If you’re going to turn out on a wintry evening, what better than a supper and talk?
The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust gave us just that. And the talk was given by Stephanie Mahon, the editor of Gardens Illustrated about their new book Gardens Illustrated: The New Beautiful: Inspiring gardens for a resilient future.
The screen was not blank – that’s the effect of photography in challenging conditions.
Being difficult, as usual, when we were invited to put questions quite early on, I asked why Stephanie thought Gardens Illustrated had gone from a magazine originally for amateur gardeners to the current focus on garden designers. See Gardens Illustrated illustrating the demise of the amateur garden maker.
Stephanie invited me to discuss the subject afterwards, which I did. But from then on it seemed impossible to ignore that each garden photograph we were shown from the new book seemed to be credited to a garden designer. (But not a photographer)
When I discussed this with Stephanie she suggested that most people who are very keen on their gardens go on to train (or retrain) as garden designers. That there are a remarkable number of people adopting garden design as a second career.
This is interesting.
At a time when we are said to be in an economic crisis is there really work for more garden designers than there were 30 years ago? Fifteen years ago Tim Richardson wrote an article about his perception that many British gardeners despised garden design – so that must have changed? (What about Americans? How do they feel?) They have gone from nowhere to become our super stars? Even maybe a necessity?
Final photograph and the photographers are credited.
So many questions arise:
Did you employ a garden designer in your own garden?
Do you wish you had or could?
Do you think you have the skills to bring your garden up to ‘designer’ standard?
Do you think your garden would be better off with a designer?
Would you like to train as a garden designer? (before you do maybe, read this?)
Are you intimidated by garden designers?
Are you a garden designer?
Is a garden made by an amateur more likely to be interesting?
Do you think garden designers should have a qualification? (A formal qualification is not necessary in the UK)
I find myself confused.
I do know that most gardens in Gardens Illustrated seem to have been professionally designed (except, curiously, a recently featured couple on the Welsh Border and then the brilliant Broadwoodside. But are those the most exciting gardens in the UK? What do people think?
Well, I went through the gardens in the new RHS garden book,
– assuming that we could accept these choices as a good selection. And I just looked at the UK, (excluding Ireland) since it was a very tedious bit of research and that reduced the numbers a bit.
I focused on gardens from the past hundred years.
The further back you go the harder it is to designate a ‘garden designer’ with any confidence, since there don’t seem to have been such qualifications then. So there are a few wobbles. Iford Manor will just squeeze in, and the owner, Harold Peto, was qualified as an architect and self taught as a garden designer. He may be considered a garden designer, though. Dixter is a muddle – Edwin Lutyens was an architect, and I’m not sure how we’d designate subsequent contributors. Would Vita Sackville West, with Harold Nicolson count? Definitely amateurs I think.
So how does it go?
There are 24 gardens I would confidently call amateur.*
And 8 I would identify as professional designer made – for example, one Dan Pearson, one Piet Oudolf, three Tom Stuart-Smith.** One of these is RHS Bridgewater – I didn’t include the other RHS gardens as they are a slight confusion, along with some others, like Broughton Grange, where a new garden has been added to an old one, or the old one much amended. So there’s some fuzzy round the edges, but it look to me as if amateur garden makers have contributed a lot more to our contemporary British gardens than garden designers.
Unless they’re hiding?? Maybe people who employ designers don’t open their gardens, except to Gardens Illustrated?
And which are all those professionally designed gardens which fill the Gardens Illustrated’s book? Alas, I cannot afford a copy plus the necessary lectern, but if you have one and know what they are, and how many are home made, please let me know?
You do know, of course, that I have skin in this game, being one of the amateur garden makers whose garden made the RHS book. Fair enough – but I do think that the very best gardens could be those made by someone who is there all year, observing, changing, enhancing, finding some money under the sofa and adding embellishing plants – and gardening. Blood, sweat and, apologies for the cliché, tears. Critiquing all the time and inviting criticism from others. Idiosyncratic and often pushing the boundaries of accepted practice and design, these should be our star gardens and we should cherish them.
