I caught the gardening bug early and began designing gardens more than 35 years ago as a teenager growing up in the West Country. Word spread when I moved to the south coast and I began to design gardens for friends and neighbours in my spare time. 

The enquiries began to grow and I made the decision to make my hobby into my full time work in 2000. I wanted my business to reflect my belief that we can grow in and with our gardens. The result was ‘the growing company’.

My aims are the same as they always have been: to ensure that my garden design solutions meet my clients’ needs and take into account their gardening abilities. For me, my passion is to ‘reintroduce’ nervous / tired / time-poor clients to their gardens and show them the amazing resource they have outside their door.

Although largely self taught, I gained a City & Guilds qualification in Garden Design in 2000. I have also completed the RHS Advanced Certificate in Horticulture (Sparsholt College).

During my studies in the USA during the 1990s, I was very impressed with the way that designers and planners had understood the therapeutic effects of the garden and outdoor spaces on their clients’ health and wellbeing and had integrated good garden design into the overall home, hospital or school experience. I was determined to bring these insights into my work in the UK and I have been delighted to be involved in several leading edge therapeutic garden projects in the south in the last 15 years.

In 2009 I relocated to another part of the UK and now garden in a lovely mountainside location a few miles north of Porthmadog in Gwynedd, North Wales. For a few years now, I have responded to demand and focused on gardening work. It’s helped me to slowly get to know more about the flora and fauna, the climate and growing conditions of my new locale. Recently, I set up a design consultancy business, step change design ltd, with my colleague Debbie Carroll, to take forward our research work into why care home gardens are not more actively used. We are busy promoting a practical diagnostic tool, The Map, to help care homes engage their residents more actively and meaningfully with their gardens.