
Dimensions, materials and quantities, not only atmosphere. A plan you can build from names the paving unit and the pattern, gives the width of every walkway and the size of every terrace, marks the spot elevations where the grade changes, and lists the plants by species and by size at installation.
A drawing with shapes and colors but no numbers is a concept rather than a design, and concepts get priced with assumptions. Our landscape design process resolves the whole property to that level before anything is quoted.
Plant sizes deserve two questions about every circle on the drawing: how big is it at installation, and how big is it in fifteen years. Plans are conventionally drawn at mature spread, which is honest and misleading at once, since the beds look full on paper and sparse for three seasons.
The reverse is worse, because a tree planted eight feet off the house is a decision somebody pays for later. Ask which plants on the plan will need to come out or be moved as they fill in, because on a well-drawn plan the answer is very few.
Does The Design Account For Where Water Goes, And Where Snow Sits?
Water is the question most likely to be skipped and most likely to matter. Every new terrace, walkway and wall changes how a Minnesota property drains, and the plan should show where water leaves each surface and where it ends up.
Look for spot elevations, for a fall away from the house, and for a stated destination rather than an arrow that stops at the property line. Ask specifically about snowmelt in March, when a large volume arrives at once onto ground that is still frozen and cannot absorb it.
Snow storage belongs on the drawing rather than in somebody’s head. A driveway and walkway system generates piles that have to sit for months, and the space they occupy cannot also hold a hedge, a light fixture or an ornamental tree without consequences.
The same applies to salt spray along a drive edge, where the planting choice has to tolerate it. This is a design question specific to properties here, and it is a fair thing to raise at the presentation.
What Does A Rendering Quietly Leave Out?
Weather, wear and time. A 3D model shows the property in June at four in the afternoon with everything mature and nothing worn.
It does not show the same terrace in November, the shade a neighbor’s maple throws across the seating in late afternoon, or the mud line where people cut a corner.
Renderings are genuinely useful for judging scale and sightlines, which is what they are good at. Use the plan for the technical questions and the model for the spatial ones.
Bring Questions To The Design Presentation
A good designer expects the plan to be interrogated and would rather answer in the meeting than in week three of a build. Come with the list: dimensions, plant sizes at installation, where water leaves each surface, and where snow will sit. We will walk you through the drawing at that level and adjust it in front of you.
Have a look at the properties we have designed in Inver Grove Heights. River Heights Outdoor Solutions has designed, built and maintained landscapes across the Twin Cities metro since 2007.
In Summary
How long should a landscape design take to produce?
A few weeks for most residential properties once the site has been measured and the consultation is done. Rushing it tends to show up as a plan that resolves the look of the space without resolving the levels underneath it.
How many rounds of revision are normal after a design is presented?
One round is standard on most residential projects. What is worth avoiding is revising after construction has been agreed, since changing a terrace size or a wall position at that point moves the grades and the drainage with it.
Do I own the drawing once it is paid for?
Ask, and get the answer in writing, because arrangements differ between firms. It matters if you intend to build in stages over several years or to take the plan to more than one builder.
Related: How an Outdoor Living Contractor Plans Patio Seating Zones for Summer Gatherings