About
Hi, I’m Hetty
I’m a gardener and garden designer who left a corporate career to follow a quieter path. What began with a small patch of soil in London led me to building gardens across the city, learning from some incredible mentors, and eventually working as a garden designer with an award-winning studio.
Now I live at Knapp Woods in East Devon, where I garden, design and write Still Growing, a weekly letter about what the garden is teaching me.
01London
From city to soil
For most of my twenties, I was working in a fast-paced corporate job in London. It was the kind of career that looked right on paper, but deep down, something felt off. I found myself craving quiet, connection, a slower pace and a different kind of purpose.
In our tiny garden in Wandsworth, I started growing things, badly at first. But something clicked. I began spending more and more time outside. I started volunteering, then working at a local garden centre. I didn’t know where it was going, and I wasn’t earning much, but I felt more me than I ever had.
Eventually, I quit my job and decided to follow that quiet voice. It wasn’t easy. But I trusted that if I kept listening to myself, something meaningful would grow. And it did.
02Learning the craft
Gardening, then garden design
My first hands-on gardening job was on small residential gardens across South London. I learnt how gardens develop, how plants behave, and how much care and judgement goes into making a garden feel right.
Since then I’ve been lucky to learn from some brilliant people, and today I work as a garden designer with Butter Wakefield, one of House & Garden’s Top 50 Garden & Landscape Designers. She’s an incredible mentor, and I’m learning all the time from her and the team.
- Scott MelvilleGardener, South London. A brilliant plantsman who taught me the value of doing things properly, and with care.
- Sarah EberleSection Head Gardener, Oxfordshire. The most decorated garden designer in Chelsea Flower Show history.
- Joe PerkinsMy first taste of garden design, one day a week, with a multiple RHS Chelsea Gold Medal winner.
- Butter WakefieldGarden designer, today.
03Gardens near me
More than a tidy-up, less than a big redesign
Alongside my design work, I help private gardens across East Devon. I believe every garden has more to give. The starting point is understanding what is already special about a place, then working out what could be nurtured, changed or introduced to help it become the best version of itself.
I come and see your garden, plan the planting with you and plant it all myself, usually in about three days.
04Home
Life at Knapp Woods
In 2025, we moved to Knapp Woods, our home in East Devon, surrounded by fourteen acres of ancient woodland. We are slowly caring for the woodland and garden, restoring neglected areas, learning traditional skills and discovering what it means to become responsible for a place over time.
05Giving it away
Woods for Children Trust
“Every child should know what a wood feels like.”
Bringing an ancient wood back to life showed us how much it has to give, and that a place this special shouldn’t belong to one family. Woods for Children Trust is our answer to a simple question: what is this wood for?
A day in the wood
Day visits for schools near Knapp Woods. Children light fires, make things, help restore the wood and find out who lives there, and they’re back at school for home time. Funded places mean cost never decides who comes.
Woods to hand on
Securing ancient woods that need a long-term future, opening them to children, and restoring them slowly and carefully, so the next generation inherits woods richer than the ones we found.
“I want Nell to grow up proud that we did something to protect nature. Looking after this ancient wood is our way of making a difference.”
I’m the trust’s Designated Safeguarding Lead, and Ben leads the restoration of the wood. The model follows Farms for City Children, started by Michael and Clare Morpurgo on their Devon farm.
06Writing
Still Growing
The reflections often begin with something I have noticed at Knapp Woods: a change in the garden, a moment in the woodland, or a lesson that only becomes clear when I slow down and pay attention.
Each letter is a personal reflection on what I’m still learning, in the garden and in myself. It isn’t a guide or a how-to, but a quiet invitation to pause, put down roots and remember that we are allowed to grow slowly.
