Turning plans into gardens

“The reason we started was we found that gone are the days when you could just walk into any nursery and get the right advice, or speak to landscapers about what you want, where, and how the plants grow.”

The business grew rapidly from humble beginnings.

“We went from doing it out of our little house, went from doing a few garden designs a week to doing 750 garden designs in a year,” Craig said.

The business now completes over 1000 garden designs a year across Victoria and into Queensland.

Craig is passionate about the value of proper planning before breaking ground.

“You would never build a house without a plan, and while people would start to do a garden, which is still a large investment, like a typical front and backyard of a new build house could be anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000, depending on what is involved,” he said.

“If you get a plan done, when you go and get quotes, you are getting quotes based on all the same information.”

Without a plan, Craig warns, homeowners are left vulnerable.

“If you don’t do that, you will get a landscaper come around,” he said.

“But the next bloke would come along and say, I'll do it 1000 bucks cheaper, but what are they really getting for that? They don't know.”

A full landscape plan removes the guesswork.

“Having a full landscape plan will tell you exactly how much soil, how much mulch, what the right plant is, what the right quantity of plants are,” Craig said.

“So, when you get your garden built, it is exactly what you envisaged.”

The Garden Planners also offers a $100 planting plan service for existing homeowners.

“The customer comes in with a mud map of their garden beds, where they want them, and they get to sit down with our landscape designer, Amy, for about an hour,” Craig said.

“If that customer then spends over $600, we give them $100 off the plants, so that is basically the planting plan fee.”

The business owns nurseries in Echuca and Shepparton and operates an 8 hectare plant farm where plants are grown specifically for the local climate.

“Echuca is brutal; it’s minus five in winter to 45°C in summer, that is a 50-degree variance,” Craig said.

“If you are buying plants from outside our climate and then asking those plants to survive, that is a really, really tough gig.”

For those unable to visit in person, The Garden Planners offers an online design service, using satellite and drone technology to assess properties remotely, a point of difference that has helped the business reach clients well beyond the Murray region.

Craig also encourages clients to consider doing some of the work themselves.

“If you plant a tree, you will probably make sure that it survives because you know how hard it was to plant it,” he said.

“If you just pay someone to do it, then you're probably just going to walk past it and not pay too much attention.

“But I know every single tree that I’ve ever planted, I’m always checking after it as if it were one of my own children.

“One of the reasons we started Echuca and Shepparton Plant Farm was that we found it was extremely important to be able not only to show people how to garden, but also then provide the success of gardening.”

The Garden Planners are members of the Landscape Design Institute and have completed more than 1500 successful council submissions across Victoria and the local region.

The Echuca Plant Farm Nursery is located at 13-15 Northern Hwy, Echuca.

The nursery is open weekdays from 9am to 5pm and weekends from 9am to 4pm.

Contact the business on 1300 599 988 or visit thegardenplanners.com.au