A landscape design project is not a mood board and a sketch. It is a numbered drawing set, issued the way an architect issues one, that a contractor can price to the line and a client can read without a translator. This is the set, sheet by sheet.
Sheet numbers follow the L-series convention used on architectural projects, so the set drops into a building team's documents without renumbering. Scales are typical; large estates and small courtyards move up or down a step.
A drawing made for this page to show how a sheet reads. It is not from a client project.
The project named, every sheet listed, the survey it was drawn on identified, and the notes that apply to the whole set: tolerances, datum, who to call with a question.
The property as it is: boundaries with survey ties, levels, trees worth keeping, utilities, the house footprint with door thresholds, sun path through the year, views to keep and views to screen.
The whole property as one composition: arrival, terraces, lawn, planting masses, pool, service areas and the routes between them. Proportions and relationships are fixed here; dimensions come on the next sheet.
The master plan set out for construction: every edge dimensioned, every radius given, coordinates tied to the survey and the building grid so a crew can stake it on the ground without interpretation.
Spot levels at every threshold, step and terrace edge; finished contours; falls across paving; catch basins, channel drains, pipe runs and where the water finally goes. Coordinated with the house waterproofing and any civil engineer on the job.
Every terrace, walk and drive by material, format and pattern: the stone named, the unit size given, the joint width and the setting-out point fixed so cuts land where you would want them and not where the crew ran out.
The build-up under every surface, drawn in section: stone thickness, bedding, base depth and compaction, sub-base, geotextile, edge restraint. Thresholds at doors, step nosings, pool copings and the transition where terrace meets lawn.
Every tree, shrub, perennial and bulb located and keyed to a schedule that names species and cultivar, container size at delivery, quantity and spacing. Drawn at mature spread, so the tenth year is designed rather than hoped for.
Fixture positions and types, beam angles and what each beam is meant to touch, circuits, transformer locations and controls. Enough light to use the garden after dusk, never enough to see where it comes from.
Zones by plant water need, head and drip layout, pipe sizing and runs, valve and controller positions, and a seasonal schedule. Designed alongside the planting instead of trenched in afterwards.
Walls, steps, planters, pergola footings, fences and gates, water features and pool surrounds, drawn large enough to build from: dimensions, reinforcement, drainage behind walls, copings and how each meets the next.
Every material named with supplier, quarry or grower, format, finish and quantity: stone, aggregates, timber, metal, fixtures, plants, soil mixes. Installation standards written out, so two crews would build the same thing.
Every line of the specification priced with quantities, so any contractor you invite bids the identical garden and you compare numbers rather than optimism. Where the budget or the season asks for it, the work is split into phases that each leave the garden complete.
The garden rendered in real light from the seats you will actually use: morning, evening, high summer and bare February, with the actual materials and the plants at planting size and at maturity. Then a walk-through, so you stand on the terrace and look back at the house before it exists.
A bound 24 by 36 inch print set for site and a PDF set for everyone else, each sheet numbered, dated and revision-clouded when it changes.
Native CAD files on the survey datum for your architect, engineer or contractor to work into their own documents.
The model behind the renders, exported on request so the building team can check the grounds against the house.
One at design development, one on the construction documents. Changes after issue are handled as numbered revisions, never as a new drawing nobody has seen.
Questions from contractors answered in writing and shared with every bidder, so no one prices an assumption the others did not make.
The set is yours. Build it with any contractor you trust, this year or in three, or ask us to coordinate the build, quoted separately.
The Design Concept, from $7,500, stops after the master plan and the renders: site study, master layout, materials palette and ten to fifteen photorealistic views. It is the right choice when you want to see the whole garden before committing to the documentation, or when your contractor prefers to detail from a strong concept. The package comparison lists every sheet against every package.
Send photos and rough dimensions. Within one business day you get the design fee for your specific property and a realistic range for building it.