Hannah Smith: Welcome to the Studio Sessions. Today we're sitting down with Jonny to hear a little bit more about his journey since graduating from the Diploma here at Oxford College of Garden Design, what he's up to now, what he thinks about the industry and any hints and tips he has. Welcome, Jonny. Thanks for joining us.

Jonathan Hull: Hi, Hannah. Thanks for having me.

Hannah: It would be great to kick off by hearing about what you do, where you work and what your journey into garden design has been.

Jonathan: I currently work at a business in Cheshire called Walker Landscape and Design. They're split into two arms: landscape build and design, and then they also have an outdoor living product side of the business - pergolas, outdoor kitchens, furniture - everything really.

That's where I am now, but I started out on my own. After graduating, I managed to design two gardens completely, but while I was working independently I was also networking at Society of Garden Designers cluster groups.

I met Ben Walker, who owns the business, and at the time I was really eager to get some experience and get a lot of designs across the table. That was a bit of a slow trickle for me at the start, so I wanted to dive in at the deep end. That's really how it happened.

Hannah: How did you get into garden design? Were you in another career before?

Jonathan: Yes, probably like a lot of your previous students, it was a career change. I was living in London throughout my twenties, working an office job, renting and enjoying it.

Then Covid hit and everything stopped. I decided I wanted to get on the property ladder, which meant looking back towards the North West, where I grew up, and moving out of London.

I left my job and, during those in-and-out-of-lockdown times, I basically set myself up doing garden maintenance. I really enjoyed being outdoors and stepping back each day and seeing the fruits of your labour was really satisfying.

One step after another, I got drawn into the design side. I was also thinking about career longevity. I wanted to be able to do something that wasn't going to physically knacker me!

I did a little introductory course, designed my parents' garden and thought, actually, this is something I really enjoy. I did some proper research, found Oxford College of Garden Design and the fact that it was remote was key for me. There wasn't anything set up in the North West at the same level, and I genuinely needed to earn while I studied.

Hannah: It's always interesting hearing people's journeys into garden design because they vary so much. Some people know immediately that it's what they want to do, but a huge number make a career change into it.

What were you doing in London before?

Jonathan: Advertising for ITV.

Hannah: It's great hearing the variety of roles people come from. It shows that if you've got a passion for design, being outside and speaking to clients, there are lots of different routes into garden design.

Hannah: You met Ben through one of the cluster groups and started doing the designs. What kind of projects do you focus on? Is there a particular type of garden you tend to design?

Jonathan: We get the full array of customers, but there's definitely a more common type of garden that we design. "Low maintenance" is often a big buzzword, but they're generally quite contemporary gardens.

I think that suits my Oxford training really well because there's a lot of geometry, and that's what I felt most comfortable with during the course.

I'd still love to learn more about rectilinear design and delve more into that, but we do a lot of medium-to-large gardens, often using geometric shapes and contemporary, clean lines, with planting adding the interest.

Hannah: I've looked at the website and the designs are really sleek and modern, with lovely planting palettes that complement the spaces. Do you have a team of designers?

Jonathan: It's just me, but Ben, the owner, has a background in design as well.

When I first came here after the course, I actually started as a labourer to get my foot in the door. Three months later I got into the office. Initially it was very collaborative, and then slowly I moved into the position of landscape designer.

We still collaborate, which is great, but I'm left to my own devices a lot more now.

Hannah: So you actually worked as part of the build team?

Jonathan: Yes. I'd seen that Ben was doing a talk at an SGD event, so I did a bit of nosing around his business. He was recruiting at the time for a salesperson on the product side and I thought I could do that and get my foot in the door.

When I spoke to him, he'd just placed someone in that role, but he said they were always looking for people willing to get their hands dirty. Because I'd already been doing garden maintenance, I thought, why not?

It didn't take too long before I managed to get into the design side.

Hannah: Were you able to apply some of the things you'd learned on the course? We teach hard landscape construction and surveys in depth. Were you pushing a whacker around thinking, "Sub-base really is 150mm"?

Jonathan: Yes! And 150mm is quite deep when you've got a spade in your hand.

There were also long periods at a cement mixer.

The project I worked on as a labourer is actually on the website. It's a huge Cotswold stone-style house with all sorts of hard landscaping features - a ha-ha, swimming pool, retaining walls. It was really good experience, even though it required quite a lot of physical effort.

