Wherever your garden is, and whatever kind of garden design or landscape gardening dilemmas you are trying to solve, there are similar themes that always seem to come up. As a garden designer in Glasgow, this is no different, and judging appropriately-sized plants is one of these garden design factors that comes up. Garden designers and landscape gardeners in Glasgow and anywhere else you go will have this at the forefront of their minds when creating their planting plans.

Japanese Knotweed receives a lot of hysterical attention, and pragmatic voices can be few and far between. The truth is, in many situations, japanese knotweed removal can be dealt with by any professional gardener armed with a management plan. Larger and more complex infestations of japanese knotweed may require a specialist contractor - but you will always be better off by getting an independent assessment to begin with. Tom Angel offers japanese knotweed surveying services in Glasgow, as well as working as a garden designer and garden consultant.

Garden designers in Glasgow will typically charge less than garden designers in somewhere like London, but there are a few key guidelines that can help you work things out. For smaller projects up to around £10k construction cost you can expect to pay around 20% (in addition) to the garden designer, and this will drop to around 15% and then 10% as budget increases. Other garden designers and horticultural consultants charge an hourly rate which will start from around £60 per hour. Bear in mind that part of the job of a garden designer is making you savings on materials and ensuring the right plants are chosen first time, so they may well cover their costs as well as provide you with the benefit of their expertise.

How does your garden make you feel? Many factors combine to create the ‘feel’ of a garden, and when garden designers in Glasgow think about this, the rules are of course the same wherever you are. The use of colour in a garden design is one of the key principles that garden designers are guided by. The appropriate combination of colours in a planting plan can make a garden design feel relaxing, striking, exotic, even hot or cold! Colour is created not just by flowers but also by foliage, as well as the non-living elements of your garden such as gravel, fences and walls.

The performance of plants in new garden design projects in Glasgow and beyond is key to the success of the project. Garden designers will always want to see every plant establishing and thriving - this comes down to three key things, good stock, correct planting, and effective aftercare (especially being watered in the days, weeks and months after planting). However, with the best care in the world, garden designers see every day how some plants do better than others, with no obvious reasons. Oftentimes, some plants just seem to take a bit longer to get into their stride.

Horticultural consultants in Glasgow and elsewhere, like garden designers, have a number of different roles within their job. Horticultural consultants will have areas of specialism which may be production or ornamental horticulture, and they will often advise fellow professionals - such as growers and nurseries - or members of the public about their private gardens. Horticultural consultancy may also include invasive weed surveys (such as for japanese knotweed), be that in Glasgow or further afield.