Hi, I’m a British gardener, garden designer and tutor currently based in Australia. I offer personalised online gardening tuition and design services to help you solve your garden problems with creative, yet practical, nature-based solutions.

With a formal bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and a combined decade of working for a top garden design practice and then a national environmental charity, I can offer my expertise from a wide range of domestic, school and community projects.

At the start of 2024 I decided to leave London to take an extended sabbatical to the other side of the world. I have since been gardening and tutoring my way across New Zealand and Australia, deepening my practical knowledge and meeting many wonderful people along the way.

Would you like some help with your gardening skills?

I offer one-on-one online garden design and botany tuition.

With ten year’s experience as a professional landscape designer and gardener, whether you are a home gardener or landscape professional I can help!

I offer:

• Garden maintenance tuition

• Help with planting designs

• A 12 week personalised garden design course

• RHS Level 2 tutoring

• SketchUp and Vectorworks help

• General garden consultation

Drop me an email to arrange your first one hour session for free!

sophie@sthompsongardendesign.co.uk

Into client ready drawings like this?:

Most professional gardeners are experts in plants.

You work with plants every day, seeing them change and grow through the seasons. You know what works where; especially within the local climate.

But when a client asks you for suggestions for an empty border, you can be hit by a wall of frustration and embarrassment.

Sketching down a design onto a piece of paper, plants all perfectly chosen and positioned, something seems to be missing…. Your drawing might feel clunky and amateur. The handwriting isn’t good, the lines are uneven, the colours harsh. It does not do your years of expertise justice!

Looking online at professional drawings, it seems that in order to make your plans look better - client presentation worthy - you first have to purchase eye-wateringly expensive software, and then spend hours tearing your hair out, trying to learn how to use it. There has to be a better way!

I’ve been working with such landscape professionals, and have found a quick, easy solution to such a problem.

Transforming sketches like this…

Into digital drawings like this:

With them, I have created a template for drawing professional, client-ready plans using software that is easy and free!

This method is relevant and usable no matter which country or climate you work in. You can even add in your own local planting palettes to use across multiple projects.

Don’t waste time with expensive, complicated software or trawling the Internet trying to find tutorials that end up not being relevant for your work.

Contact sophie@sthompsongardendesign.co.uk to find out more. I’d love to help!