Hannah: That's a great skill to be able to apply to your design knowledge. We teach the hard landscaping side so designers understand and appreciate how things are built. We don't actually expect you to go and build them!

Hannah: Looking at designs and builds, have there been mistakes you've seen in the design process that you've had to fix? Or anything you've designed and then realised looked different in reality? We design in 2D so much of the time - how have your designs translated from paper?

Jonathan: At the start, I think a lot of my designs felt quite flat when I went out to site. I learned how important the vertical plane is.

If you're going to include something like an arch or half-arch, for example, the width of the timber or steel you use is really important.

We designed a pickleball court into a garden, which was really cool. I wanted the fencing to be interesting rather than the horrible chicken-wire-style fencing you get at the local park. I wanted to use chunky timber with planting in front of it so that it became a feature.

Initially, I'd specified the timber quite slender. When I got there and saw the timber piled up, I just thought, "No, that's not going to work at all."

Thankfully, one of our directors managed to pull a few strings, send it back and get something better.

It came at a time when I was gaining more confidence and felt I could actually say, "That's not going to work."

Hannah: That's an important skill in itself - acknowledging that something isn't right and finding a way to fix it. A lot of people might just sit there and think, "Well, that's what I specified."

Jonathan: On earlier projects there were definitely things where I stepped back afterwards and thought, "I wish I'd done this or that." I think experience finally gave me the confidence to raise it.

Hannah: Experience is key. It's also lovely that you've had the opportunity to apply that learning in quite a safe environment.

A lot of people finish the course and go straight into self-employment. You've got a team around you that supports both the design process and the build. There must be quite a high level of collaboration.

Jonathan: Absolutely. We're lucky that our process can be broken up. We can spend a lot of time on the concepts, get the customer engaged and excited, and then, before they're booked into the build, we can really get our heads together and ask, "How are we actually going to do this?"

It means you can push boundaries a bit more.

When I was on my own for those first six months, there were things I would have stewed over and worried about. Knowing there are other people around you to collaborate with is great.

Even when we're in build, you might get suggestions from the landscapers: "The plan says this, but actually, looking at it today, could we do this?"

As designers, you're always thinking about the bigger picture as well as the detail. When someone's actually installing it, they can feed that information back.

We have end-of-project reviews too, to make sure everyone's having their say.

Hannah: Communication between the landscape contractor and designer is so important because there will always be tweaks.

We can sit behind our desks, look at spot heights and decide we need a step somewhere. Then you get to site and, by the time everything has been dug out and the levels have changed, the step might only be 80mm. At that point you don't need a step - you adapt.

Jonathan: Exactly. And nothing is ever square. I've learned that too!

Hannah: I can see from the studio behind you that you collaborate with a lot of suppliers as well.

Jonathan: Yes. Here we've got outdoor kitchens and we work with a number of brands. They're all quite bespoke, which is great as a designer because it means I can still design the actual kitchen.

Hannah: Having those contacts and the freedom to design those elements is incredibly useful.

For designers starting out, you've got to find those suppliers. You might know you want a particular limestone or composite decking, for example, but you need to know who the leaders are and where to source it.

You mentioned networking through SGD cluster groups earlier. That's such an important part of the industry.

Jonathan: Completely. Especially if you're on your own.

At your local cluster group you can talk through all those day-to-day things that keep cropping up and quickly realise everyone has the same issues. Even if it's just to make you feel a bit better, it's great.

Hannah: What excites you about the garden design and landscaping industry?

Jonathan: I think it's in a really good place at the moment.

During Covid, a lot of people became interested in the spaces outside their homes, whether that's a balcony or acres of land, and I don't think that has really dropped away.

Then we get summers like this one and people are reminded of the effects of the climate on the spaces outside their houses. They become more engaged because they can't turn the hosepipe on, for example, and start asking, "What should we actually be planting?"

I think customers are more thoughtful about their gardens now.

On the build side, social media is great because there's almost an element of competition, with people showing off their best work. You can really see the craftsmanship.

As a designer, it's great having landscapers striving for the same level of quality.

Hannah: There are some amazing landscapers producing incredibly creative and beautiful work. The industry takes a lot of pride in what it does.

Jonathan: It's an incredibly skilled job. You could be paving, walling, dry-stone walling or welding steel edging. The skill set is really wide and far-reaching.

Hannah: Has technology changed the way you work as a designer over the last few years?

Jonathan: AI is a big one.

