DESIGN AND INSTALLATION
SERVICES
Installation of the Design Contact
Windham Growers at www.WindhamGrowers.com
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY, GORDON HAYWARD
In 1971, I graduated from Wesleyan University with a Masters,
having already begun a 17 year career teaching high school students
how to write. I gardened for clients part-time during those years
and in 1977 restored the gardens around the Broadwell Manor House
in The Cotswold Hills in England. For the past 15 years my wife
Mary, (who is from the Cotswolds in England), our son Nathaniel,
and I have been developing a 1-1/2 acre garden around our 200
year old cape here in southern Vermont.
In 1984, I turned to the work of garden design, lecturing
and writing full time. I consult throughout the Northeast for
residential clients, their architects and builders. I also employ
six people who install my designs. I have written three
books and a variety of articles for Horticulture
Magazine that relate to this work. I am also a certified
member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.
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THE DESIGN PROCESS
 Philosophy
My role is to bring you, your home, your land and good design
principles together to create the garden that is right for you.
The best garden designs invariably come out of an honest give
and take between client and designer so that you get to know
me and I get to know you. The final design, then, grows out of
our shared vision of what your garden should look like. That
is why it is so important to me that you are involved in and
a significant part of the process.
The Initial Meeting
The first meeting is typically about an hour long. During
the meeting we will first talk in broad terms about your goals
for the gardens and landscaping. We will walk around the inside
of the house next, looking out from the windows; we would then
walk outside to get a sense of the qualities of the different
areas around the house.
If it is difficult for us to meet regularly because of your
schedule or your need to drive a long distance for meetings,
the first meeting might develop into a session of specific design
solutions.
 Measuring
and Analyzing the Site
In the event that architect’s drawings are either unavailable
or don’t provide us with the information we need, either
I or my assistant will visit the site, typically for an hour
or two plus travel time, to take measurements. We will measure
the house, its doors and windows, as well as major trees, the
driveway and other major landmarks to enable us to proceed with
the drawings. Sometimes clients will suggest that they take the
measurements and send them to me. This rarely works out as details
we know are necessary often get overlooked and the process becomes
inefficient.
Drawing the Early Sketches With You
Once we have created the base plans that include the house,
trees, and major landmarks at the appropriate scale, I will bring
those base plans to our first design meeting. We will sit down
with tracing paper over the base plans and begin to develop ideas
together. We will record these ideas in rough pencil sketches
right on the tracing paper. These rough ideas will become the
basis for later design work. If you have specific trees, shrubs,
perennials and annuals that you would like included in the design,
this would be the time to provide me with the lists.
Design Work in My Office
With the rough sketches in hand, and a knowledge of what it
is we want from your garden and grounds, I will return to my
office and develop the drawings to the next stage. These drawings
would include paths and walkways, sitting areas, walls, fences
or whatever it is that we decide to include. This stage would
also include specific plants designated for specific places in
the garden.
The Second Design Meeting
We would then meet a second time to review the more refined
drawings. It is in this meeting that you will have an opportunity
to respond to the specifics of the plan, remembering that my
ego is not attached to the design, and that changes at this stage
are very easy to effect. Out of this meeting will come the information
I will need to create the final drawing.
The Final Drawings and Plant Lists
With the information from our second design meeting, I will
return to my office to make the final changes and then write
up plant lists, materials lists and all the details that we will
need in order to create estimates. I could send these final drawings
to you for your review, or we could meet one last time to review
the drawings and plant lists. You could then let me know if you
would like me to develop estimates for the installation of parts
or all of the design.
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INSTALLATION OF THE DESIGN
Estimates for Installation
My office will develop estimates for the installation of the
design we develop together. There will be no charge for the time
spent doing these estimates. It is important to remember that
figures I give you will be just that, estimates. Based on considerable
experience with installation, I will create as reasonable an
estimate as possible, but what lies under the surface of the
ground often holds surprises. In the end, I will bill only for
the time and materials we actually spend on the work.
The Installation of the Garden Itself
I have transferred the majority of the installation of the
garden to a local installation company, Windham Growers, Inc.
Their work can be seen at the following link:
The order of the work typically goes as follows:
- Cleanup of the property in preparation for construction
- Base preparation for walls, walkways, patio, sitting areas
- Stone or brick work – patios, walkways, walls, etc.
- Soil preparation – adding compost, peat to topsoil
- Trees and shrubs
- Planting perennials and annuals
- Mulching, clean-up
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