I've had two landscape architects give me estimates for design on an approx. 8000 sq city yard. This est.was for the consultations leading up to the blueprint and inc. the blueprint; no installation etc. Both came in around 5,000. I'm looking for something more informal now, like the others said, a landscape designer type with some installation and some design but not hardscape. But, if you can afford it sounds like a landscape architect may be just the person for you!For my situation it makes sense to have someone to consult on plant sites/types of plants/instalation because I have a large grassy open space with several trees. Kind of a no-brainer as far as having a baseline. But with your limitations it would be great if an architect would help you imagine the space differently and in multipe ways. Even if you can't do the work ($) all at once, you would have a vision and goal. When I received the estimate I was, as an example, looking for a 3 stage plan myself; year 1, year 2-3, year 4-5. This is common. I received estimates from these two, both established and known companies: Exteriorscapes (liked their site & checked out reviews) and Cambium. The latter is a guy I met through a friend and really liked him and the way he talked about his work, but realized only after that it's a pretty high-end firm. Rightly or wrongly, I decided that I wanted someone who works routinely with persons of my budget and my scale of job. Not one garden in the portfolio came close to showing a transformation of a middle-upper middle class home. The intention may have been to impress but it did the opposite for me; for me creativity is show me what you can do with LESS resources! Both companies have some reviews on Yelp.