Alongside customers becoming more engaged, they're now arriving with actual images of gardens - AI-generated images - and some of them are really crazy.

My first instinct was quite defensive: "AI is coming for my job. I'm going to critique this."

But I realised they've still come to us.

Actually, it's a really good mood board. You can quickly see whether they like natural stone everywhere and a more rustic design, or whether they want something really sleek and modern.

Often the lighting in those images is really impressive, so clearly lighting is important to them. It becomes a great starting point for the design brief.

Hannah: That's a really good way of looking at it. I suppose the same could have been said about Pinterest ten years ago, when people arrived with all these images saying, "This is what I want my garden to look like."

The reality of applying that to an individual person and an individual space is very different.

Are you seeing more clients coming to you with AI imagery?

Jonathan: Definitely. For the first couple of years, nothing at all. Now it's quite regular.

We're even seeing another level where people ask AI to create almost a specification or quotation pack and send that out.

Often it doesn't actually give you what you need to provide a quote, and if they've clearly blind-copied lots of companies and said, "Here you go, fight for it," they're probably not the client for us.

We want somebody who's engaged in the process rather than it being a race to the bottom.

Hannah: Where do you think clients spend too much money?

Jonathan: The most common place is hard landscaping.

I think the instinct is often to pave larger areas than are actually needed. Duncan taught us a lot of rules of thumb around that on the course and they're so true.

A sea of paving can look very flat and uninteresting. Breaking it up with pockets of planting makes such a difference.

Another one, which is less common but can have a far bigger impact on the budget, is when people fight against the landscape.

If somebody wants a huge level lawn but lives on a hillside, you have to explain that the existing landscape can actually add a lot of interest. Levelling it can be prohibitively expensive without necessarily creating a better solution.

Hannah: That's such a key design principle: designing for the space you're in.

Where do you think clients could invest more?

Jonathan: For us, definitely planting and lighting.

Planting is often seen as something people can just do themselves afterwards - nip down to the garden centre and buy something.

But in the gardens we design there can be huge amounts of planting. It's not a case of buying your favourite plant on Sunday and popping it in on Monday. You need a proper scheme and an allocated budget to do it properly.

Planting and lighting are the difference between something looking newly finished and it feeling like a garden that's ready to be enjoyed.

They're what create the atmosphere of the garden.

Hannah: We often get opportunities after a large extension or renovation, when the landscape around the property has effectively been destroyed.

Jonathan: Yes, and the big pushback for us as a design-and-build company is: please don't just give the landscaping to your builder.

Builders are very skilled at what they do, but landscaping is a specialism in its own right.

We've been to amazing properties with great designs by skilled designers and landscape architects, but the hard landscaping has completely failed because, when it got to installation, it went to someone who wasn't up to the job.

Hannah: That's where having the technical understanding behind you matters. We joke about sub-bases, but on the Diploma we teach how things are built so that designers understand how a garden should be constructed - and can help make sure it doesn't fail.

What's your favourite project you've worked on?

Jonathan: There's one we're coming to the end of at the moment in North Wales. It's a lovely farmhouse and the surrounding landscape is beautiful, with views towards the Welsh mountains.

The clients have been really involved and engaged but they've also trusted the process and wanted our expertise.

We've got a lovely mix of gravel and natural stone paving, an aluminium pergola and outdoor kitchen, and some existing stone wall arches around a little walled garden.

It's actually quite a simple design, but going back to skilled landscapers, a simple design doesn't leave much to hide. It's coming together really nicely.

Hannah: Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to a prospective student or new garden designer, what would it be?

Jonathan: Trust your training. You do know a lot.

Duncan was really good at telling us that during the course. I remember after about Project Two he was already encouraging us that, if we saw an opportunity, we were ready for it.

If you go out on your own, it can be hard to remain confident. But when you start speaking to clients, you realise how much you actually know.

It's never a problem to go away and check something.

Also, don't see a customer's wish list as something where you have to include everything.

The reasons for not including something can be just as important as the reasons why you include something else.

And don't be upset when they then want the thing you told them not to include anyway!

I had a client who wanted a sauna in quite a small garden. I designed it in and they were horrified by how much space it took up.

But that's part of my job - to show them how much space these things actually use.

Hannah: That's excellent advice. Thank you so much for talking to us. It's been great hearing what you've been doing, what you've enjoyed and about your journey in garden design.

Jonathan: Thank you very much for having me. It's been really nice to look back at the last four or five years.