Planting Brief Preparation Checklist

Write down the things you dislike most about the garden as it stands, described as what you see and feel rather than as the plant you have decided to blame.

Dislikes are usually more precise than wishes, and a professional can often solve them without touching the plant the owner had in mind.

Collect images you respond to and write beside each one what specifically appeals, whether that is the colour, the density, the shape of the mass or simply how tidy it looks.

An image on its own is ambiguous, and two people can admire the same picture for opposite reasons; the note beside it is the useful part.

Note whether you want the beds to read as controlled and repeated or loose and mixed, since that single preference steers nearly everything that follows.

It affects the plant range, the spacing, the tidying regime and how the garden looks at its quietest point in the seasons, so state it plainly at the start.

Check each descriptive word in your brief against something observable, and rewrite any word a professional would simply have to guess at.

Words such as elegant, natural or interesting carry no instruction, and a brief built on them tends to produce a scheme nobody quite recognises.

If the words low maintenance, wild or formal appear anywhere in your brief, write down what each one means to you in practice.

These three phrases mean something different to almost everyone who uses them, and they are the most common source of disappointment in planting work.

Write down anything you actively do not want to see, including plants you associate with somewhere else, so it is ruled out before a scheme is drawn rather than after.

Removing a dislike from a drawn scheme usually unravels more than the one position it occupies, so it takes far less unpicking to say so early.

Write down who has the final say on planting decisions, and whether that person is the one who will be present when a professional visits.

Decisions taken on site by someone without authority get reopened later, and reopening them is where goodwill and momentum are lost.

Where two people in the house want different things from the same bed, record both positions rather than quietly submitting one of them.

A suppressed preference tends to reappear once planting is in the ground, and a professional can often accommodate both if told about both.

Ask who will actually be doing the tending, and give their view more weight than the view of whoever has the strongest opinion about appearance.

The scheme that survives tends to be the one the tending person is willing to keep up with, whatever was agreed on paper beforehand.

Note any mobility, back, grip or eyesight limitation in the household that affects what garden work is realistic, and treat it as part of the brief.

Kneeling, reaching, carrying and working at height are all designed around easily at the brief stage and awkwardly afterwards.

Any physical limitation affecting garden work should be discussed with a medical professional before commitments are made in a brief.

Note whether children, older relatives or pets use the garden without company, and put it in the brief rather than raising it once planting is proposed.

Who can reach a bed unsupervised is information only the household holds, and it changes what a professional will put in reach.

Whether a particular plant poses a hazard to children, pets or livestock is a question for a qualified horticultural professional, and on health matters for a medical or veterinary professional.

Agree how answers will reach the professional once the brief is out, so replies do not arrive from two people saying different things.

Contradictory instructions are usually resolved by the professional guessing, and the guess is rarely the one the household would have chosen.

Write down how much attention the garden gets from you during a busy stretch, described honestly rather than as the amount you intend to give it in future.

Past behaviour is usually the most reliable evidence available, and a scheme built on intention rather than habit tends to fall behind quickly.

Note which garden jobs you enjoy and which you resent, since a scheme leaning on the jobs you avoid will look neglected however good it was on paper.

Owners tend to carry on with the jobs they like and to drop the ones they dislike fairly quickly, and a professional can lean the scheme accordingly.

Consider whether someone comes in to tend the garden now, and whether that arrangement is expected to continue once the planting changes.

A scheme designed around outside help behaves very differently once that help stops, and the assumption is worth stating rather than leaving implied.

Record what garden equipment the household already has and where it is stored, because a scheme needing tools you do not own tends to go untended.

Storage and access matter as much as ownership, since equipment kept somewhere awkward is used far less than equipment kept by the door.

Note the stretches when nobody is at the property, and put them in the brief rather than hoping the planting will not need attention while you are away.

Absence is a common reason new planting is lost, and a stated absence is something a professional can plan around rather than discover afterwards.

Ask what tending each part of a proposed scheme will demand of you, and record the answer in writing before the scheme is settled.

A written answer is the only version that survives into the following seasons, when the person who explained it is no longer around.

What a scheme needs to stay in good order is a judgement for a qualified horticultural professional who has seen your site.

Mark on your sketch the plants, features and areas that are not up for discussion, so nothing is proposed straight across them.

Professionals will design around a stated constraint willingly, but they cannot design around one they were never shown.

Write down which parts of the garden you want left entirely alone in this round of work, and say why if the reason is not obvious.

An area excluded without explanation often gets quietly included again, whereas a stated reason tends to be respected.

