About me

I’m Duncan and I’m a professional garden designer, based near Builth Wells in mid-Wales, where I’m creating my own garden on a seven acre plot. I provide bespoke garden design services all over the UK, but if you’re more than a two hour drive from my home base, I will need to ask you to cover travel costs if I come to visit you.

I firmly believe that good design is in the details; but excessive detail does not necessarily lead to good design. The difference is in understanding how each design decision contributes to a better outcome for my client, whether functionally, aesthetically, or financially.

My garden design service is fully bespoke. I will never try to retrofit a particular style or an off-the-shelf design to your needs. You are unique, and if I design your garden, it will be unique to you. To achieve this, I follow a robust design process, based on building a deep understanding of you and your aspirations for your garden.

I prefer to work on large gardens, at least half an acre in size, and where possible, two or more acres. If your garden is smaller, or if you aren’t yet sure if you want to go down the route of a professionally designed garden, I can offer personal design advice, either online or in person.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. You may also find answers on my FAQ page, or if you want to know more about me and why you should choose me as your professional garden designer, in the Q&A below.

  • I came to professional garden design as a second career, after more than twenty years as an international banker with HSBC.

    When I left university, I originally intended to become an academic mathematician, and started a PhD at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Quickly realising that this wasn’t for me, I left after only six months, returning to the UK and studying for a Masters degree in Operational Research (now called Data Science), where amongst other things, I built a machine learning algorithm in Excel.

    I joined HSBC right after my MSc, and spent 22 years moving country every few years, taking on progressively more senior roles in a variety of different business lines and functions. I’ve moved countries eleven times, living in six in total, and working with over fifty.

    I left HSBC in 2020, and wrote a bestselling book on the role of banks in the economy, before taking the decision to change direction and follow a different passion for a second career.

  • When I left HSBC, it took me some time to work out what I wanted to do next. I experimented with a wide variety of different options, many of them related to banking and financial services, before realising that in writing my book, I had closed a chapter of my life, and wanted to do something new.

    For my second career, I wanted to do something based around my personal interests, something that gave me the chance to be creative, and something that could stimulate me intellectually. After leaving HSBC, I had taken a real interest in gardening, and being an unapologetic nerd, had dug deep into horticulture, botany, plant physiology, soil science…

    Attending a horticultural careers fair, I met a leading planting designer, who suggested I look into garden design. I enrolled at the London College of Garden Design, graduating with a Distinction in the Garden Design Diploma, and rapidly took on my first client.

    Garden design gives me the chance to create lasting, beautiful, living spaces that improve the lives of my clients; whilst allowing me to continue learning more about a huge range of related topics. I love it, and I’m delighted that I get to share my passion for gardens with the wonderful people who ask me to be their professional garden designer.

  • Answer coming soon

  • Answer coming soon