The landscaping industry has many professionals and the best depends on your projects demands. You may yearn for a beautifully looking yard but fail to actualize your dream because of hiring the wrong professional.
At first, hiring a landscaper might be your thought but the person to get your project to fruition may be a landscape designer or a landscape architect.
So which landscaping professional is ideal for you project? Here is a rundown on the types of landscape professionals.
Landscape architect
Landscape Architects are professionals with training in technical and creative skills to design irrigation systems, grading, paths, layouts of drivers, and other planting plans, construction details and hardscape features.
A landscape architect can work exclusively as a consultant and designer, or as a design build professional. A landscape architect must have a 4 year degree from a reputable university and must have passed the national exams.
The landscape architect field is broad and includes subdivisions like; corporate and university campuses, subdivision layouts, shopping malls, town centers, residential design, or wetland mitigation. As a matter of fact, the residential design is one of the smallest portion of the landscape architect filed.
Landscape designer
Just like the landscape architects, landscape designers are very diverse. Some may be limited to perennial garden designs while others may be unregistered. Many landscape designers pursue a degree in fields like art, architecture, ornamental Horticulture, or landscape. They provide the blueprint for yards and indicate the optimal placement of the plants. They are defined as practitioners of fundamental design concepts including; perspective, proportion, balance, unity, texture, and color. They simply bring fully integrated designs.
They have invaluable plant knowledge and are capable of laying out driveways, paths, simple drainage, or patios. Some prefer to work as sales commissions while others are perfectly design driven. The ability of landscape designers may vary depending on their background, education, and experience.
Landscaper
A landscaper is a pro who can plant new plants or shrubbery, modify, remove, and replace your existing plants and other material like mulch, install seed or sod a new lawn, or establish new beds.
Some landscaping firms will offer you regular maintenance services like raking leaves, mowing your yard, or edging your sidewalk. They also provide seasonal contracts which are charged depending on the agreed terms and services.
Land design build firm
This is a company/firm that employs landscape designers and /or landscape architect. In addition, a land design build firm installs the designs created with their clients. They involve a single specialization such as creativity, communication, design, installation, overall dollars, and supervision.
Land design build firm creates and promotes an effective customer collaborative design process. Besides, they overlap the design and the construction phase to reduce construction delivery schedule and the risks for the clients.
Landscape contractor
A landscape contractor installs the created designs. They implement the designs based on the specifications given by a designer or an architect.
A design build firm provides the plan, the required equipment, and the expertise to have the project implemented. However, companies specialize in different installation areas including garden bed, container garden, landscape lighting, natives, hardscape patios, and restoration.
Some contractors have the capability of installing hardscapes like patios in house and walks. However, some prefer to sub contract them out.
There is one distinction about landscape contractor you should know. There are those that focus only on maintenance and those that install new landscape and renovate the old ones.
