Custom landscape design, Brisbane.

A real one. There is no list price, because no two gardens are the same job — this is design-and-build work: stone, structure, water, lighting and mature planting, drawn for your site and built by a licensed builder. It is an investment in the property rather than a mow-and-go quote. The useful part is that you set the number. Tell Duncan the figure you are comfortable with at the consultation and he will tell you honestly what it will and will not buy, before you commit to anything.

Because it is the only way to design something you can actually build. The process runs outwards from the number: you name the budget, Duncan draws a concept that fits it, you get every element costed with an approximate time frame in writing, and the build only starts once you are happy with what is on the paper. Holding the figure back does not get you a cheaper garden — it gets you a concept that has to be pulled apart later.

Duncan treats a garden as a piece of art rather than a product off a list. Alongside the builder licence and the horticulture qualification he holds a Certificate in Commercial Art, which is why every job begins as a drawing. What he is known for is the arty end of it — a twist of retro, a laser-cut Corten panel where a fence would have done, a stone wall lit so the garden still reads after dark. If you want the same garden as the neighbours, he is the wrong person to call.

No. Every concept is drawn for the one site — its aspect, its soil, its outlook and the way the people living there actually use it. Duncan deliberately takes on a small number of gardens each year so that each one is designed from scratch instead of assembled from a catalogue.

A couple of hours on site going through your preferences, a material wish list and your budget. Stone samples and plant images are on hand so you can see and touch the options rather than imagine them. Nothing is dug until the concept is agreed.

A unique landscape concept sketched on paper, with every element you discussed costed and an approximate time frame for completion. It is built for people who cannot easily picture an idea from a description: you see the garden before you spend on it, and changing it on paper costs nothing.

No. Plenty of jobs start as one feature wall, one path or one planted bed. A concept plan is useful precisely because it lets you build in stages without the second stage fighting the first.

Duncan Scott. The person who designs the garden is the person who builds it — not a salesperson, and not a subcontractor you have never met. He has been building gardens in south-east Queensland since 2000, under the one name.

Yes. Duncan holds a Queensland builder licence for structural landscaping, licence 1161156, so retaining walls, structures and the rest of the structural work are carried out as licensed work. The plant choices sit behind an Associate Applied Science in Horticulture.

Dayboro, Samford, Moreton Bay and across Brisbane's inner north — Ashgrove, Grange, Nundah and surrounds. If you are not sure whether you are in range, call 0431 024 000 and ask.