Hannah: Welcome, Luke. Thank you so much for joining us.

Luke is here from The Landscape Service, and we're doing our first casual Studio Session where we ask alumni of the course what they've been up to since graduating and whether they have any advice for garden designers.

So, tell me a little bit about The Landscape Service and what you do.

Luke: We're a landscape and garden design practice based on the South Coast and operate across the South. We work on residential and commercial projects. We basically say that anything outside that can be designed is within our remit. We don't really have a niche.

We're going into our tenth year now, so that's a big milestone for us. We're a team of three and we're pretty much fixed on our company set-up, where we're going and what we're looking to achieve. It's been a bit of a blast from setting up to where we are now.

Hannah: It sounds like you've done really well. You're in a beautiful office and I see your work on social media. You get to showcase some amazing projects. Is that something you're focusing on at the moment?

Luke: Yes. At the beginning of this year we've made a more concerted effort to show the amount of work that we do.

We're very fortunate to have quite a big portfolio across different sectors, working with different professionals on different sites, but we don't always get the chance to show it.

I think most people watching this can relate to concentrating on the company and the business so much that you forget to share and shout about it.

My role over the next few months is trying to work more on the business rather than in it.

Hannah: You've done an amazing job growing the company over those ten years. Did you always have the ambition to grow into a studio with more designers?

Luke: I think so. That was always my aim when it became practically achievable.

I didn't want to jump straight into having a studio. I wanted to build it gradually so that it was sustainable, both practically with the amount of work we had and financially.

The main piece of advice I would probably give myself would have been to employ someone earlier.

I perhaps overstretched myself because I wanted to make absolutely sure it was possible before doing it. Having a small studio definitely benefits us.

James and Jordan have both been working with me for quite a few years now. We've got a really good team and a really good dynamic.

Hannah: That's interesting because anyone starting their own business can be quite precious about it. There's a feeling of, "I need to know about everything." Branching out, delegating and giving someone else that trust is actually a massive step.

Luke: Yes. You're always going to be precious about the business, particularly from a legal perspective, but being able to hand something over and say, "This is your job. Over to you," is probably the biggest thing I've learned.

You can't do and manage everything with the number of projects that we have. You can't micromanage everything.

As we go into our tenth year, I'm also trying to put a little less pressure on myself, have some time off and not worry so much. I'm very lucky with the team we have.

Hannah: Do you still design yourself?

Luke: I do.

At any one time we try to give everyone a mixture of projects. If I've got a creative project, we'll try to make sure somebody else has one too. The same applies to commercial work.

I always retain a connection to the design process and we talk to each other, but it's very much a shared experience.

I don't take all the nice jobs and give somebody else the horrible bits!

The guys also go to new enquiries themselves. Part of the reason for calling the company The Landscape Service was that I wanted multiple people within it, rather than everybody always coming to me, particularly as we grow.

Hannah: Let's go back in time. When did you study the Diploma?

Luke: It must have been around 2012 or 2013.

Before that I worked in landscape maintenance and construction. After leaving college I did a landscape construction apprenticeship, built gardens and maintained them for a few years.

Then I decided I wanted to be on the design side.

I did quite a lot of due diligence and looked at a lot of courses. Oxford really stood out to me because of the in-depth nature of the course from a creative, practical and business point of view.

Everything merged together.

I always knew I wanted to work for myself, so having that insight was one of the main things that drew me to the course. It was really beneficial.

I've still got all the design notes and course materials and I still refer to them now. We've got them on our server and I share them with the guys. They're still a really good design resource all these years later.

Hannah: That's amazing. We're really passionate about teaching not only creativity and design but construction too, so designers understand how their gardens actually get built, and then how to become successful professionally.

Luke: I think it's really important.

Coming from a construction background, learning how to design was quite a challenge. The design process and everything you learn during the design modules is vital, and the design principles take time to understand.

Construction was something I already understood quite well, including how thorough and detailed it has to be, and the depth of knowledge we got from Oxford was amazing.

Then the business practice backed that up: What could go wrong? Have you done this correctly? Have you done that correctly?

The way scenarios were portrayed in the training was really important. You'd put a real client into the picture and ask, "If that goes wrong, what are you going to do?"

Those questions do happen in professional practice. A client will ask why something works in a particular way, why something hasn't worked, whether something was included or why it wasn't included.

You're learning the questions you're going to be asked before they happen.

Hannah: And that helps you come across as credible and trustworthy in front of your client because you've covered all the bases.

Luke: It's a big learning curve.

In many industries people get their degree and then become employed, whereas quite a lot of garden designers go straight from a course into working for themselves.

That's a really big learning curve. It was for me and it still is, because we never stop learning.

We're always looking at how we can develop what we do, refine it and make it better, quicker and easier to understand.

Some days it feels like every day is a college day because we never stop generating ideas.

