Your Garden.

Your garden has to work hard. You may want it to relax you, excite you, enable alfresco socialising and dining, allow children to play safely, produce food, encourage nature, provide privacy and dry your clothes. Quite often the answer is all of the above!

We offer a number of solutions to meet your requirements. Our Planting Design and Installation service is a cost-effective solution that works with your existing hard landscaping, updating the planting to provide a year-round harmonious and cohesive garden. We also enhance established gardens to complement their mature nature, design sustainable and welcoming front gardens and create new gardens from a blank canvas.

Find out more about our solutions, the process and the potential savings:

Garden Design Solutions.

  • Planting design refers to everything except the hard landscaping (patios, steps, garden rooms, ponds, fences etc). It is sometimes referred to as soft landscaping and typically encompasses borders and planting, trees or lawn - basically, the things that grow. The benefit of this solution is that because it doesn’t involve any hard landscaping, it can be a very cost-effective way to transform your garden.

    This option works best if the following situations apply to you:

    - You are happy with your hard landscaping, but the planting isn't working for you;

    - You don't know what plants to use / the plants you buy often die;

    - You find that at certain times of the year (typically autumn and winter) your garden looks dull and boring;

    - You want to reduce maintenance effort (incl watering);

    - You have a limited budget;

    Forb has access to local trade nurseries to source high-quality plants at reasonable costs (typically much less than retail pricing). We like to get ours hands dirty installing the planting, so this option doesn't require any 3rd party involvement.

  • We often meet clients who say that they want a completely new garden and assume the only option is to rip everything out and start again. We think differently. Editing and enhancing what's there, possibly moving some plants to different locations and including new features such as a dedicated outdoor dining area is a much less wasteful approach that retains character. It delivers excellent results and is cost-effective, sustainable and nature-friendly.

  • Front garden ideas are often constrained by the practicalities of car ownership and parking. Whilst functionality is key, we always look to maximise planting to bring beauty, nature and ecology into the mix. This softens the hard landscaping, provides kerb appeal, encourages wildlife and reduces water run-off. Most importantly it'll bring joy every time you enter / leave your home.

  • New build gardens are a blank canvas. These provide the greatest scope, however can often feel quite daunting for owners. A common response to this is to make a patio by the back door with a narrow plant border around the edge and the rest lawn. This is often a wasted opportunity and it is these situations where considered garden design can make the greatest transformation.

Garden Design Process.

Garden Design is an 8-stage process. You may not require the Full Monty, so we provide 5 standard packages that cover most scenarios, however, we can tailor to suit any specific requirements. You are welcome to stagger the process to suit your timescales and budget.

We produce a fee proposal once we have a sufficient understanding of your requirements as part of Stage 2. We are happy to explain the drivers of cost before this point, however, please respect that we cannot give an accurate fee schedule before we understand what it is we’re designing.

Cost & Pricing Structure.

  • Garden Cost.

    The cost of a finished garden is influenced by many factors, however the benefit of using a Garden Designer is that they can design to your budget and ensure biggest bang for buck. We bring design and plant expertise, but we can also save you money compared to going straight to landscapers or doing it yourself:

    1. Hard landscaping: We do not do hard landscaping, apply any mark-up to landscape contractor rates or receive commission from paving suppliers. Rather we design the most cost effective solution to your requirements. To illustrate the difference this will make, Checkatrade has estimated paving to cost up to £340 per m2 (+VAT). Forb’s approach of ensuring the hard landscaping is proportionate and specifying the requirements to landscapers can therefore save £1,000’s on the overall garden cost, thereby covering the cost of design.

    2. Plants: Plants have got more expensive recently and given that the number of plants required will be in the 100s or even 1,000s, it pays to get the best price. We can access specialist trade nurseries which are much more cost effective than retail sellers (it varies depending on plant species, but a few £ saving per plant is normal), plus they often grow their own, meaning greater provenance and care. It’s more sustainable and has greater social value than buying off a large chain who predominantly import plants from the continent.

    Better designed space, reduced cost, reduced environmental impact, greater social value… win-win-win-win!


  • Pricing Structure.

    Garden Design is about applying skills and knowledge to deliver on your requirements. Good design takes time and this is what you are paying for. It’s a simple model and therefore our pricing is simple: We charge on a time and materials basis, with time charged at a rate of £300 per day (7.5hrs) and materials/expenses passed on at cost price. We don’t receive commission from suppliers or produce “free” designs as a loss leader for the build work.

    The amount of time required is influenced by such factors as the size and complexity of the space and your requirements. For illustration purposes, a Concept Design (up-to-end Stage 3) will take a minimum of 5 days effort, with expenses circa £100 giving a fee of £1,600, (larger, more complex gardens will cost more). If our design reduces your hard landscaping by more than 5m2, then the design has paid for itself.

    This includes:

    • Consultation to understand your requirements and preferences

    • Site assessment and survey to understand all relevant aspects of your garden

    • Brief to inform the design direction

    • Concept Design incl mood board to show the layout, functions and key features of the proposed design

    Further stages - if required - will be charged on the same time and materials basis.

    Forb Garden Design specialise in design, we do not install hard landscaping elements, rather we source or work with your preferred professional landscapers to deliver the hard landscaping aspects. We can provide oversight during the build phase if requested and install the planting.