Duncan Heather

Duncan Heather is the founder and Principal of the Oxford College of Garden Design, and one of Europe's most respected garden and landscape designers.

Over the course of his career, his design work has won five gold medals, one silver and one bronze, alongside three Best in Show awards. 

Trained by John Brookes

Duncan trained under John Brookes - the designer widely credited with popularising the idea of a garden as an outside room, an extension of the home - working as his design assistant for several years. In 1991, Brookes offered Duncan a directorship in his practice. Duncan turned it down, choosing instead to build his own design practice in Henley-on-Thames, taking on projects from small courtyard gardens to large country estates around the world.

Why He Started Teaching 

After leaving John Brookes’s practice to focus on his own design business, Duncan was invited to teach at several London garden design schools. While teaching at the English Gardening School, he became increasingly aware of the gap between the courses available and the knowledge students actually needed to build a professional career.

Many courses were aimed at people who wanted to design their own gardens. Duncan wanted to create something different: rigorous professional training shaped around the realities of the industry.

That became the foundation of the Oxford College of Garden Design - a course designed not simply to teach garden design, but to prepare students to work confidently and professionally as designers.

Shaping the Profession

From 2004 to 2007, Duncan sat on the council of the Society of Garden Designers (now SGLD), where he created the industry's first standard fee scale and its first standard contract - two things most working designers now take for granted, but that didn't exist in any formal way before. He's co-author of The Heather Specification, a documentation widely used by professional garden designers throughout the industry.

Learn with Duncan

Interested in studying the John Brookes design methodology with Duncan and the teaching team? 

Join an upcoming Live Q&A or arrange a meeting to discover how the Diploma could help you build a career in professional garden design.