Hannah: Every client is different. I'm sure you've got favourite projects and not-so-favourite projects. Are there any standouts?

Luke: We've been very fortunate to have some amazing clients over the years.

We work with property developers, architects, private clients, interior designers and people across related fields, and we receive recommendations through those relationships.

We've got a big project in Poole at the moment which has probably been going for a few years, and another two or three projects of a similar scale throughout the New Forest.

We're sharing those more on social media and trying to create project diaries that capture the process behind the scenes.

Hannah: Dare I ask about projects that haven't gone well? Any lessons?

Luke: One thing we're doing this year is learning to say no.

If a project isn't right for us, for whatever reason, then it's not right for us.

You can get a new enquiry for an amazing site with potentially a big budget and think it's going to be fantastic. But if the client isn't right to work with, it can spoil everything.

If you've got a gut feeling, just say no.

Being transparent is important too. Some clients might ask, "Can we do this for this amount of money?" and in the back of your head you're thinking, "No, that's impossible."

Don't go along with the client simply to get the design job, because when the project comes back at a higher price later, you've created another problem.

Don't be afraid to turn down a client.

A prospective client may speak to two or three designers and choose somebody else. That's not a problem. They may simply get a better feeling from someone else.

It works the other way too. As a designer, you need to make sure the client is the right fit for you.

Hannah: Ultimately, you want to be happy in your work. That means working with nice people, good contractors, architects and interior designers and building a team around you that you enjoy working with.

But it's interesting that you're saying some of those tensions can come from budgets and costs. People have a tendency to avoid talking about money, and this isn't really an industry where we can do that.

Luke: No. We always ask about budget upfront.

Ideally, we want to understand what they're comfortable investing in the garden.

For every new enquiry we send a fact sheet, almost like a Q&A. They fill in their details, what they're looking to achieve and their potential budget.

If they've got a big site and have just built a house, you might assume there's a budget available to achieve what they want.

But if they come back and say they only have £10,000 or £20,000, it's the designer's responsibility to tell them if what they're asking for isn't achievable.

You shouldn't just price the design and think, "We'll figure that out later."

Educating the client is probably one of the biggest parts of the whole design process.

Hannah: Do you find clients are surprised by how much gardens can actually cost?

Luke: Yes, of course.

We try to give them broad costs per square metre initially.

There are certain things that aren't really variables. If you need retaining walls, steps, a new driveway or a new terrace, those things cost what they cost, roughly speaking, with some variation depending on the finish and materials.

It's about educating the client, advising them where their money is best spent and explaining how far their budget could potentially go.

We've had several enquiries recently where people have come back with a budget and we've had to advise them that what they're trying to achieve simply isn't possible for that amount.

We can't ethically sell them a design for something they can't afford to build.

Everybody has had a garden priced and had it come back more expensive than expected, including us.

Hannah: It's about being open with the client. Corten steel versus mild steel versus a brick wall can make a big difference, and materials influence the price. But the second you're introducing construction and labour, costs inevitably increase.

Luke: And budget can limit creativity too.

There's a fine balance between producing something highly creative and unique and recognising that there is a cost attached to it.

You've got creativity at one end and budget at the other, and the design has to work somewhere between the two.

For us, the creative process and the detailed process start at roughly the same time.

We'll generally put some rough figures against elements during the design stage. Then we can address those when we're presenting the design, rather than producing something highly creative and subsequently telling the client that a large section has to be removed because they can't afford it.

Hannah: If you had one piece of advice for a prospective student or somebody who's just qualified as a garden designer, what would it be?

Luke: Get some experience on site.

Work alongside somebody who's building gardens, shadow someone, or spend some time working for a design company and see how professional practice and the day-to-day running of a company actually work.

From the business side, I'd also say speak to somebody you know who runs a business. Ask the basic questions: when do I have to pay that bill? How do I pay corporation tax? All those little things you otherwise figure out later.

From a creative point of view, just practise.

Design your own garden hypothetically. Design your parents' garden. Give yourself a fictional brief and produce something.

Then try to get proper feedback on it. It's really good training.

And price it as well.

If you go straight from a course into working for yourself, a lot of what you learn will inevitably happen as you're doing it.

If you work for an established company, you'll get to see those things happening around you. You may then decide that you don't actually want to work for yourself.

Ultimately, it comes down to the individual.

Hannah: Some people are very motivated to work for themselves. Other people prefer working for a company.

It's good to know there are studios like yours where designers can work as part of a team. You don't have to become a solo garden designer.

Luke: Exactly.

When we get design projects, James or Jordan might go out to the initial enquiry, do the design and work directly with the client. The client may only know them.

They have the autonomy to work as they might independently, with ownership of their design, and it also takes some of the pressure off me.

It's important to share the creativity and share the projects, rather than keeping everything for myself.

Hannah: Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time and for joining us for our first Studio Session.

Luke: Thanks very much.