Success is always hard to measure. It depends on the person’s perspective and understanding. A successful landscape is no different. Beyond good design and proper installation what is needed and what are the obstacles to success? The main obstacle to a professionally designed and installed landscape’s success is managing expectations the client has. Education and communication are the tools I choose to use for this purpose. With these tools a relationship of trust and understanding is built and add to the landscape’s success.

The expectations a client has are always huge! We all want the most quality, service, product and value for our dollars. The first job I have is to listen and then educate the client about what they need and what it actually may cost. A frank up front budget discussion quickly manages those high expectations and educates the client about the true costs of the project in discussion. A talk about appropriate needs and desires continues the education process. This combines what a client needs with what a client wants.

In my firm we ask clients to bring magazine clippings of beautiful gardens they like. This helps give us a window into the clients mind and see what they would like. This must be balanced with educating them that great landscapes/gardens don’t just happen. All these pictures are of mature well maintained landscapes. The photos of our projects often are as well. The client must be made to understand that it will take time for this mature state to happen. We live in a very impatient time and gardening defiantly takes time for results. Once I was told the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, and the third year it leaps! This is very true and maybe more like five years in most cases.

Additionally over the three to five years after the landscape is installed it takes a great effort to groom success. It is not a “set it and forget it” situation. It will take quality landscape maintenance from the landscape firm and client to achieve any measured success. Nothing ruins good design like bad or inadequate maintenance. New plantings go through a period of stress and sometimes will decline before bouncing back. Patience must be learned by the client. Again all these facts including the costs of maintenance and who will provide it are part of the process in managing expectations.

Another important part of the education and expectation management process is that a landscape/garden is never complete. All gardens and landscapes evolve and change. Some things are very successful and others are not. The fine tuning process never really ends. The more intricate the garden or landscape the more this is true. Our area has a lot of special challenges with heavy deer pressure, flooding, drought, and countless other setbacks. How these challenges are handled throughout this long process is a large part of the success.

The success of a new landscape relies on a long term partnership of the landscape firm and client. The client is better served when expectations are managed. The client also needs to be educated about the true cost of the project, the time it will take to mature, what it will take to get it there and what it will take to keep it that way. The understanding that there are always some setbacks is also a must. Appropriate needs and desires of the client must be addressed. When this level of communication is established and everyone involved understands what to expect and when to expect it the landscape’s success is assured to happen.