Why Is a Landscape Design Fee a Good Investment?

You wouldn’t build a house without blueprints and we strongly suggest you don’t build a landscape without a design.

Organization of plants and hardscapes

If you’re like most people, you’ll want a wide variety of plants and some hardscapes and maybe a water feature of some kind. All of these elements should fit together like a puzzle when it’s all together. You’ll need an expert landscape designer to put that puzzle together using the budget and style that you’d like.

Plants are wonderful but there are so many of them! A landscape designer will know what plants to use to mix up colors, textures, blooming times, and placement within each plant bed. They will also be able to recommend plants that will thrive in any conditions (shade, sun, on a hill, flat ground).

Have an idea of what you’re going to get

A well trained, experienced designer will create a plan, proposal, and design that will give you a very good idea of what you will be getting when the project is finished. The proposal should include pictures of the types of plants, trees, and shrubs that will be installed in the beds.

The design created should give you a clear picture of your front and/or back yard including where the hardscapes will go, plant bed edging lines, any walls, and drainage information. Some companies make full 3D designs that cost more money but are impressive. Others create 2D designs that still display the information but in a more cost effective manner.

Expertise of a landscape designer

This has already been discussed a little before but any landscape designer worth their salt will be well worth the cost. Landscape designer have seen lots of different scenarios from wet yards to big hills to bad grass to lots of sun. All of these past experiences will allow them to give the correct solution and ideas for your specific yard.

Also, an experienced landscape designer will walk through a design process with you. That process will help by starting out on a broad question of what you want and need for your lawn and drill down to the specific final design that answers all of those wants and needs in the budget you can do.

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By Daniel . • July 9, 2026

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By Kent Gliadon • July 9, 2026

On the shores of Lake Minnetonka, perhaps the most famous of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, an Orono, Minnesota homeowner was struggling with a back yard that was becoming more marsh than yard. The yard was a scenic one. The back porch opened up to the top of a small hill, which rolled down toward the lakefront and the boathouse. This flat space between the hill and the water would be ideal for backyard barbecues, some low-stakes games of bocce and badminton, or simply a spot to lay down a towel and get some summer reading done. Instead, this area was too waterlogged to enjoy. The runoff from the hilltop combined with unfavorable soil composition were limiting the use of the yard, closing off space while even diminishing the quality of the turf. How would this homeowner be able to reclaim this unusable land without disrupting the Lake Minnetonka shoreline that made the property so attractive? To find a solution, they turned to KG Landscape.