Search for landscape help in Chattanooga and you’ll find lawn crews, landscapers, designers, design-build companies, and landscape architects, all using overlapping words for different work. Sorting out who does what is half the decision. Here’s the map, and then the questions that actually separate the good ones.
Who does what
A lawn or maintenance crew mows, mulches, prunes, and keeps what exists looking kept. A landscaper typically installs: beds, plants, sod, sometimes hardscape, often working from whatever plan exists or none at all. A landscape designer plans the space first, choosing plants for your specific soil, sun, and slope, and drawing the layout before anyone digs. A landscape architect is a state-licensed professional whose stamp is required on certain commercial and municipal projects, and some residential firms have one on staff.
Design-build means one company both draws the plan and installs it. That’s what we are, and of course that shapes our view, but the practical advantage holds regardless of who you hire: when the people who drew the plan supervise the crew installing it, nothing gets lost in translation, and there’s exactly one company responsible for the result.
About that hourly rate
One of the most-asked questions online is whether $100 an hour is too much for landscape work. It’s the wrong measurement. An hourly rate tells you almost nothing, because the person charging more per hour and finishing the design in half the time costs the same as the cheaper-by-the-hour designer who wanders.
Ask about deliverables instead. What do I get for the design fee? A scaled drawing? A plant list matched to my site? A budget range up front? Revisions included? A designer confident in their process will answer in specifics. The number that matters isn’t the rate, it’s what a finished, buildable plan costs and what it contains.
Questions worth asking
Ask to see projects three to five years old, not just fresh installs. Anything looks good the week the mulch goes down. A landscape that looks better at year three than day one was designed by someone who understood the plants.
Ask who does the installation. If the designer hands the plan to whoever you can find, you own the coordination and the finger-pointing when something goes wrong. If they install it themselves or have a standing crew, one company owns the outcome.
Before any drawing starts, find out what happens on your specific site. The answer should involve walking your property: where water goes, where the sun falls, what the soil is doing. A designer who quotes before walking the site is guessing, and you’ll pay for the guesses during construction.
Ask about drawings. On any project past a simple refresh, a plan on paper protects both of you. It’s the record of what was agreed, and it’s the fastest way to catch a misunderstanding while it’s still erasable.
Get the warranty terms in writing. Plants that were installed as part of the project should carry a warranty period. So should hardscape workmanship. Nail it down before you sign, not after something browns out in August.
And ask how they’ll set you up to maintain it. A designer who hands over a finished yard with no care instructions has given you a countdown clock. You want watering guidance, seasonal expectations, and a straight answer about how many hours a month the design will ask of you.
Red flags
An instant quote with no site visit. Vague line items like “landscaping: $18,000” with no breakdown. No drawings on a five-figure project. Pressure to sign today for a discount that expires. Silence about maintenance. None of these guarantees a bad outcome, but each one moves risk from their side of the table to yours.
Fit is the last filter
A landscape project runs weeks and sometimes months, and you’ll talk with these people constantly. After the portfolio checks out and the process makes sense, trust the conversation. Did they listen more than they pitched? Did they ask what you want the yard to do, or only what you want it to look like? That difference shows up in the finished design.
Want to see how we handle all of the above? Schedule a design consultation here. The first conversation is free, and you’ll come away knowing your options either way.
Written by the team at Monolith Landscape Design, Chattanooga TN. Residential landscape design, design-build, planting, hardscape, and irrigation across Chattanooga, Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain, Hixson, Ooltewah, East Brainerd, Red Bank, and East Ridge.