Sage Outdoor Designs

Prior to calling, I spent over six hours reviewing various landscape architect's websites, and I came away impressed and delighted by Kate's work. I had the sense from looking at pictures and reading her blog that our sensibilities were very much in synch. I never got the chance to talk to her; her assistant called five days after I left initial phone and mail messages. The assistant asked me for information about my project and told me nearly immediately that my project sounded like it would entail more than two hours. Honestly, I thought that $400 was enough to commit to when I hadn't met Kate and didn't know if we'd be a good fit to work together, and I resented the very persistent attempts to upsell me before there was any sort of relationship established and Kate hadn't even seen the site. I resisted, and was told that Kate would contact me when she returned to town. A week later I got a call from the assistant saying that Kate had other commitments and was given another firm to contact. So this isn't a review of Kate Wiseman and her landscaping skills at all--it's a review of her business screening process. I just don't think it's appropriate in an initial contact call to hard sell an upgrade. I was entirely prepared to commit to a larger project after I paid for an initial consult of 2 hours. I suspect she would have enjoyed the challenge my yard presents and I believe she would have enjoyed working with me. I'm disappointed. Glad she has enough business to allow her assistant to eliminate potential clients, but as someone who has spent many years teaching customer relationship skills, I don't think such a screening process is a long term prescription for business success. I completely understand the need to winnow the crop of potential customers. I believe in the importance of properly managing client expectations. But for the very reason that I genuinely admire Kate's work, I want her to know that her gatekeeper needs to tone down the hard sell. And that it's not a sign that I'm hard to work with just because I don't want to commit to more than 2 hours initially. Small projects lead to big projects.

We loved her online designs and blog. She certainly was personable and easy to talk with. We would probably have been MUCH better off hiring Kate for a 2 hour consultation. Maybe a few of them. But unfortunately, we contracted her for a full landscape design (at $5200). It appeared that Kate's assistant, Patrick, did most, if not all of the design work. Their draft plan came in at about three times too expensive ($240K vs. $80K budget); there seemed to be no consideration, whatsoever, for cost. Reuse of existing elements appeared not to be considered at all. All the existing flooring was torn out for new materials. Another example: they recommended cutting out a section of a perfectly functional and pretty pergola to fit a fire feature. (We live on an acre and have a huge yard.) Besides blowing the budget, some parts of the plan were impractical (e.g. olive trees planted under overhanging eaves) and some of our major issues were not addressed (e.g., blinding setting sun in the back yard). After presenting the draft plan Patrick lectured that they didn't have much time left on the contract to make changes; that we'd have to pay them to make adjustments. We had paid half of the contract cost ($2600) by this point, and realized we were so far off, we could not recover without paying them much more than we originally contracted for (above the $5200). We terminated the contract at that point. So, $2600 later, we ended up with a so-expensive-to-build-it-was-worthless draft landscape plan. We ended up hiring a second landscape designer and starting from scratch. We had very high hopes, but came away very disappointed and feeling burned.

I would highly recommend working with Sage Designs. The process of designing our yard was so fun. Kate came prepared and had excellent advice to offer. I could tell that she really new her stuff. When she was finished, I had a complete plan to give to contractors and we were off and running. Several friends and family of mine used her after our recommendation and they were very satisfied as well.

I was looking to renovate my front yard and really needed someone to help me put together a plan. Kate, Owner of Sage Outdoor Designs, interviewed me to determine what I wanted in a landscape design for the front yard. I had a few ideas, but Kate was the one who really went to work to design a wonderful drawing after we discussed my requests. Having a landscape plan is a must or you could end up wasting money on a yard you won't like. If you need an expert in landscape design, from a small yard to a large project, please call on Kate. I'm looking forward to Kate completing a renovation landscape design for my back yard. Kate also gave me recommendations for businesses who can complete my landscape project.

First off, I had just about given up on landscape designers. We demo-ed the rotting deck that had covered our oddly shaped back area between house and slope. I had tried free estimates from companies that do hardscape work, and it was insane. I got a $9000 quote on the exact Country Manor retaining wall that my landscaper offered to do for under $2000. And that was just the wall! Our budget is 10k. So anyone who gave a quote on the entire backyard would talk a lot, and then never get back to us. One guy gave a quote of 30k and that wasn't for anything I'd right home about. Then there were designers. One guy was really into plants, but we really needed a patio plan and he said his hardscape guy would contact us and that never happened. Another guy who is a well known designer showed us lots of photos of what he's done, but it was heavy into Tiki Bars and outdoor kitchens, and he didn't really listen to the fact that we wanted something more feminine, as we have two small girls and we both come from English heritage. We like bistro tables and magical areas. So this is something I noticed: much of this field, at least for cheap people like me, seems to be men, and then have approaches that are more masculine: walls, bars, firepit. Yuk. I found Kate (Sage Outdoor) on line and liked the photos very much: really designed spaces with simplicity and charm. I rolled the dice and booked on-line a 2 hour consult to and quot;break through our blocksand quot; (which were true: remove old pergola? demo deteriorating concrete patio or work with it? do play structure or not? etc.). Kate did all of the above. She came over, listened to our issues, had us point to pictures on line of anything that might look and quot;magicaland quot; (our word) or and quot;intimateand quot; (our word) and she listened to my insane budget of 5k-10k and instead of laughing at me like everyone else had, she then went to work. She drew an amazing design [for this price she doesn't specify exact materials etc. but otherwise it's exactly what we wanted -- a blueprint) that accomplished everything we asked for: working with existing structures, creating new spaces [and quot;like outdoor roomsand quot;], asking us questions all along the way, and working the magic we wanted. And her solutions were elegant and surprising. For example, she suggested removing a small part of a very oddly built pergola to create two pergolas instead of one weird one. She created areas for greenery in the foreground and not just up against walls/perimeter. My wife and I can't believe what we got. We are ready to go ahead with HOA approval (thanks to her blueprint) and then I am going to implement it step by step with my own people instead of a contractor. We will very likely ask her whether we can hire her for another consultation appointment once work is underway just to design the green areas. This is really what we wanted. It's worth noting that I don't like using the phone, and am too busy to play phone tag with people. I booked the whole thing through her website form (which includes selecting an available time) and she showed up as promised. I liked that a lot. On top of that, I thought the website indicated a higher fee, but the confirmation of the appointment indicated a lower, and she insisted on taking the lower fee, though it might have been an error (I don't know). She was professional, brilliant, and gave us exactly what we needed, all with exactly the style we wanted, not the and quot;well we do concrete and so let me design everything in concreteand quot; or and quot;I do a great outdoor kitchen so let's start off with a fire pitand quot; that we were getting. We look forward to using her again.

Please see above for start to finish details. The bottom line is that it went extremely well - Kate consistently exceeded our expectations throughout the entire job. She was a genuine pleasure to work with, has a fantastic sense of design and artistry and is an exceptionally good communicator and listener. Her design came out better than we hoped! We would use her again in a heartbeat and have already recommended her to others.