Who?

Who designs at Bespoke Gardens?

Andrew Marson M.A., dipGD

In my mid 30s, with a lifelong passion for gardens, I gave up a successful career as a conference interpreter to retrain in garden design at the Pickard School. Whilst gaining experience working for a number of years at the historic gardens of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace I set up Bespoke Gardens in central London in 2005 and have built up a successful garden design practice over the intervening years. My ongoing work at Lambeth Palace provides valuable insights into the workings and methods of a large, historic garden. This hands-on experience provides a useful counterweight to my continued reading and research into garden design, history, horticulture and all aspects of gardens and garden design.

It is the ability to pull together a diversity of artistic, technical, and even emotional influences that I believe a good garden designer must possess above all else. The garden designer’s mind must be a clearing house of data and images from history, art, architecture, building, planning, horticulture, geology, meteorology, and so on. I believe that my arts background, my extensive foreign travel, and wide reading have equipped me to design superb gardens that will give my clients years of pleasure.

For larger projects I am able to call on the expertise and assistance of a loose association of like-minded garden designers working in and around London. This flexible arrangement keeps overheads and fixed costs to a minimum whilst opening up the practice to sizeable projects. Our show garden at the 2007 Chelsea Flower Show is an example of a project where Bespoke Gardens collaborated successfully with other garden design practices. In that instance: crowe garden design and Sheila Hassock Garden Design.