The dirty secret of MOST gardeners/landscapers/designers. MOST GROSSLY over plant & buy far larger size plants💰than necessary. Plants compete for limited nutrients & require MORE maintenance to prune constantly.😒🌱And every designer coming out of landscape degrees does this, so they’re teaching it!

Will not garden for folks like that for the reasons you've outlined: it's too much work and often, the plants are pulled when they're sickly/unruly/client dissatisfied. But those people are accustomed to paying x3 for consistent, impatient beauty... let them pay somebody else.

It’s often in building codes too and spec’d in drawings required to get a permit. The larger the plant can get the worse they shove them together or places that aren’t big enough at all.