Helene Garden Design

I am a garden designer based in Watton-At-Stone, a small village in rural Hertfordshire. My journey to garden design might seem winding, but looking back, it now seems to me that it was inevitable. As with many garden lovers, there is the enduring memory of Grandmas garden, my mothers love of gardening and my own love of the outdoors and deepening of this passion through an allotment. I grew up in a remote village in Kazakstan far away from a colour TV or many of the technologies of the 70s and 80s. Surrounded by mountains and steppe my earliest memory of my love of nature is being on my own listening to the sound of a stream and being surrounded by small yellow flowers that grew on the banks. I would often find myself climbing trees and hiding under the enormous leaves in my Grandmothers garden and exploring and immersing myself in the surrounding countryside. Moving to Germany was a big shock for my nine-year-old self, there were toys that I'd never seen before, more food than I'd believed could exist, and forest, meadows, hills each a luscious new shade of green. The hills were covered in heather, the meadows with dandelions and the lakes brought a stillness with a different kind of vastness to the skies of the steppe. All too soon it was time to make a sensible decision about the future, and I became a nurse, working in Germany, Switzerland and England, but my love of nature never went away, and surrounded by the gardens of England I realised that I couldn't hide from this passion any longer. I like gardens that fit into their surroundings and which, no matter how big or small, provide an almost sacred space for people to withdraw from everyday life and renew themselves as I did all those years ago surrounded by the yellow flowers of Kazakstan. Today, I am the mother to two wonderful girls and wife to a supportive husband. I graduated (with merit) from the respected Inchbald School of Design. I am a garden designer.