Artistic biodiversity. Wildlife garden design for wild hearts
RHS Chelsea Flower Show award-winning garden designer in Forest Hill, South East London, making romantic, personal and sustainable gardens
Across London, Bromley and South Wales.
I believe in more life in gardens. More wildlife, more meaning, more evenings outside with the people you love, more of the story of you in your garden.
My gardens are romantic, wild, reclaimed and richly textured. Layered planting comes alive with moths, bats and birds at dusk. Old logs, left leaves, ponds and found stone become habitat. Art and storytelling give each of my garden designs a sense of place and style that is entirely yours.
Your garden becomes a personal place that is so very you. A place to gather friends in, for children to discover the natural world, and for you to stand barefoot on the earth at the end of a long day.
We’ll have a consultation, where I want to hear all about your offline influences - your favourite films, food, places, people. I’ll guide you through every step with my artistic biodiversity process, and introduce you to everyone who will help bring your garden to life from art to build and ongoing gardening.
“I was initially skeptical whether I needed someone to design for me. After the first discovery call, I quickly realised that I did.”
Gary Wares
Chelsea’s first bat garden, voted the People’s Choice
My Nocturnal Garden for the Bat Conservation Trust was the first bat garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Visitors voted it their favourite All About Plants garden in 2026, and the RHS judges awarded it a silver medal. It brought artistic biodiversity home with plants and habitat for bats, and with storytelling and art you can recreate in your own garden.
The story of you, in your garden
Before I designed gardens, I spent two decades as a journalist and editor, finding the story in everything. Now I find yours: the places, people, films and food that shape who you are, told through planting, materials and art. For larger projects, I commission artists and storytellers to bring that story to life.
Sustainable garden design
starts like this
Design consultations are £185 and full garden designs start from £3,750, including VAT. I share guide prices on our first call, so there are no surprises.
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A free, friendly 15-minute call about your garden and what you’d love it to become.
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A listening brief and site visit, so your design is shaped around you and your land.
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Concept designs and renders, so you can see your garden before anything is built.
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I manage the tender, oversee the build and source your plants, so it all matches the vision.
“…how clear and structured the process was. She gave very definite instructions around what she needed from me and when, and what she would deliver with a clear timeframe.”
Emma HainesFor the soulful and artful ones
Family and entertaining gardens in London and Bromley
Personal gardens to host in, play in and share, full of life and completely, uniquely, yours.
Larger gardens and estates in South Wales
Coastal, urban and woodland gardens, with habitat from city to landscape scale, for the people and wildlife who share your land.
For architects, developers, landscape studios, schools and charities
Plug-in planting and habitat design that gives your schemes soul and goes beyond BNG box-ticking.
Planting and habitat design for wildlife and wild hearts
The Climate-forward Garden
Hampton Court
The Entertainer’s Garden
Harrow on the Hill
The Family Garden
Sydenham
The Angles Garden
Beckenham
“Mel listened to the vague hand-waving about what we wanted and produced a design that was surprising, functional, stylish… we have re-discovered the outdoor space out the back is a place for us to play, cook, relax and eat as a family.”
Honor Oak Park
Your wild life starts here
Find out how your garden can be transformed with a friendly, free 15-minute call.