From Architecture to Garden Design

and What is Garden Design anyway?

The Shorter Version

Since I have stopped practicing architecture and have put both feet firmly down into the garden design world, a question I am frequently asked my clients, students and architect friends is – why the change, and why garden design?

Like most changes in life there was a gradual tendency towards it then eventually there was a trigger. The initial interest felt natural and obvious since garden design pulls together all of my interests in one. On one side there’s the architectural side, looking at spatial design and detail and using the construction skills and client management skills that I had learned through running my own small practice. On the other is the chance to bring in colour, scent and the sculptural forms of plants, to embrace the change that can happen in all of those through our seasons, and to explore the benefits to our wellbeing of that planting.

In short, I could sum up why I love garden design up in 3 words; beauty, sustainability, wellbeing. Add to this accessibility – in contrast to other arts gardening can be affordable and even when it is not, it is often accessible both physically and visually given the many wonderful public gardens we have in the UK and the huge public interest at all levels of society that exists in garden books, gardening programmes on the TV and now, an explosive level of interest on Instagram.

The Longer Version and What is Garden Design?

As I explain to architect friends that I studied with at The Mackintosh School, garden design is always for me like one of our first year projects called ‘narrative space.’ The brief then as now is to tell a story and manipulate (in the best sense) emotions through space.  Since briefs for gardens, unlike buildings, are often looser and freer, as garden designers we are setting the stage for how the occupants will move through their everyday outside. I have written on this before but, unlike buildings, gardens fully engage the senses with changing plant colour and form, tactile plants and scent. This, along with the beneficial aspects of the physical act of gardening have huge benefits for wellbeing. Gardens are also, when designed correctly, beneficial for the environment, with the right planting locking up carbon and enhancing biodiversity.

Many assume that my interest as an architect would be in landscape architecture but in fact my interest is firmly in garden design. What’s the difference you may well ask? While some projects blur the lines, landscapes on the whole are spaces without boundaries, generally spaces that you may move through, but perhaps don’t see or interact with every day. Gardens on the other hand are enclosed spaces, spaces where repeated daily life and interactions take place. They can be public or private, large or small, but the elements of enclosure and the way that the same people see and use the same space every day, are to me what makes a garden a garden. Those everyday spaces and interactions are the ones I am interested in most as they allow a garden to become a protected retreat, a space where people can truly relax, and as such have enormous benefits for wellbeing.


Forming a practice and my own garden

I formed my own architectural practice in 2007 when I had a toddler and was pregnant with my second as, at that time, part time architectural work was hard to come by. I didn’t want to give up my job (since by that time I had spent 16 years both in training and in work to get good at it!) but I also wanted to spend time with my children. And so it was that, having come from some renowned architectural practices, working on larger transport, education, office and housing projects, I decided to focus on small scale domestic work, keeping the projects small enough to handle largely on my own, or sometimes with additional work from a fantastic colleague who was also a young mum working for herself. I continued in this way, alongside refurbishing two homes of our own, for around 10 years. As part of my own home refurbishments I started tackling the gardens, with the second house specifically seeking out a larger garden that was a blank canvas so that I could make a space of my own creation. Also, at that time the garden had to accommodate two small children, our two cats, our dog, my mother in law who lived in an annexe that I designed for her next to our house, and her dog. With all that and a practice to run life was pretty full and I was often tied to the house in the way that one is with small children. I found that the garden was not just an outlet for my creativity but a place that I could unwind and take out small (or large!) frustrations.

The garden was an unloved space when we bought the house

When the kids were small the garden was transformed into a space to play with plenty of veg planters!

Domestic architecture clients start asking for advice on gardens - and the trigger

At the same time, after some years of becoming specialist in the domestic architecture field, my clients had started asking me to design the gardens that their new glassy extensions would look out onto, as invariably the garden in a domestic project gets trashed while the build occurs. I relished the thought of this and started casually looking around for training courses that would allow me to properly offer garden design as an additional service. Then came the trigger -  in late 2016 my brother died, older than me but still much too young. With a renewed sense of the brevity of life, I almost immediately signed up for an intensive Garden Design Course at The English Gardening School, my reasoning being that I could aim for a quiet 3 months in architectural practice, then get straight back into it afterwards. As it happened, the day after graduation I had an architectural project start on site.  

An architectural project that turned into a garden design project soon after graduating

The same garden during the architectural build - some vision required!

Back to the English Gardening School but this time to teach

However, not only had I found the course fascinating, but I found myself very curious about my fellow students’ designs and found myself offering small bits of advice on design as well as aspects of running a small business. I enjoyed the positive criticism at the EGS and took this style of tutoring up with me when asked to provide external reviews for final year architecture students at The Mackintosh School, where I had studied many years before. All this must have been noted by Rosemary Alexander, the course leader and founder as, before the year was out, I was asked to come in to discuss teaching on the very same course that I had just completed. I have now been teaching at the English Gardening School for 5 years and am Associate Course Director there. I immediately loved teaching (and who wouldn’t love to be based at The Chelsea Physic Garden?!),  but wanted to be teaching from a position of experience as a garden designer not just as an architect. Rapidly, the garden design side of the business began taking precedence over the architectural side.

The beautiful Chelsea Physic Garden where The English Gardening School is based

A competition win for a Public Garden

In 2021 I won an open global competition to design a public courtyard for The Amelia, a cultural institution with a library, museum and adult education centre (amongst many other things!)  in Tunbridge Wells. On the entry I proposed to work with Men’s Shed and The Monday Growing Group, who were set up to enhance the mental health of their members through gardening. These groups went on to produce the planters and some of the plants and the whole experience fed into my interests in wellbeing, storytelling through space and accessible beauty.   It also reminded me how interesting it is to work on public projects! That year I dropped architecture from my trading name completely, made a lovely new website putting together the gardens I had made to date, and now here I am.

The Amelia Courtyard in Tunbridge Wells

Collaboration with Flo Welby, plant expert

I currently collaborate with Flo Welby, who as well as being a trained garden designer, is also a gardener who maintains several of her own designs. Her many years of direct experience on (and in!) the ground,  of how planting in gardens really works,  complements my design and construction experience to offer a rounded garden design service for our clients. If you’d like to work with a garden design practice that really value the benefits gardens can bring to everyday wellbeing, sustainability and biodiversity then we’d love to hear from you!

Flo & I taking a break