All theories and objections welcome.
RHS Gardens of Britain and Ireland
*Gardens by amateur garden makers:
Breezy Knees Colin Parker and his wife, Marylen Parker,
East Ruston Alan Gray and Graham Robeson
Stockton Bury Raymond Treasure, and his partner Gordon Fenn,
Stone House Cottage Louisa and James Arbuthnott
Thenford Michael and Anne Heseltine
Bressingham Alan Bloom and his son, Adrian Bloom
Beth Chatto – Beth Chatto
Waterperry Gardens Bernard Saunders and Mary Spiller
Prospect Cottage Derek Jarman
Sissinghurst Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
Sussex Prairies (with added wild) Paul and Pauline McBride.
Knoll Gardens Neil Lucas
Garden House Lionel and Katharine Fortescue,
Wildside Keith Wiley and Ros Wiley
Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens Dr. Neil Armstrong,
Veddw House Garden Anne Wareham and Charles Hawes
Dyffryn Fernant Christina Shand and David Allum
Lip Na Cloiche C A Lucy Mackenzie
Attadale C A Ewen and his wife Nicky Macpherson
Backhouse Rossie C A Caroline Thomson
Shepherd House C A Sir Charles and Lady Ann Fraser.
Broadwoodside C A Robert and Anna Dalrymple
Glenwhans C A Tessa Knott Sinclair
(The number of pairs is interesting)
** Professionally Garden designed:
Alnwick Jacques and Peter Wirtz.
Lowther Dan Pearson
RHS Bridgewater Tom Stuart-Smith
Broughton Grange Thomas Stuart-Smith
Jellicoe Tom Stuart-Smith
Denmans Joyce Robinson and John Brookes
Hauser and Wirth Piet Oudolf
Plas Brondanw Clough Williams-Ellis
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I actually did both – I went and got a whole bunch of bushes ripped out that were invasive, in the leach field, too close to the house, mostly dead, or a combination. I went through a whole process to find a designer who wanted to work on my scale and was ecologically minded for replacing the whole area. She drew up the whole plan after lots of discussion and 2 visits, and then the guy I found to do the actual work dropped out.
So I hired a firm to rip out the bushes and I am slowly working off her suggestions by buying and planting myself. As it turns out one of the smaller bushes that was to be planted en masse to be filler for a big area was a dud (planted 2 and both died pretty much immediately) and I am having mixed success with some others that turned out to be finicky.
Meanwhile, I have been steadily working on a separate section that was specifically excluded from the professional plans because I was taking a design course and had my own ideas. It’s doing surprisingly well.
I’m learning a lot about my little microclimate and how things fit together (I don’t baby plants so they gotta survive on their own after the first summer) and I have zero interest in doing this professionally.
Yes, well, am not exactly surprised by your experience.
The person I did pay for half a day suggested lavender right under a large roof which poured every drop of rain over them. I was pretty dim not to see that that would happen – but we learn, don’t we?
Good luck with your own bit!
I’ve done both. After a lifetime of my own choices, at the pandemic I found a local garden designer who specializes in renovating suburban gardens. We settled on a plan which has been revised many times 5 years on as we discovered soil differences and encountered plant failures. What I appreciate(d) is the spatial vision and depth of plant choices. I’ve learned much which I can now apply on my own.
That sounds good. I think you’ve found someone really helpful there.
I could never afford a designer, so must muddle through on my own. Since your garden is included in the book, they should give you one!
Give me a designer?
This was an interesting read. Thank you, Anne. Your observation of more and more people needing to “consult the experts” before making a move or first check and see what everyone else is doing before deciding on anything seems to be a sign of the times and can be found in so many facets of life, from planning a children’s birthday party to determining how high to hang a piece of art above a sofa to preparing a charcuterie board. There’s an “expert” for everything these days. A “right” way to do this and to do that. To me, it’s all resulted in a boring sameness. Seems people trust themselves less and are more often looking to impress others rather than express their own creativity, not only in their gardens but elsewhere in their lives. What a pity.
