Lots of people ask me how I got into garden design. This was not my original career choice, though ‘choice’ seems like an odd word to use for the random happenings in life that lead you to earn a living in a particular way.

After studying Modern Languages at University, I emerged blinking in the sunlight holding my first class degree, about to discover that there was a recession going on, and the graduate schemes which normally snap up bright young things were all cancelled or slimmed down. What use could I put my languages to? I stumbled into the travel industry, gaining experience in various sectors including airlines, cruise ships, the skiing industry, as well as managing events for a high end banqueting firm. All very hard work  and less fun than it looks from the outside, but I didn’t feel I was on a grown up career path. So I retrained in the burgeoning field of web coding and SEO, entering the dotcom sector just before the bubble burst in the year 2000. I spent over a decade and a half as an in-house marketer for various web focused companies, large and small, focusing on digital but with plenty of experience in TV advertising, print, PR and direct marketing too. It paid the bills but it didn’t set my inner core on fire.

In my late thirties I managed to buy my first house, a small period cottage in Chesham, with the added bonus of a very long cottage garden. In fact there was more garden than there was house. I used to get home from a long day in the City after an exhausting commute, drop my bag by the back door and wander up the garden, admiring buds opening into flowers, watching the frogs swim in the pond, tying in new shoots of climbers, and picking a few just-ripening vegetables or fruit for my supper. Finally, at about 9pm, as it was starting to get dark, I realised I’d better actually go inside. But I realised early on that the garden revitalised me, refreshed parts that other things didn’t reach, and connected deeply somewhere within me.

I’m not sure I even realised it was a thing. I’d thought about doing a course in floristry, but it all felt a little ephemeral. Garden design was about putting a more permanent creative mark on the earth, with a much larger palette of plants and materials and a subsequent bigger impact on people’s lives. It evolves slowly, over time, enabling you to create in four dimensions (if not five, if you include seasonality as well as long term evolution). I found myself studying and critiquing every front garden I passed on my commute. Drawing and re-drawing plans for our modest back garden space, until I finally found a version that could be approved by the client (my husband has high standards!). And then when I looked out from an upstairs window and could finally see those shapes I’d so carefully drawn and re-drawn taking shape in the real world, my heart sang. The fire was lit and nothing could put it out.

Serendipity played its part. I entered a competition on Twitter to win tickets to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – I’d never been and it seemed impossibly glamorous – a world away from my fiddling around with plants and shapes. Amazingly, I was chosen as the winner, because they could see my passion for horticulture from my profile.

That day changed my life. I was blown away by it all, and feeling inspired, went to talk to the Society of Garden Designers on their stand at Chelsea. They recommended I think seriously about doing a professional course. Happily, the London College of Garden Design had the stand opposite, and before I knew it I had arranged to visit Kew the following week and have an interview with the Diploma in Garden Design course director, Andrew Wilson. I started the course the following autumn and the rest is history. I graduated with distinction, went to work at a high end garden design practice for 3 years before focusing fully on growing Chiltern Garden Design. After years of professional practice and passing three levels of adjudication, I become a fully registered member of the SGD in 2023, and a designer member of the APL the same year.

And now, a mere 7 years after that serendipitous Twitter competition win, I’m returning to RHS Chelsea for the first time as a designer of a show garden in my own right. Find out more about The Water Saving Garden that I’ll be creating at the hallowed showground this coming May. I’ll be bringing with me all that passion for horticulture, design, and bringing joy to people through gardens, but also a passion for our local Chilterns Chalk Streams and a message of resilience, practicality and most of all hope. Wish me luck!

Hopefully you’ve read this far because you’ve found something inspirational in my story. Why not get in touch and tell me about your garden and what you’d like to achieve with it – perhaps I can help you bring those dreams to reality!