One of the main objectives of landscape and garden designers is to decipher what a client envisions when they say they want a mixed, massed or intermingled garden. The typical homeowner hears one of these terms and may have a different idea of the meaning.

Instead of focusing on terminology, a designer worth her salt will have the client describe how the desired garden looks. A good place to start is to determine if the client likes having plants touching neighboring plants. Let’s suppose the client asks for a prairie garden, but doesn’t like plants touching. You will be hard pressed to find a tidy, no grow zone around a plant that is safely protecting it from neighboring plants in a prairie garden. Such a client may like prairie plants grown in a very un-prairie fashion.

Now imagine a client requesting a natural garden. Understanding what is meant by a natural garden requires a more in-depth conversation. Does a natural garden imply a real mix of plants with no groupings of like plants, such as all the Rudbeckia Maxima planted together? Or does the client simply mean a collection of native plants? Perhaps this client likes plants, native and non-native alike installed in a more relaxed manner.

“The success of a client-designer partnership is not when the two parties agree on terminology, but when they envision the same garden,” explains Peter Wimberg. “Understanding how a client envisions their garden enables us to design every aspect of the garden from its shape, lines and plant selection to how the plants are installed.”

Tell us about the garden you hold in your mind, with or without the terminology, and we will create that garden of your dreams! Call us: 271.2332 Wimberg Landscaping