Getting a garden made in Bengaluru: what it costs and who to hire

Pick by the work first, then the price. A clean-up needs only a mali by the day and plants from a nursery. With levels, paving, drainage, water or lights, one firm that builds it all answers for how the parts fit. If you only want a plan for your own people to build, that's a designer who draws only (question 2).

Your own mali saves little on the lawn itself. Mats and his days cost about what a lawn layer charges. He saves you money on beds and upkeep, done a bit at a time.

A whole garden takes time. A small one takes 2 to 4 weeks to build, a large one 2 to 4 months.

Yes, your own mali can build it. That's what a design-only job is for. Ask for the drawings, a planting plan and a list of quantities, so your team knows what to buy. Agree how many site visits the fee covers, and what happens if the builder changes something.

What a percentage means in rupees. On a ₹5 lakh garden it's ₹37,500 to ₹75,000. The 7.5% is the Council of Architecture's suggested scale, which the government never approved as a fee, so the fee is yours and the designer's to settle.

A 3D shows you the look before anyone digs.

Ask whether you own the drawing.

The gap is about ₹2,500 to ₹13,000, low to high:

Most of the extra is in the lawn. The firm's ₹70 a sq ft holds laying, cocopeat, manure and transport, and comes to ₹28,000 against ₹12,100 to ₹18,950 for the gardener's grass and red soil. We can't split that further. The firm's plants add ₹200 to ₹2,000, and the gardener's days and transport take back ₹4,950 to ₹6,750. Outside the sum, the firm visits first to check the sun, the levels and the drainage, and replaces dead plants free in the first 30 days. A drawing isn't in either sum. Question 2 has what one costs.

Who works each way. For the gardener's way, Make Heaven My Garden in RR Nagar lays lawns with his own gardeners and draws no plans, and replaces a plant free only if his work killed it. Green Earth Landscaping lays villa lawns, and Greenedeck makes gardens and lawns with a free visit and mood board first. For the firm's way, Sqft Farm gives a quote line by line after a visit and replaces plants that die within 30 days. Misty Garden Weldscape lays lawns with sprinklers and brings samples to your home. Garden of Joy draws the design first and builds large gardens and terraces.

Sqft Farm, Misty Garden Weldscape and Garden of Joy mostly do bigger gardens than 500 sq ft, and may turn down one this size. Ask each for its smallest job before you plan on the firm's price or book a visit.

A quote also climbs because it holds more. Pearl grass, finer and better in part shade, at about ₹110 a sq ft (question 5) would make the same 400 sq ft lawn alone ₹44,000, our sum. Stone paths, water and lights are what take a garden into lakhs (question 1).

Drainage comes before plants. A garden that looks fine in March can stand in water after the first heavy rain if nobody planned where the water goes. Ask where the rainwater will run.

The visit before a quote can cost money too.

Shade is the other thing that kills a lawn. Grass under a big tree or beside a tall compound wall grows thin, whatever kind you buy. Ask about Pearl for a part-shaded patch, or plant beds there instead. Beds need less water than lawn, and mulch on them keeps the soil damp and the weeds down.

Plant in the rains if you can. The usual Bengaluru advice is June to September, so plants settle before the dry months. A lawn laid in March or April needs more water to take. Turn drip timers down when the rains start, or the lawn drowns in July.

Make Heaven My Garden puts a premium stone fountain of about 100 sq ft at about ₹80,000, before tax. We don't know whether that holds the pump, the wiring and the labour, so ask. Garden of Joy builds water features only as part of a whole garden. Ask any firm for a price on your size and design.

What you take on with it. A water feature needs a pump that runs every day, a power point near it, and someone to clean it and deal with algae. Still water breeds mosquitoes, so the water has to keep moving. A koi pond also needs a filter, and a plan for power cuts. Ask what the pump costs to run.

A smaller feature is the one most gardens can carry. A fountain in a pebble bed, like the one below, gives you the sound of water without a pond to keep clean.

Over a year it adds up. A year of a monthly plan costs more than a plain 500 sq ft lawn costs to put in.

Keep your own mali if you have one. Some firms look after only the gardens they made.

Ask what a visit includes. A visit can mean an hour of trimming, with manure, pest spray and new plants charged on top. Between visits, the watering is yours.

If you can't bend down much, plan for that at the start. Less lawn, raised beds, shrubs that need little trimming and mulch on the soil all cut the work.

Before you pay, ask them:

• For a garden they made a year or more ago, and the family's number. New plants look thin for months.
• For a line-by-line quote, with the first one marked a draft you can change.
• Who comes to see the site, and who checks the work while it's built.
• Which plants they'll use and how tall, so two quotes compare the same thing.
• What they'll do about water and drainage, in their own words. If they don't ask about your sun and your water, that tells you something.

Nursery plants need time to settle. They grow under shade net, so some can scorch in their first weeks of full Bengaluru sun, even ones sold as sun plants. Expect about two months before a new garden looks finished.

If you cancel, Make Heaven keeps the advance as a rule. Garden of Joy gives back part of the 40%, less plants and materials bought, and keeps the 10% once the design is shared. We hold no cancel terms for the other four.

Settle what counts as their fault. The usual argument is how a plant was watered. So before the advance, agree who waters each part and how often, get the replacement terms in writing, photograph the plants the day they go in, and ask when the month starts counting.

Pay in step with the work. A stage paid when the materials arrive ties your money to something on site. Ask how long the quote holds. We know it for two firms: 7 days at Make Heaven, 30 at Misty.