I employ a brief lead, solution based design process in collaboration with my clients. Each garden is an expression of our journey, shared within that process. There are two main phases; the concept design, born of the client brief and my response to the site and later, the detailed design which is informed by the concept phase.

Gardens are places of joy and of shared experiences and making new memories which I think should be reflected in the process of making one too and so I have developed an informal style of engagment I believe enhances the experience and results.

Over the years I have discovered that allowing joy and enthusiasm into client relationships, creating connections, really fuels the best results. Gardens are deeply personal and opening that portal means my designs can best reflect them, enhancing the experience of the process and, ultimately, their new garden.

I use my expertise to help clients make good decisions and provide a fun and relaxed atmosphere while we work to allow the collective imagination to flow. Gardens can be many things but all distill down to happy spaces, it therefore seems to me the process to get there should reflect that.

My journey is best expressed through a series of encounters; John, I have to thank for my first stumbling foray into the garden world. His boundless energy and, questionable level of trust in his newbie’s ability soon had me thriving in this new environment. Moreover the relish and curiosity he imbued for how plants arranged themselves, or could be arranged to varying effects had me looking everywhere for more input like this. It wasn’t all glamour, I still had to clear lawns so the guy who mowed the lawns could mow the lawns and other task of the trade but for the first time I thought “This is for me”.

Fast forward a few years; I’m a very competent gardener and experienced landscaper with plenty of garden builds under my belt, even a few few little designs. ‘Life Begins Again’ appears on Channel 4 and introduces me to The Oxford College of Garden Design. They were running a post graduate course in residential landscape architecture on which I secured a place, following an assessment weekend with the founder and lead tutor Duncan Heather (the protogeé of the inimitable John Brookes). It was an intense and intensely enjoyable course. At the time it was classroom based which suited me well. The energy in a room is a tonic for my creativity and learning - and learn we did: design principles and styles, site analysis, pattern analysis, design through the ages, overlaid by sociopolitical events, the arts, architecture but even more than this we learned about the scope, limits and possibilities of the materials of construction in great depth. We were completely immersed in all the elements and tools of design, again I felt that joy of curiosity and again I thought ‘this is for me’.

Part of my training was, of course, plants and planting with the brilliant Chris Marchant, an absolute master of her craft. Lucky me right?! Chris was an incredible vehicle for our planting design development and for me, that further input I had been looking for. My takeaways were not just the knowledge but the intent that planting would be an equal or even priority design element in all my gardens.

Since then all my experiences and learning have come from the gardens I have designed and the journeys with clients that have shaped those designs, some of which are here for you to enjoy…

Dive into the gallery if you haven’t already; if you have and you’ve been inspired by what you have seen and heard then maybe this is for you. I’d love to hear from you and see what we can achieve together.

My Design Process
This site serves as a picture book of my work — a source of inspiration and delight. You’ll also find just enough practical information to help you understand what to expect if you’d like to work together. There’s a deeper dive into the type of design material you might receive and what it’s for, as part of your project, after the overview below.

There are two key phases in the process:

Concept Design, grown from the client brief and my creative response to that and the site.
Detailed Design, informed by the concept, shaping the practical and aesthetic elements of the garden; critical for accurate and efficient costing, building and planting of all projects.

Here’s an overview of the process in chronological order:

Site visit and garden talk

Development of the design brief

Design package & fee proposal

Concept presentation and discussion

A moment to digest it all (about a week)

Concept revisions progressing to a design master plan

Planting design & detailed design fee proposition

Delivery of all final design material

New Garden

A concept presentation typically includes a concept plan, one or more illustrations depending on the size of a project and a series of pictorial mood boards:

Concept Plan - A 2D plan view of the proposed garden concept, drawn to scale and overlaid onto a survey of the existing footprint of the garden
Illustrations - 3D views of key areas of the garden intended as a visual aid to look into the proposed spaces. Mine have a hand drawn finish, slightly abstract in that they are simplified impressions and not photorealistic
Mood Boards - collections of photo images designed to convey the mood of the material and planting palettes. It is important to note these are illustrative and not photo’s of your actual furniture or plants and trees but intentionally similar

The detailed design phase will contain some or all of the following design files. Used for accurate quantifying, costing and ultimately by the contractors on site as building or planting instructions to ensure design intentions is realised.

Setting out plans - A series of drawings with visible dimensions, alignment and location markers of structures and utilities. These ensure construction work aligns with intended design minimizing error and rework.
Construction Drawings - Macro, technical detail of specific construction elements, sometimes cross referenced to a written specification. For example the layering of materials and their depth building up to a finished surface for a paved driveway, designed to take vehicular load.
Drainage Plan - Fairly self explanatory but critical to the control of surface to underground water run-off, particularly during a extreme weather event (now increasingly common).
Planting Plan - A map of individual plants in their exact position in a planting bed. There would typically be a series of these plans so as to be at an easily readable scale for use on site by contractors. The plants are represented on plan at their mature size so we know the long term success of the numbers and arrangements has been considered in the context of the space they are allocated.
Lighting Plan - Similar to a setting out plan but specific to the lighting and will detail the position of the chosen lighting units as well as their infrastructure and power source across the garden.