what to do before a garden coach comes

• Grab some gardening magazines and books from the library.  Gardens West is a great magazine because it features lots of Canadian prairie gardens (but also some from BC which will make you drool).  Canadian Gardening is also pretty good but very Ontario-centric ...not everything you see in it will grow here.  Fine Gardening is also very good but American so look at style but not necessarily specific plants.  If you find pictures of something you like of a garden somewhere else, you could always copy the style but substitute some of the plants for ones that grow well here.  It will help if you can show your designer some pics of things you like (and/or things you don't like).
• Watch your yard as much as you can to see which areas are sunny and which are shadey.  Full sun is considered 6 hours or more of direct sunlight.  Keep in mind the sun will get higher throughout the summer so an area that only gets 4 hours of sun now might get 6 hours of sun in the summer.
• Think honestly about how much time you want to spend maintaining your garden.  Low maintenance is not no maintenance.  There are flowers and shrubs that require little attention, and those that require lots - pruning, deadheading, staking etc.