It is not an easy answer. It is really based on one thing. That is how much people value your work. It is that simple and it is that difficult.

How much you are valued is partly determined by how well you do your craft. It helps a lot if you are somehow in a position to get work built. But that is actually not the biggest factor. It is how well you are known and by whom.

People want doubts taken away when they hire a designer. If there are some doubts about the designer, it does not help. The unknown causes doubts.

There is less "unknown" when someone already you, when you have a good portfolio of built work, and when you have a great ability to listen and respond to what you hear.

There are designers who will work for free, some that work cheap, and some that make a lot of money. Nobody pays a "going rate".

Different people in the same demographic may value their landscape much differently. One of the biggest things you can do is to isolate people who value landscape design and to do that at the time that they are looking to have it done. Then you need to get them to notice you and then to sell yourself when those opportunities arise.

It is best to try to work at the highest level of the market that you can. Taking on small jobs and helping people out with low budget work gets you referals for more of the same. You are pretty much only as good as your last job. Sometimes you have to eat, though.

One way of looking at this is that everyone you work for is a client and it doesn't matter if they are a contractor or a home owner: same fixed rate. Having said that, regional differences play a big part and this is what you have to tune into. If you maintain a professional attitude throughout then you will demand the respect that feeds the dog, as the nice guy contractor will not be looking out for your interests any more than the homeowner that calls you by your first name.

Thanks a lot for the input. It helped. My meeting with the contractor went very well. He is passing business my way. My job now is to keep up as I'm only one person so now I have a new problem to tackle! He gave me an idea of what the last designer he used charged and why he doesn't use him anymore (designer decided to sell 'their' clients plants, bypassing the contractor, which made him mad since his markup on plants is huge). Anyway right now I'm kind of feeling my way client by client to determine what the market will bear and hoping to ratchet it up over time. The good thing is that this contractor is working with larger budgets, typically over $100k, so that means more interesting projects, more complex designs.