How Does the Garden Design Process Work?
What to expect when you hire a garden designer — and how to know if you're ready.
Most people have hired a contractor at some point. Maybe a painter, a roofer, someone to redo a bathroom. The process is familiar: get a quote, approve it, show up at the end and see how it turned out.
Hiring a garden designer is different. It's more personal, more collaborative, and more involved than most people expect — in a good way. But if you've never done it, it can feel unclear. What actually happens? How long does it take? What do you need to have figured out before you call?
Here's a straightforward look at how the process typically works — and what makes working with a designer different from hiring a landscaper to install plants.
It starts with a conversation, not a contract.
Before anything is drawn, signed, or scheduled, there's a conversation. A good designer wants to hear about your property, how you use it, what's bothering you about it, and what you're hoping for. This isn't a sales call. It's both sides figuring out whether the fit is right — whether the designer's approach matches what the client actually needs.
Some designers do this by phone. Some prefer to meet on site first. Either way, this initial conversation is where the project either takes shape or doesn't. A designer who skips this step and jumps straight to a quote is solving a problem she hasn't understood yet.
At The Grass Girl, every project starts here. I want to know about your property, but I also want to know how you live outside. Where do you spend your mornings? Where does your family gather? What do you see from your kitchen window that you wish looked different? The design has to work for your actual life, not just look good from the street.
Then comes the site visit.
Before I ever meet a client on their property, I've usually already been there. Not officially — I'll drive by on my own, pull up aerial photos and old real estate listings. I want my first impression of the land to be mine alone, without anyone else's narrative layered on top of it yet. What catches my eye when no one is pointing anything out? Where does the property feel like it's pulling me? What's the light doing at that hour?
I'm a deeply visual person — I trained as a fine artist before I became a garden designer — and I retain an almost photographic impression of a site after that first encounter. A new project will start running on its own in my head, sometimes for days, before I ever put pen to paper. I'm composing while I'm driving, while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm walking my own garden. By the time I sit down to sketch, I've already been designing.
When I do meet you on site, I'm looking at things most people don't notice. The way water wants to move across your yard after a Tennessee downpour. A grade change that feels like a problem but is actually an opportunity. The angle where your back porch frames a treeline that deserves to be the focal point of the whole design. I'm reading your property the way I'd read a painting — as a composition with weight, balance, light, and movement.
This is also where we'll talk in more detail about priorities, budget, and timeline. I'll ask questions you haven't thought of yet. That's the point.
The design develops in stages.
Every designer structures this differently, but the general shape is the same: first, direction gets established. Then the design is developed, refined, and resolved into something buildable.
The early stage is about alignment — making sure the designer and the client are seeing the same garden before anyone invests weeks of drawing time. Think of it as agreeing on the story before writing the book. This is where aesthetic direction, priorities, and scope get locked in so the design solves the right problems from the start.
How deep that early work goes depends on the project. A focused courtyard redesign is a different undertaking than a multi-acre property with grading challenges, water movement, and exposures that change dramatically across seasons. For larger or more complex sites, the designer may need to study the property over time — visiting in different seasons to understand how light moves, where water collects after a hard rain, how drainage patterns shift, where shade falls in June versus October. You can't design well for a site you've only seen once on a Tuesday in March.
From there, the designer develops the concept into a full plan: spatial layout, planting design, material selections, and the level of detail needed for a contractor to build it accurately. A strong design package doesn't leave room for interpretation. Everything is resolved on paper before anyone picks up a shovel.
My gut reaction to a space — to the people, the land, the plants already there — has always been my design compass. But translating that intuition into a buildable set of plans is its own discipline. That's where years of experience and training come in, and it's why the design phase is worth investing in. Instinct tells me what a garden wants to become. The documents make sure it actually gets there.
What you receive at the end.
A completed garden design isn't a sketch on a napkin. It's a buildable document — or set of documents — that specifies layout, plantings, materials, and intent clearly enough that a qualified contractor can execute it without guessing. The best design packages also include notes that communicate why certain decisions were made, so the design intent survives the build even if the designer isn't on site every day.
A good designer is also thinking past installation day. The garden has to work in year three, not just the week the photos are taken — so you should expect guidance on how to care for what's been designed, what needs attention and when, and how the garden will evolve over time.
I've designed and gardened in Middle Tennessee long enough now that my projects have become something like ongoing experiments — some hypotheses proven, many disproven. I know which plants will actually thrive in our clay, which ones the books say should work but won't, and which combinations look beautiful in May but leave you with nothing to look at by September. That kind of knowledge doesn't come from a catalog. It comes from years of watching what I've planted grow, struggle, adapt, and surprise me.
Some designers offer additional support beyond the plan itself: sourcing specific plant specimens, helping select the right contractor, or providing artistic direction during construction to make sure what gets built matches what was designed. These services aren't always necessary, but for clients who want that level of care, they can make the difference between a garden that was installed and one that was composed.
How to know if you're ready.
You don't need to have everything figured out before you reach out. You don't need a Pinterest board or a plant list or a budget nailed down to the dollar. What helps most is knowing what's bothering you about your current space and having a general sense of what you want to feel when the project is finished.
If you're building a new home, the best time to bring in a garden designer is earlier than you think — ideally before the house is fully framed, so the landscape and the architecture can be designed as one experience rather than treating the garden as an afterthought.
If you already live in the home, the best time is whenever the space starts frustrating you more than you can ignore.
How The Grass Girl works.
I take on a handful of residential projects a year in Middle Tennessee. Every client gets me — not a team, not a junior designer working from my notes. The process is thorough, personal, and clear. You'll know what you're getting, what it costs, and how long it will take before you commit to anything.
What I'm really doing — what any good designer is doing — is looking at your land as a piece of living art, not just a "home landscape." I'm exploring the site's possibilities and working with you to create something that has a foundation of permanence and beauty, something artistic and rooted in what will actually grow and thrive here. That takes time, and I take that time up front to do my best work.
If you're curious whether your project is a good fit, get in touch. I'll be honest about whether my approach is right for what you need. If it isn't, I'll tell you that too.
Clare Horne is the founder of The Grass Girl, a fine garden design studio based outside Nashville, Tennessee. She designs residential gardens for clients in Wilson, Williamson, Davidson, Sumner, and Cheatham counties.