Hi, I'm Hannah

It wasn’t until recently that I realised that gardening is in my DNA. My great grandfather was a gardener, and his son, my grandad, was a proud allotmenteer. My other grandad loved his garden too, and as a young child I remember playing on his neat lawn, flanked by perfectly tended borders. 

 

When I was a teenager revising for exams, I would always take my books out into the garden. Somehow being outside amongst the plants turned hard work into something enjoyable. Fast-forward to University, and without a garden of my own I would carry my books to the park instead, in search of a quiet spot to study under the trees. 

 

After I finished University, my husband and I, lived in a city-centre flat for a while. However I really felt the absence of a garden or nearby park and this was amplified by the uncompromising steel and concrete surrounding me. I often walked or went running along the river in search of the same sense of calm that being amongst plants and trees has always brought me. 

 

In this moment I came to the realisation of just how much I missed that splash of green in my life. We decided to look for somewhere to live with our own outdoor space, and eventually managed to buy a small cottage at the end of a bumpy dirt road. The inside was so tiny that I always had bruises on my shins from walking into the furniture but, importantly, we had a garden of our own at last. Designing a courtyard back garden with raised beds & a fountain, rotivating the front lawn for family and friends to play games on, planting, tending and nurturing the plants and being outside gave me such immeasurable joy.

 

We've moved again since then but finding a house with good-sized garden has always been the main priority for us. In the last few years we've started from scratch again after inheriting a garden filled with head-high brambles when we moved . It is gradually becoming our own little piece of paradise and I now think of our house as the bit of the garden that we sleep in. 

 

Over time I've discovered a garden means different things to different people. To my grandad, the garden was a place which allowed him to provide for his family. His joy came from serving the vegetables he’d grown on his allotment for Sunday dinner, or helping his grandchildren pick and eat damsons straight from the tree. For my other grandad, his tidy garden signalled that his home was a place that was loved and cared for, just like those within it.

 

To me, the garden is a place to find peace amid a busy life, and joy within seconds of stepping out of the back door. Even in the most difficult of times when my father was seriously ill, a tiny courtyard hospital garden became a place of enormous importance: a sanctuary away from the sterile corridors and beeping monitors; its soft, gentle embrace comforting us in the darkest of moments. Gardens are powerful like that! 

 

I share these memories with you to help explain why gardens are so important to me and why a couple of years ago I decided to take the leap from cultivating my own garden and helping friends and family, into doing a formal qualification in garden design. Throughout this learning process, my love of gardens has only grown and with it my determination to share my knowledge and enthusiasm with others. 

 

I believe that gardens have something to offer everyone, no matter how big or how small they are. For those of you lucky enough to have an outdoor space to call your own, or even a collection of plants in pots on a window-sill or balcony, embrace it, spend time in it, cherish it and you'll be amazed at how much gardens and plants can maximise the joy your life!