Meet the St Andrews gardener taking the sting out of sustainable landscaping

Job title I’m a garden designer with my own company, Greenbee Landscapes, based in Fife. We have been in business since 2004.

How did you get started? I trained as a drainage and irrigation engineer and then in sustainable garden design before starting the business.

An early project was to design a garden at Ireland’s National Exhibition Centre, which led to further work. A two-year project in Scotland made us fall in love with Fife, so we stayed.

We will design anywhere in Europe, but will only take on the construction part if the project is local –within about 40 miles of St Andrews.

Who are your clients? We try to stay away from working with businesses because what we do is creative and commercial projects can be quite clinical and regulated. So our customers are homeowners who want to extend their living environment to the outdoors.

Most are over 40 and investing in a “forever garden”. Younger couples tend to move more often and don’t typically want to spend money on their garden.

Mostly, clients have really contemplated how they can be closer to nature to enhance their whole lives. The first step is for us to take a detailed survey of the site to understand the topography, weather, soil to offer a design that is suitable for the property, the microclimate and the flora and fauna.

​How do you approach garden design? There are two sides –hard landscaping and planting. Balancing the two and getting that garden to suit the needs of the owner is our ultimate aim.

We use environmentally conscious building elements, such as natural dry-stone walls, sustainably-sourced wooden constructions, natural ponds or swimming pools and other water features, natural stone paths and patios.

All of these surrounded by planting zones that complete and bring life to the constructed elements to create a built environment that promotes the development of holistic, natural ecosystems.

We worked for a couple recently who had bought a beautiful house in Fife, with views of the Firth of Forth. But it was incredibly exposed. We changed the levels, added walls and trees for shelter, and an outdoor kitchen while retaining the view.

The kitchen is covered with a sedum grass roof, so has an ecosystem on top. There is a large pond, with plants to aerate it, and frogs have moved in already.

​Do you have favourite plants to work with? I like herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses, but there will be different interpretations of those plants in each project.

For me, winter has a specific beauty. In spring and summer you will have everything in full leaf and flower, but in winter there is a different experience of the same site.

I try to create a year-round experience where you will have explosions of life and colour through the year.

​What are the typical costs? Each garden is unique and a totally new concept. We will design gardens which start at £15,000 but, depending on the customer, we can also work with them for years and some have spent up to £250,000.

​How big is your team? Ten, including a horticulturist, two project managers, landscapers and office staff.

​How would you sum up your company ethos? Our aim is to shape nature without pretending to know better than nature itself, to do this in a sustainable way and offer wildlife a refuge.​