About Me

After a career in media and time spent in the South East, I returned home to Devon in 2010 with my family. Managing my own rural garden – where boundaries blur into farmland and wildlife has free rein – gave me first-hand experience of what it takes to create outdoor spaces that thrive.

My design approach is led by the character of place

The West Country landscape of wooded hills, rugged coastline, and green fields enclosed by narrow, hedged roads provides a strong visual and structural influence. These natural and agricultural patterns inform both the structure and materials of my designs.

I use locally relevant materials such as timber and natural stone, and planting schemes that include grasses, shrubs, native trees, and coastal species suited to the local conditions. This ensures each garden integrates naturally with its setting and responds to the regional climate.

My landscaping legacy

I came to garden design later in life, but the roots go back to childhood.

I can remember my dad working quietly away at his drawing board, Rotring pen in hand, indecipherable circles and lines appearing on the paper with all those obscure Latin names. I never imagined I’d be doing the same thing 50 years later.

Dad had trained at art school and spent heady days living the beatnik life before settling down with my mum, who told him, in no uncertain terms, to get a job.

And so he did, starting with the Peabody Trust in 1960s London as a gardener.

Somehow, his creative gifts found an outlet alongside the horticultural work, and using his drawing skills, he created architectural plans to convince the powers that be to rethink the tired estate landscaping.

Eyebrows were raised by the Works Department, who weren’t too sure about being told what to do by an art school chap. But the gardens were built, and eventually Dad became Head Gardener for the Trust, managing the gardens for over 50 estates which housed upwards of 23,000 people.

Time might have passed, and many of these schemes have since been upgraded or replaced, but there are still some gardens today that bear his signature. A glance at Google Earth shows the footprint of legacy layouts and trees from his plans.

Dad’s Old Spade

As a family, we left London in the 1980s to move to Devon, where Dad set up his own landscaping practice Greenmantle Landscapes, and then, after retirement, worked as a consultant on a natural filtration system, using reeds for industrial pollutants.

Now that I’m based in the West Country, I find I’m often passing one or other of his old sites. And while looking through his plans recently, I discovered designs for sites ranging from Yorkshire down to Devon, some commissioned over 60 years ago. I imagine that by now they have been upgraded, replaced, enjoyed, demolished or just been allowed to mature. It all puts a perspective on the meaning of patience.

A few years back, while helping my dad move into sheltered housing, I came across this small, worn but rather lovely spade. ‘That spade of mine’s over 50 years old!’ he claimed. Apparently, its blade used to be twice as long, like a fencepost spade. All those years of gardening have simply worn down the metal. And as I found out, it’s perfect for digging small holes for the young plants that make up a new garden.