Recently someone asked me what the health and well-being benefits of a designed garden actually are. It took me a moment to articulate something I'd always taken for granted. Everyone knows gardens are good for you, right? But why?

I've had more than a few client meetings, usually towards the end of a cup of coffee, when someone says, "I just want somewhere I can sit and switch off." Not a wish-list of plants, not a pergola, not even a lawn for the dog. Just somewhere to switch off. I used to think this was a slightly evasive answer. Now I think it might be the most honest one.

The trouble is, an unplanned garden rarely delivers this. You look out the window and instead of a sanctuary you see a to-do list written in weeds. Thoughtful design is what converts a garden from a demanding domestic chore into something that actually gives something back.

The Queen Elizabeth II Garden in London’s Regents Park opened on 27 April 2026, the 100th anniversary of the late queen’s birth. The garden has been built on the site of the park’s old glasshouses. The history of the site has been preserved with one of the glasshouse ventilation towers and the concrete bases of the old glasshouses crushed and reused for pathways and mulch in the garden.

Snowdrops at Welford Park

It’s winter. I’m not a great one for curling up by the fire with a seed catalogue. They’re usually very wordy, short on pictures, with annodine sowing and cultivation notes. A book about gardens, or plants, plant hunting or gardening however, is much more cup of tea. But so much depends on the author and, naturally, the photographer.

Cyclamen hedifolium

when you come across a lawn of crocuses in their tricolour array of white, yellow and purple it can stop you in your tracks