Note where you would welcome a suggestion you have not thought of, because a brief with no openings produces a scheme with no surprises.

Naming the open areas is what lets a professional contribute the thing you were not able to ask for.

Record whether the shape of the lawn can change, since that is where designers often find the easiest gains and owners are more attached than they realise.

Lawn shape decides both the feel of the garden and the effort of cutting it, so knowing whether it is fixed shapes everything else.

Consider whether existing hard surfaces must stay, and mark any you would be willing to cut into for a wider bed.

Narrow beds against generous paving are one of the most common frustrations in an inherited garden, and the constraint is often assumed rather than real.

Cutting into an existing surface can affect levels, drainage or something buried; raise it with a qualified professional before assuming it is straightforward.

Where something is being kept for reasons of memory or attachment rather than appearance, say so in the brief, since a reason left unsaid is read as no reason at all.

A professional will work around an attachment they have been told about, but a plant kept silently tends to look to everyone else like the easiest gain on the plot.

Walk the routes people take across the garden in ordinary use, including the way to the bins and the washing line, and mark them before any bed is drawn.

A route in daily use will not move for planting, and planting placed across it is worn away rather than admired.

Note what gets wheeled or carried through the garden, such as bins, bikes, a mower or deliveries, and how wide those movements need the route to stay.

Anything carried past a bed brushes against it, and the widths that work today are usually the ones that must survive the scheme.

Record where people stand and sit when the garden is at its busiest, and which beds get leaned on or brushed past at those moments.

Planting beside a gathering point is judged by contact rather than appearance, and that is a different requirement entirely.

Note whether any part of the garden is used for drying, storing, potting or working, since those uses are the ones left out of briefs and reinstated in a hurry.

A working corner that is designed out reappears anyway, usually in the most visible place available.

Write down what the garden looks like from the approach to the property, since visitors often form their impression there rather than where you plan hardest.

The approach is seen by everyone and planned by almost nobody, and it usually takes the least effort of any part of the brief to get right.

Note whether any bed would sit where a ladder, scaffold or delivery would have to stand during later work on the house.

New planting crushed during subsequent building work is a common and entirely avoidable loss, and the risk is visible now.

Where access will be needed for later building work is a question for the professionals carrying out that work, before planting is committed.

Decide and record which planted area matters enough to be done first if the work has to be split into stages.

Splitting decided in advance is a strategy, whereas splitting decided part way through is usually a retreat.

Note which areas depend on something else happening first, such as ground still being used for access, storage or an unfinished surface.

Planting into ground that is still working as a site route is the most reliable way to lose it.

Consider whether planting is expected to go in while other trades are still on site, and raise the risk of damage before anything is programmed.

Once plants are in the ground they become an obstruction to everyone else, and they are treated accordingly.

Sequencing planting against other trades is a matter for the professionals running the work and should be agreed directly with them.

Write down which bare areas you can tolerate looking unfinished while later stages wait, and which need something in them straight away.

Bare ground is easier to accept when it has been chosen deliberately than when it appears as the residue of a stage that ran out.

Ask which parts of the scheme rely on something that has to be ordered well ahead, and record which those are as soon as you are told.

The items with the longest wait usually dictate the order of everything else, and owners rarely learn which they are until late.

Note whether the household would rather see one area finished properly than several areas started, and put that preference in the brief.

This is a genuine choice with different outcomes, and stating it prevents a scheme spread thinly across the whole plot.

Keep the brief in one written document rather than spread across messages, so whoever you hand it to sees the whole picture at once.

Requirements mentioned in passing are the ones missed, and a single document is also what lets two professionals answer the same question.

Date each version of the brief and note what changed, since planting briefs shift as conversations go on and an earlier version can easily come back at you later.

Without versions, a disagreement about what was asked for becomes a disagreement about memory, which nobody wins.

Write down the questions you already know you cannot answer, and mark them clearly as questions rather than leaving gaps that get filled by assumption.

A stated gap invites the right expertise, whereas a silent gap invites a guess that then has to be undone.

Note which parts of the brief are your own observation and which are something you were told, so a professional knows what is worth testing.

What you were told about a plot is often wrong, and separating it from what you have watched yourself makes the brief far more useful.

Record what you would consider a disappointing outcome, since that is usually more revealing than any description of the outcome you want.

Failure conditions are specific where aspirations are vague, and they give a professional something concrete to design away from.

Ask what else the professional needs from you before they can respond to the brief, and add whatever they say to the document.

The list of missing information is normally short, and gathering it before the visit saves the visit being spent on it.