What You Need to Know Before You Begin When embarking on any project -- whether a new house or renovation -- decisions need to be made and tasks need to be coordinated to ensure the project’s success. One way to relieve an enormous amount of stress when thinking about the landscape improvements you would like to make to your home or property is to hire a professional landscape architect. What follows are some frequently asked questions and answers about working with a landscape architect.

Should I use a landscape architect or landscape designer and what are the differences? To be a landscape architect (LA), you must possess a college degree and/or post-graduate degree in landscape architecture from an accredited university. In addition, LAs are required to be licensed in their state of residence and practice, and are required to complete continuing educational hours each year to stay up to date. LAs are trained to document design concepts and plans on paper as a visual means of communicating the design to you. In addition to what you might expect us to be trained in (i.e, plant material and garden design), we are trained in the design of "hardscape" features such as swimming pools, arbors, fountains, retaining walls, and other engineered nonstructural elements.

How much should I spend on landscaping?
This is always a difficult and personal question. A rule of thumb is to spend 10% of the value of your home and property on site improvements. If it is well designed and maintained, you can usually recoup that upon resale of your home. Some people place a great deal of pride in their property and gain satisfaction and relaxation from creating a true retreat on their property and installing outdoor art, outdoor fireplaces and cooking areas, waterfalls and kitchen gardens. So, there’s the emotional value of the landscaping as well as the practical to consider.

How can I control the costs?
Before starting the actual construction of a project, determine a budget for the project. After completing a conceptual design process the landscape architect will provide cost estimates to make you more knowledgeable about costs and help you make budget decisions. A landscape contractor (the folks that provide the material and labor to install the landscaping) should give you either a fixed cost or a narrow range for total cost of the project.

What about maintenance cost for the landscaping?
Many clients make sizable investments in their property only to let the follow up maintenance of the property suffer. Maintenance requirements should be discussed in the beginning phases of a project’s design and included in a yearly cost of living budget. In our southern climate, tender new plant material might need supplemental help from irrigating, fertilizing and pruning for at least 3 years until it can establish a good root system.
Well-designed gardens expand the personality of a home and all those who live there along with increasing the value of your property. Consider hiring a landscape architect to begin the process of creating your own private retreat.

J’Nell Bryson Landscape Architecture provides the highest quality landscape architectural design and construction services for the discerning client. The goal of the firm is to go beyond basic problem-solving to offer innovative, artful ideas for the garden by offering a comprehensive suite of services including site design and programming, master planning and project administration.

Feng shui uses what is called the Five Transformers. Some of you may have heard of the four earth elements – water, fire, earth and air – which are also taken into consideration, but the Transformers are qualities that have the ability to transform or shift energy. I’ll begin talking about them in general, and then we’ll move into a study of each one individually.

The Five Transformers are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. Each one of these has a certain type of shape, color and texture, and these are all taken into consideration when using them to shift energy. Nature uses these elements to shape landscapes, seascapes, mountain vistas, etc., and a variety of them always make a view more interesting and energetically alive. I’ll give you examples of each as we go along. These transformers can also be used to describe someone’s personality, and I’ll explain this as well.

I talked before about how your own Chi senses an environment and gives you what we call a “gut feeling” or a “gut reaction” to something; a large part of this sense comes from the type and variety of the Transformers involved in the makeup of what is before you. I’ll show you how to see these in nature as well as in furniture and accessories and be able to use them to shift your environments into harmony and balance, which is the goal of feng shui.

Begin to think about how these transformers affect your environment, and return next month as we continue our study.

--Valerie Delong combines her business sense and unique creative style, seeking to enrich people's lives and businesses on a more powerful and intimate level. She is a Reiki Master in the Usui tradition and has studied Kinesiology, hellerwork, and other body-mind therapies. Her home is in Charlotte, North Carolina.

• Third Place, Historical Style, 2006 National "On the Boards" Competition sponsored by the House Plan Marketing Association.
• Jennifer B. Pippin and Pippin Home Designs, Inc. Featured on Episode of Desperate Design Television Show