A small practice, by design — but no two gardens arrive at our door the same way. Most begin as full installations. Some need only a focused plan and a labelled overlay. Others are simply asking to be brought back. Below, what each path looks like in practice.
A new installation is a ground-up commission — the full design, the full plant list, the full execution, all of it carried by us. We are landscape designers who plant; we are not contractors who sub the work out. The same hands draw the plan and put the plants in the ground.
I come to you. We walk the property end to end, and I take notes — light readings, current soil conditions, drainage patterns, sight lines from inside the house, the corner where the dog actually lies down. We talk about what you love, what you avoid, and how you really use the space rather than how you imagine you do.
You're under no obligation after the walk. If we're a fit, we move to the drawing.
Often, prospective clients come to my own gardens first. It's a chance to see many of the plants I'll suggest in their mature form — how they hold themselves through the season, what they look like next to one another — before any decision is made.
Two to three weeks after the walk, you'll receive my initial design ideas. Inside: a planting plan keyed to a full plant list, a material and palette page with photographs, and a fixed-scope estimate. No surprises later.
We sit down together and walk through it. You react, we revise. Once the plan is yours, a deposit secures the install window.
We arrive with the crew and the plants. No skid-steers, no excavators — every shrub and perennial goes in by hand. The lawn stays where it is. Materials are staged tidily. The site is left clean at the end of every day.
I'm on site every working day, the first one and the last. If something on the plan isn't quite right once it's in the ground, we adjust it then and there.
Every install closes with a written aftercare protocol — what to water, when, how much, when to prune, when to leave alone. I am always available to answer questions.
Many clients then move onto an optional seasonal maintenance programme. The garden stays close to the original plan, year over year, because the same person who designed it is the one keeping it true.



Not every property needs a full installation. Sometimes what's wanted is a clear plan for a focused area — the front bed, the side strip, the corner around the patio — and the freedom to install it on your own timeline.
Express Designs are built around a simple exchange. You send photos of the area you'd like to address. Donna draws a planting plan directly over your photo, every plant placed and labelled, and returns it to you with a full plant key. From there, you can install it yourself, take it to a nursery, or commission us to plant it for you.
Quicker than a full design engagement. More bespoke than anything you'd find on a Pinterest board. And the start, often, of a longer conversation.
We'll send a short shot list — the area straight on, from each side, plus a wide of the surroundings. A few measurements help; rough is fine. No drone, no expertise required.
Every plant placed and labelled by letter. A separate key lists each one — common name, Latin name, mature size, what it does in winter. Drawn by hand, by me.
Yours to install on your own, take to a trusted nursery, or hand back to us if you'd like us to plant it. The plan is yours either way.
An Express Design overlay, returned to a client. Six plants placed and labelled A through F, each named on the accompanying key. Installed by the homeowner over a long weekend.
An overgrown garden is rarely a garden in the wrong place. It's usually a garden that's stopped being read — plants that have eaten each other, edges that have softened into lawn, mulch gone grey, a rhythm lost.
Rejuvenation is the work of putting it back in focus. We edit what's there, keep what's working, add what's missing, and finish with new plantings, fresh mulch, and clean defined edges. You hand us a property; you receive a garden.
A front walk lost under twenty years of well-meaning planting. We removed two-thirds of what was there, kept the mature anchor, and replanted with a tighter palette — restoring the line of approach to the door.
A front bed that had narrowed, over the years, to a single mass of bearded iris. We kept the mature tree as the anchor, edited out the monoculture, and rebuilt with mixed shrubs, layered perennials, and a clean curved edge in white river rock. A garden where there had only been a patch.
A side-yard border that had become a hedge by accident. We re-established the line of perennials, reintroduced seasonal interest, and restored the breathing room the garden was originally drawn for.
I answer every enquiry myself, usually inside two working days. No form-routing, no assistant — just a note from me. Tell me about your property and what you're imagining; I'll come back with thoughts and what a first walk would look like.
— Donna