The launch of an AI-powered garden design platform has sparked an interesting debate. If technology can generate garden layouts and plant lists in minutes, why would anyone still hire a professional garden designer?

The answer lies in what makes a truly successful garden.  Gardens are not simply collections of plants and paving. They are deeply personal spaces, shaped by people, place, memory and experience. Designing them well requires curiosity, creativity, an understanding of how landscapes evolve over time and how plants grow.

There is something particularly enjoyable about returning to a garden once it’s had time to settle; when the structure has softened, the planting has grown into itself, and the space has found its rhythm and flow.

This spring, I revisited the gardens at The Crown & Garter in Inkpen, Berkshire, a 17th-century coaching inn set within the North Wessex Downs National Landscape.  Originally redesigned in 2023, our brief was to create gardens that felt generous and unshowy, rooted in their rural surroundings and able to welcome guests comfortably throughout the year.

If you want more hellebores in your garden, low maintenance, lovely perennials which gently sing from the side-lines and from dark corners during late winter and early spring offering the prettiest of flowers, read on for ideas and suggestions.

A Garden Tour to accompany our Garden Gathering in aid of Horatio’s Garden. A wonderful opportunity to bring friends together to raise money for a great cause that nurtures the wellbeing of people after spinal injury in beautiful, vibrant sanctuaries within the heart of NHS spinal injury centres. It’s also a chance to have some fun, some tea and cakes and share how my own garden nurtures me.