Worth the money

When you’re known for design, you’ve got to protect that creative intelligence. That’s what Toms Creek Nursery & Landscaping has learned. For more than two decades, the company has charged for its designs.

“It got to the point in the 1990s where mom would do the sketch, and other landscapers were even sending their clients to us to do their design work,” Brandon Vaughn says of his mother, Melinda’s, landscape architecture expertise. “Other companies were literally telling people, ‘Go talk to Toms Creek, they will design for you, and then I’ll do it.’”

Vaughn laughs, adding that after a lifetime in the business, he has seen it all. “My mother would go out to a property and paint the bed lines for her designs, then another landscaper would come in the gate right after her and say, ‘I’ll do the project for $400 less,’” Vaughn says.

Toms Creek has never been the least expensive game in town, but that’s because its project scope is so much greater than what “so-called competitors” can execute, Vaughn says, remarking that, “some of our competitors don’t even own a rototiller.”

Now that the company charges for designs, there’s no concern that potential clients are only knocking on their door to get a plan for free. A design fee goes a long way toward qualifying customers. “When someone wants a nice landscape, we want them to think of us first,” Vaughn says.