Garden design: it's not just about the plants

Pretty flowers there may be, but making a three-dimensional space that is both practical and beautiful is about so much more, argues Amanda Patton
Gardening blog: Ian Kitson - winner of the hard Landscape, Medium
Ian Kitson's award-winning design for Follers Manor in East Sussex. Photograph: Marianne Majerus

If you were to meet a garden designer at a social function, I'd lay odds you would launch into a discussion of your gardening woes. I know we are supposedly a nation of gardeners, but would you ask an architect for bricklaying advice or an interior designer about vacuuming?

There is a public misconception about garden design that it is about gardening – it isn't. It's about design; the manipulation and organisation of three-dimensional space. Plants play a part in this of course, but so too does paving, lighting and drainage systems. So while pretty flowers may contribute in the creation of something beautiful, design involves spatial awareness, a bit of human psychology and, as Steve Jobs once said, "design is how it works".

But garden design is more complex again; it doesn't just exist in its own space but needs to make sense of the context of the space; how it relates to buildings and the wider landscape, whether that's the neighbour's dominating Leylandii hedge or a far-distant rural view.

How welcome then, that the Society of Garden Designers has launched the SGD Awards, its inaugural awards scheme to reward fine design and increase understanding of the contribution a professional garden designer can make to both public and private spaces.

At the Awards ceremony last Friday, broadcaster, garden designer and host for the evening James Alexander-Sinclair touched playfully on the rivalry between garden designers and landscape architects, saying that the difference between the two is that garden designers make places pretty while landscape designers make it easy to park your car. The reality is, of course, that there is huge overlap between both disciplines and James went on to say that it's about the creation of "better, more useful and prettier places".

Gardening blog: Dan Pearson - Grand Awaard winner at The SGD Awards
The Tokachi Millennium Forest, designed by Dan Pearson. Photograph: Syogo Iizumi

We were treated to a whole series of inspirational pictures from winners and finalists, demonstrating better, useful and beautiful places. A tiny back garden in Chelmsford designed by Patricia Fox, scooped the best small garden award for clever planting and beautifully finished hard landscaping, while the 240-hectare Tokachi Millennium Forest designed by Dan Pearson, which won the grand award, the most prestigious award of the night. Dan's vision for the project has been to engage a largely urban population with the natural environment and it was described by the judges as "extraordinarily skilful and appeared completely effortless and natural".

Gardening blog: manda Patton Planting Design Award Image
Amberd Lodge, Somerset, designed by Amanda Patton, who won the planting design award at the SGD Awards. Photograph: Amanda Patton

It's a great feeling to be judged by one's peers (and I know as I received the planting design award that night) who aren't seduced by the superficially pretty and who took the time to visit many of the shortlisted gardens and talked to the owners. This designer/client relationship is often undervalued, but is critical in making the difference between a good garden and a truly great one.

In the case of Ian Kitson, (who took the coveted judges' award in addition to the hard landscaping and best medium residential garden awards), the judges congratulated his clients in allowing him free reign to create what they described as a spectacular garden at Follers Manor in East Sussex. It was a bold and brave design, and without a good relationship with the clients, the comment "I'd like to use lots of crazy paving" might just have been the point where the client/designer relationship broke down!

As for the ceremony itself, the event was peppered with people from all sides of the profession, including designer and broadcaster Joe Swift, himself a fully registered member of the Society, and Andy Sturgeon, a fellow of the society; multinational nurseries and plant specialists, specialist stone suppliers, artists and craftsmen, teachers and students and a lot of people, like myself, who have the pleasure of being able to design a little beauty into people's lives – that, and giving them somewhere to park the car.

Amanda Patton is a Sussex-based garden designer and a member of the Society of Garden Designers