A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

s, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of

garden design Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...

and

landscape design Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and gard ...

are:

terrain Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin word ...

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

planting Sowing is the process of planting seeds. An area or object that has had seeds planted in it will be described as a sowed or sown area. Plants which are usually sown Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sown, grasses and leg ...

, constructed elements and buildings, paving, site characteristics and genius loci, and the local

climatic Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological ...

qualities.

Services

Garden designers are skilled specialists dealing with master planning of landscapes and design of gardens, consulting with advice for clients, providing direction and supervision during construction, and the management of establishment and maintenance once the garden has been created. They are able to survey the site, and prepare drawings for the development of a garden from concepts to construction, and source the plant and building materials. Historically, many gardens have been designed by talented amateurs without formal training, and many others have been designed by people whose artistic or design training was not originally focused on gardens. The complexities in contemporary environmental design issues and technology increase the scope professional garden designers fill.

Methods

A wide range of

design methods Design methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. Conventional procedures of design, such as drawing, can be reg ...

have been used by garden designers, depending partly on the historical period in which they worked and partly on the professional discipline with which they have the closest relationship. One can, for example, speak of an "architect's garden", "artist's garden" or a "plantsman's garden". Treating the subject historically, one can say that ancient gardens were likely to have been "drawn" directly on the ground, that

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

gardens were drawn on paper and that modern gardens are drawn on a computer. The design process always has an influence on the design product. There tends to be a distinction between those designers who start with the plant palette and its needs, called

; and those designers who begin with consideration of the space and place-making to create architectural spaces and circulation routes with plants and other elements, called

. Many famous gardens which contain myriad interesting plants can be incompletely planned as a whole and lack integrated composition. Also, many gardens which are well planned in overall design can lack the interests from planting detail. Some keen

gardener A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby. Description A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner supplem ...

s who are very knowledgeable about plants can be resistant to conceptualizing design. Some very competent designers and landscape architects have a meager amount of diverse

botanical Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

and

horticultural Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

knowledge and experience. A competent and talented garden designer can synthesize both needs to design and create beautiful and sustainable landscapes and gardens.

Garden design education

Historically, garden designers were trained under the apprentice system, such as André Le Nôtre with his father and

Beatrix Farrand Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand (née Jones; June 19, 1872 – February 28, 1959) was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country ho ...

with

Charles Sprague Sargent Charles Sprague Sargent (April 24, 1841 – March 22, 1927) was an American botanist. He was appointed in 1872 as the first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, and held the post until his death. He pub ...

. Specialist university-level landscape planning and garden design courses were established in the twentieth century, generally attached to departments of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, horticulture, or

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

. In the second half of the twentieth century many of these courses changed their scale of focus and their nomenclature, from

to landscape architecture. Towards the end of the twentieth century a number of BA garden design

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

were established with the emphasis more on design than horticulture. Horticultural colleges, in ornamental horticulture departments, and architecture colleges, in landscape architecture departments, continue to train contemporary garden designers.

Notable garden designers

Chris Beardshaw Christopher Paul Beardshaw (born 11 January 1969) is a British garden designer, plantsman, author, speaker and broadcaster. Background Beardshaw was formally trained in Horticulture at Pershore College, and holds a BA Hons and PGDip in Landscape ...

* Adam Frost *

Diarmuid Gavin Diarmuid Gavin (born 10 May 1964) is an Irish garden designer and television personality. He has presented gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show on nine occasions from 1995 to 2016, winning a number of medals, including gold in 2011. He has als ...

* Dominique Girard *

Geoffrey Jellicoe Sir Geoffrey Allan Jellicoe (8 October 1900 – 17 July 1996) was an English architect, town planner, landscape architect, garden designer, landscape and garden historian, lecturer and author. His strongest interest was in landscape and gard ...

* Lawrence Johnston * William Martin *

Shunmyō Masuno (born 28 February 1953) is a Japanese monk and garden designer. He is chief priest of the Sōtō Zen temple Kenkō-ji (建功寺), professor at Tama Art University, and president of a design firm that has completed numerous projects in Japan and ...

Russell Page Montague Russell Page (1 November 1906 – 4 January 1985) was a British gardener, garden designer and landscape architect. He worked in the UK, western Europe and the United States of America. Biography Montague Russell Page was born in Lin ...

* Dan Pearson * James Russell *

Diego Suarez Diego Suarez or ''Diego-Suarez'' may refer to: * Antsiranana, a city in Madagascar formerly known as Diego-Suarez * Diego Suarez (navigator) or Diogo Soares, 16th-century Portuguese navigator and explorer * Diego Suárez (soldier) (1552–1623), Sp ...

* Hirofumi Suga *

Joe Swift Joseph Samuel Swift (born 25 May 1965) is an English garden designer, journalist and television presenter. Television career Swift is a regular presenter and designer on the BBC's ''Gardeners' World'', co-presenter on the Royal Horticultural So ...

* Roger Turner * Andrew Wilson * Emma Clark

References

Additional sources