What is Successful Garden Design?

Good first question, glad you asked! It’s the place for you to get tips, advice and the support you need to create your dream garden. Don’t settle for mediocrity in your garden! If you are American, when I say garden I mean yard/landscape – I know garden just means flower border to you guys, well I mean everything!

Why? Why not! Seriously, why shouldn’t you design your own garden? It’s not secret sorcery or anything – well ok there is a little bit of secret sorcery involved but only a tiny bit and that will all be explained and demystified.

That still doesn’t explain why a professional garden designer would spill all their trade secrets and risk the wrath of fellow professionals! Good point! The thing is, there will always be people who don’t want to do it themselves and hire a professional. Then there are those people, like you, that are going to do it yourself regardless.

If you are going to do the garden yourself, then it’s important you know exactly how to do it, so you get good results and don’t waste your money. It’s you I want to help achieve the best results possible.

I’m really passionate about good garden design. I believe everyone should be able to have a great looking garden. I love helping people achieve that. I’ve worked with lots of different people and it doesn’t matter if someone is a keen plant lover or has no interest in anything other than their computer screen. The effects are always the same. A great garden brings, an often dramatic, change to people’s lives.

Don’t worry I’m not going to get all wishy washy on you. But I’ve seen, first hand, how doing something as ‘simple’ as a garden can have profound effects.  Coming home at the end of a busy or stressful workday, to a beautiful garden, does make a difference. I’ve seen it affect people that I would never have dreamed would ever find an appreciation for nature. They’ve gone from ‘just do the garden’ to a few months later raving about individual plants (even using the Latin names).

People tell me how much more relaxed they are when they get in from work as soon as they see their garden. How much time they spend with their kids pottering about in the garden and how much of a difference it’s made in their lives. Who wouldn’t want to teach people how to do that!

Rachel Mathews Successful Garden Design

Who’s behind Successful Garden Design?

A bit remiss of me, I’ve not properly introduced myself – I’m Rachel Mathews from ORIGIN garden design. I’ve been a garden designer for nearly 20 years. I’ve worked on every conceivable shape and style of garden you could ever imagine. I’ve got to the point in my career where I want to do more than just design. I want to show you, how to do, what I do.

You want more information than that?! Here’s where it gets very boring (if it hasn’t already) I grew up on my parents plant nursery, you could say that horticulture is in my blood… I helped in the family business when it went from a wholesale nursery to retail in 1989. I started out in the floristry department but despite being lucky enough to do some of my training in Holland, with a top Dutch florist, got bored pretty quickly (there are only x number of types of flower arrangement a girl can do before it gets somewhat repetitive) so moved my creative yearnings on to garden design and haven’t looked back since!

I’ve had experience running a landscaping company and have done everything from project management and quotes to hands on landscaping. In 2000 I set up my own garden design consultancy which is still going strong.

Surely no one reads this far down an About Me page?! Really! Oh you just skipped to the end – well the vaguely interesting stuff has been and gone…

Outside of work, my latest hobby is an allotment, where I grow….. wait for it – vegetables and fruit! Yes I really am that boring… Now go read the rest of the site where you can actually find something interesting to read – articles on garden design! Or if you are really smart you’ll head straight to the page where you can buy something, like a really good garden design course! Got a garden design question – send me an email and you never know, a blog post may appear as a result of your question…

And if you want information on how this site was put together and what systems I use, then visit about this site resource page