Is 'high-end' garden design heading for a fall?

The recession has forced a change of emphasis from material wealth to a much more earthy existence - gardening and landscaping is surely benefiting from its return to basics?

However, I feel the market is creating its own garden design bubble that could lead to many aspiring garden designers becoming disillusioned and falling out of love with gardening and landscaping - not to mention financial loss and the prospect of a saturated supply chain and a lack of willing buyers of their work.

The danger appears to be coming from the hard-sell of the high-end garden design package and not enough emphasis on delivering usable, sustainable, conservative and workable garden schemes.

From a positive perspective, the middle tier of garden design is expanding rapidly, as once high earning and high net-worth individuals, who might have spent lavishly on designs that meant more to them because who they were designed by, are now taking a much more humble and conservative approach to their new life.

There is now, it seems, not the demand for extravagant 'arty' schemes yet there is still the desire to talk-up garden design as though it's still the heady boom of yesterday.
The consequence for the market is that students, who were seduced by the prospect of fame and fortune at the high-end, are not filling the drawing board and are having to seek work in that already over-populated middle-tier.

A class divide exists between the garden design and landscaping world. Garden designers see the landscaper as a necessary evil but if truth be told, many garden designers see themselves as being in a different professional and social league - I also think it is difficult for many who hold an interest, to comment on the relationship between garden design and landscaping.

Television is part of the problem and so too is the 'show garden' mentality indoctrinated at design school level; the problem is sure to come to a head unless we start to explore the middle ground more and push gardens (and their designs) as a 'connection broker' between their owner, the owner's life and the space around them and not some kind of status symbol for home-owner that is pumped up by the garden designer.

What's your view....has garden design changed dramatically in the last two years? Do garden designers see themselves as a special breed and is there a lack of connection between the garden design world, their clients and landscapers?

Comments

[Pip Howard]

I strongly believe that this is one of the biggest problems with the UK landscape industry. The marrying of a landscaper and a garden designer (often literally with husband and wife teams across the UK) is the ideal for potential clients. The garden design course in Falmouth has virtually no horticultural remit at all and this is true of other HE establishments also - therefore for the more recent out take it is vital for the garden designer to link in with a landscaper or plantsman.

I feel the other culprits are the organisations / quangos and businesses out there who tend to avoid the broader spectrum, as is true of much of the UK science based industries, (including nature conservation).This is the result of policies of the UK higher education system which makes its students focus in on one tiny element. When transported into the wider world this only creates a blinkered approach in all sectors.

[trevor]

this may or may not be the best place on this site for my questionso my appologies if not im rather new to this site. im in the proces of being made redundent and looking at this as an oppertunity to retrain to do something more me. i am really taken with the idea of a course in landscape\garden designe but am really unsure if there is any work out there once I've finished, I'm in the cambridge\newmarket area if that has any bearing can anyone give me some advice

[Steve]

Selling plants to well over a thousand Designers and Landscapers over the last 30 years, I can only say as I have seen.

Designers come in, with very fixed plant lists, mostly Herbaceous. Their plant knowledge is normally limited to the plants on their lists, and appear happy to trawl, several and many Nurseries to find the exact plant. So frilly, Herbaceous Gardens with no structure.

Landscapers usually come in with a fixed budget, looking for a certain quantity of plants to fit their budget, and buy mostly Shrubs. So a Shrub garden, with no Herbaceous colour.

What I like are those that can cross over and give their clients both a structured and colourful garden. Those Designers and Landscapers appear to us to be the ones doing the top end gardens.

Perhaps more importantly, it is those with real work experience, that have clients come to them or referred to them due to their high standards and knowledge.

From experience, I would suggest only 30-40% of both Designers and Landscapers have good, rounded plant knowledge, and that could be their downfall.

[Gaynor Witchard]

An interesting perspective...I am a gardener and designer. My first interest is in horticulture - design came later when I decided to build a show garden in Cardiff purely for business purposes. I think show gardens have a place in design as, for me anyway, it's an opportunity to showcase my ideas and skills, and etwork with other designes and landscapers you would not meet in the normal course of work. So far I've won silver, silver gilt and 'Best in Show' at Cardiff which has led to a number of commissions. I build show gardens that potential clients could actually have in their own space...I see no point in showing something that is unattainable, unworkable or unaffordable - that's not my style and I don't intend to change it. I would probably be too boring for Chelsea or any of the other big RHS shows.

I take pride in the fact that I can advise clients properly on planting schemes and plant care. Right plant, right place, is my philosophy.

I don't see myself as 'special' - I rely on my landscaper and he relies on me to get it right. We respect each other's skills. Our clients are the priority and we work together to achieve the client's wishes and finish to a very high standard.

Has design changed in the last two years? That's a difficult one to answer because design is constantly changing - like fashion I suppose. Although I don't subscribe to what's 'on trend' unless it's workable.