I like to design gardens that will incorporate all of the above but also to connect the client on a deeper level with the garden where they will feel energised by fresh Spring planting or cooled by a seat under a tree or arbor. I really want clients to connect with nature with all the beauty that it brings. I often feel many modern gardens are quite sterile, without any consideration of the complexities of nature, to me they seem too sharp and clinical and everything in its place.  Like us, nature doesn’t want to do this, to be clipped and ordered, it wants to grow, sprawl and thrive. If a garden is over designed there is no room for this and even though they can be pleasing to the eye on Instagram I feel they can be soulless.

For me a revelation was Mary Reynolds, an Irish Garden designer, who won a Gold Medal at RHS Chelsea flower show in 2002. She designed a garden with Druid stones, a fire bowl and with 500 native Irish plants. It was simply stunning and so different from all the other gardens. It connected me to childhood memories of running through fields, cycling in summer with bountiful hedgerows. It was simply alive. Mary has gone on to write books on ’awakening’ the garden and is an inspiration for ‘natural’ garden designers.

Gardens like these that touch our souls deeply, are ones that well help us relax, then heal.

The added element I can bring to a garden design is to assess the garden  energetically and help restore any unbalanced energies that might be present. With the use of standing stones, crystals and correctly placed trees, shrubs and plants, this positive energy can then be fixed for you to heal and enjoy for many years to come.