Horticultural & Garden Design Across Harrogate, York and North Yorkshire

I set up Rowan Horticulture because I believe most gardens are underplanted. Not for lack of budget or ambition, but because the thinking behind the planting rarely gets the attention it deserves.

My background is in landscape architecture. I graduated with a Distinction in MA Landscape Architecture from the University of Sheffield, and have spent time since working for the National Trust and in private practice as a designer. But I have spent just as much time with my hands in the soil, and that shapes how I work.

I work with a small number of clients each year across North Yorkshire on gardens where planting leads everything else. Harrogate, Ripon, York and beyond. The projects range from full garden design to individual borders and landscape regeneration schemes.

Plants should shape and define the garden, not be a second thought. They set the mood, tone and pace. My style is soft and naturalistic, drawing from the landscapes of the UK, Europe and further afield. Lush woodland planting, elegant herbaceous borders, dry gravel gardens that thrive on nothing more than the right conditions and time.

Every project starts with understanding the site fully. What it has, what it needs, and what it could become.

Rowan