Yes, someone said to me recently that things have gone that way with interiors too. A very strange thing – and sad to be reducing people’s creativity this way.
I read your rant twice because this is a subject I’ve mulled over for a long time. I’m in the US. I agree with much of what the commenter Jill (above) wrote.
I do my own garden design and judging from the quick sale of my former house (1 week until it was under contract in a slow market), people liked the backyard with a curvy brick pathway, brick patio, mature trees, antique-style fencing that I installed, a metal arbor, and a small pergola with stepping stones leading through it plus perennial flowers and grasses. It was artsy, quirky, and cozy. I created my garden for myself.
I definitely believe there are amateurs who have what it takes to create a high-end garden, while other amateurs don’t. Would I hire a designer? I don’t think I need to, but I wish I had a designer to “consult” with to vet some of my ideas. Bottom-line is I want my garden to be mine, not someone else’s interpretation of what they think I like that fits with current trends. I don’t do trends, and I’m not trying to impress anyone.
A-hem, then there is the cost: My former boss, the associate dean for a small university, hired a designer to draw up a garden plan. When the plan came in, she was pleased; however, she was shocked by the cost to implement it saying it was almost half of the value of her house. She paid for the plan, but not the implementation.
Some of the garden tours I’ve seen consisted only of gardens designed by professionals. I believe this was just advertisement for the designers to obtain new clients. (Note- I actually wrote the organizer of one such tour and said this. Never got a response.)
I appreciate your rant, Anne.
I am sure that there are lots of people who couldn’t comfortably design their own garden – though most people, perhaps, inherit one with their home.
And those who can’t aren’t necessarily those who can afford a designer and the cost of implementation.
However – I do hope that those people who want to find their own way and express themselves in their garden are not put off by the growth of professional designing. Or think that what they do will necessarily be second rate.
I just found your site this past week. Very enjoyable! I’m a new gardener, learning as much as I can. We bought our neighbors’ home three years ago. With this new project, we inherited a huge property with native Washington State woods and over an acre of cultivated yard in the middle of it. We have way too much lawn front and back with concrete curbing and native Washington basalt hardscaping surrounding the perimeter. We have pulled out ugly old shrubs that weren’t cared for many years all around the borders. Last spring we spent a small fortune and planted mixed perennias inside the hardscaping surrounding the yard.. No designer. Do I wish I’d hired someone? Yes. I should have. However, we don’t have many actual garden designers in our city. (We are directly across the state from Seattle, where I know of dozens of good designers who might give recommendations, but they are 4-5 hours away.) Tearing up the existing rock work would cost tens of thousands of dollars, easily, (maybe hundreds of thousands, considering all the fancy water features or rock work we could potentially install here). Overwhelmingly, I’m rather bound with what I have, but clueless as a designer, so I should have gotten help. It all looked so easy three years ago, but after working on it as my own full-time job the last two years, I’m very tired and glad to take a winter break for a couple months.
To answer a few of your questions, I would really like, at this point, to hire a designer. I don’t know where to turn here for a good one.
I should have hired one before I cleared out the border beds, but I thought I could handle it on my own. Trial and error might have cost me more time and money than hiring someone two years ago, but I guess we all live and learn,
I don’t think educational qualifications are necessary but I would for sure like to see someone’s portfolio of experience before I hire them, just as I would an interior designer. I value friendship, so making sure someone meshes with my general philosophy of life and gardening is probably more important to me than their education. I am a loyal client and friend, so I am careful before I hire someone, because I don’t enjoy “firing.”
Thanks for this fun blog. There aren’t enough well-written blogs any more.
Wow – you have taken something on there!
Maybe it would help to read about how I did it = https://gardenrant.com/2025/02/making-veddw-garden-a-love-story.html. I think there are about 18 posts about it so far.
It’s tough but worth the struggle.
Thank you! Your photos and posts are an inspiration.
Thank you for telling me. Happy Christmas!
Setting aside the question of a designer or not a designer, l am discontinuing my subscription to Gardens Illustrated. They have gotten so lofty, and so enamored of plants l will never be able to find, that they’ve left me behind.
You’re not alone!