Most of what goes wrong on a landscape project goes wrong before anyone digs. A planting plan drawn without knowing where the water goes, a patio set at a level that fights the house, a tree removed that needed a permit. All of it is cheap to fix on paper and expensive to fix in the ground.
So the design stage is deliberately slow at the front. The first visit is spent listening and looking: what you want the garden to do, and what the site will allow. Then the ground gets read properly, dimensions and existing planting and soil and drainage and the fall of the land, recorded rather than remembered.
What comes back is a concept to react to rather than approve, then a resolved plan with costs against it and a plain account of what building it will involve. On the Peninsula that usually includes permits, and more often than people expect.
The consultation is a fixed price, $175, and covers the first hour on the property. If the visit runs past the hour, we agree the extra time with you first. The fee is not credited toward later work, so what you are paying for is the visit itself rather than a deposit on something you have not agreed to.