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Ultimate Master Plan Questionnaire

By: Mardi Dover, CPLD

Imagine starting every landscape design client relationship with confidence, clarity, and professionalism that immediately sets you apart!  A well-designed questionnaire is more than a form — it’s a way to tell clients, “I’m listening, I care about your vision, and I have a proven process to guide you.”  
 

This questionnaire shows clients that your process is thoughtful, thorough, and centered on their unique lifestyle and goals. It reassures them that you’re not offering cookie-cutter solutions but instead designing with their story in mind. In this way, the questionnaire doesn’t just gather information — it sells your practice by positioning you as the expert who knows how to ask the right questions and deliver a personalized, meaningful design.
 

Without a well-designed questionnaire, designers risk missing details, creating confusion, and losing trust in the earliest stages. With it, you position yourself as the expert, reduce back-and-forth, and lay the foundation for smoother projects and happier clients. This template gives you a polished, customizable tool that not only gathers essential project details but also sells your practice before you even sit down at the first meeting.

This Master Plan Questionnaire will:

This Master Plan Questionnaire will:

  • Serve as a starting point for consultation and master plan creation.

  • Collect detailed homeowner and property information.

  • Reveal lifestyle preferences, personal styles, and desired garden experiences.

  • Encourage reflection and clarity of the client before initial meeting.

  • Deepen the emotional investment of the client and create excitement and anticipation about the project.  (It is the first step toward a transformation!)

  • Streamline discovery for the designer – you will walk into the initial meeting with key information about the client’s style, needs, budget, challenges, and constraints.

  • Provide documentation that reduces misunderstandings and serves as a reference.

  • Highlight opportunities for additional services, such as art installation or container design.

  • Give some personal details about the lives of clients that designers can reference.  (Clients appreciate designers who are attentive to what is important to them!)

  • Position you as a thoughtful expert.

  • Standardize best practices, elevating the professionalism of your practice.

Suggested Uses:

  • Attach the questionnaire to initial inquiry emails.  Have clients return it before the initial design meeting.

  • Provide as a fillable PDF or digital form.

  • Use responses as the backbone for proposals, design briefs, and master plan creation.

  • Keep it as a reference document.

The document has 13 pages with themed sections:

  • Homeowner & property basics.

  • Family, lifestyle, and hobbies.

  • Home history and personal style.

  • Memories, inspirations, and desired experience.

  • Design preferences (materials, forms, priorities, planting effect).

  • Existing conditions (what to keep/change).

  • Lighting, furnishings, garden usage.

  • Desired features & structures.

  • Privacy, views, and access.

  • Installation, maintenance, irrigation.

  • Site details, restrictions, and problem areas.

  • Plant preferences, budget, future plans.

  • Timelines, communication, final notes.

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This structure ensures you gather practical details + emotional drivers, making the eventual design personalized to the client and project.
 

The Master Plan Questionnaire is a marketing, design, and relationship tool that guides the whole journey from first contact to an ongoing relationship with your clients.  This is an investment that quickly pays for itself.
 

The questionnaire is offered as a link to a Canva template that is fully customizable, so you can add your own branding (colors, fonts, logo, etc.) and alter the questions so they align with your unique business model. You can set up a free Canva account, if you don't already have one. Your final questionnaire can also be converted to a fillable edition through Adobe Acrobat. 

 

This comprehensive form represents years of experience with gathering details from clients- let Mardi save you so many hours and you can use this time to create beautiful outdoor spaces for your clients (and get paid for it!)!

DIY Option:
Template + Video Guide
$350

Guided Option:
Template + Video Guide + Consultation
$600

  • Perfect for designers who want a polished intake form to plug directly into their workflow and are ready to customize it themselves

  • Master Plan Questionnaire Template (fully editable) on Canva

  • Professionally designed and ready to customize with your branding

  • Step-by-Step Video Tutorial showing you how to:

    • Customize the template with your own branding

    • Adapt the questions for your specific client process

    • Integrate it into your onboarding workflow
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Ideal for designers are ready to elevate their client process.

  • Everything in the DIY package

  • 1-Hour One-on-One Consultation with Mardi to efficiently:

    • Personalize the questionnaire for your unique business model

    • Refine language to match your voice and client base

    • Strategize how to use the questionnaire as both a design and marketing tool in your unique landscape design practice


Best for designers who want tailored, hands-on guidance for customizing their questionnaire. This one focused hour with Mardi will expedite tailoring this questionnaire to your practice and help you quickly integrate this tool into your intake process.

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