The Brian Hawtin Garden Design Studio – A Mission Statement

For a moment, forget that you’ve heard anything about garden design. Forget television, coffee table books, & your own preconceptions.

Design is about changing spaces, making space behave as you wish, altering perspective & atmosphere. Gardens are, by my definition, the space between you & the outside world, a private haven & public display. They should reflect both but provide you with the environment you desire. The garden is not an “outside room” but a space of itself with its’ own qualities & advantages – never forget that a landscape needs no building, but a building cannot exist without its’ surrounding landscape & is welded to it in the most essential way. Most garden designs are derivative & born of necessary additions that arrive with no concept or relation to space in which they exist. This need not happen. Every garden is different, & all gardens have advantages & drawbacks. The basis of any well conceived design is to minimise or negate the minuses, & enhance the bonuses. The greatest mistakes made are, almost inevitably, caused by attempting to force a feature in to a space that will not accept it