Designer, Plantswoman & Gardener
Eleanor Read MA
Founder & Leading Artist at
Beautifully Balanced Gardens
My garden designs are where a passion for natural ecology meets special plant knowledge, experience and aesthetic principles. We can live in balance with nature and our gardens are pivotal in realising this.
My designs explore and use the interconnectivity between soil health, plants and wildlife. Resourcefulness, creativity and experience can produce stunning results that sing aesthetically and nourish a garden's biodiversity. Whilst often involving the removal of less-favourable aspects and areas, my expertise is to use them more harmoniously, wasting less, optimising where possible.
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A little bit about the way I work
Knowledge
As a passionate gardener, I have been studying plants all my life. Their evolution over millennia to adapt to their individual niches, intrigues me. We humans value their beauty and tenacity to survive and, through our own ingenuity, have created a whole land of different and ever more beautiful plants for gardens and uses across the world. This appreciation, coupled with years of hands-on experience as a gardener, observing plants in different soils, their rates of growth and preferences, enables my designs to grow-on to become healthy strong gardens.
Time
Well-considered designs will take variable time to completion. Gardens are living spaces, undergoing constant exposure to the elements and are far more complex than our interiors. Each plant has its own environmental requirements and differing growth rates and habits. My job is to balance these needs whilst allowing the plants to fulfil their many roles within a garden scheme, setting the stage to enhance their ever-changing colours and textures, in the time frame preferred by my client.
Place
A sense of place gives us a feeling of belonging or home. A garden is often considered a place of sanctuary. I ask my clients how they would like to feel in their gardens - whether the garden is there to stimulate, revive, or to promote tranquility, grow food or be with friends? Often they say 'all of the above'. All these needs can be met in a single garden. Gardens should also be places to admire and encourage wildlife. Balancing these needs through good design is what I do best.
Wildlife
A garden devoid of wildlife is a dull and sombre place. The biodiversity of wildlife in our locality relies on fragile biological and environmental processes we don't see and often don't understand. It is far too easy for us to unwittingly damage these vital links, thereby threatening natural processes and populations already at risk. No matter how small your garden, consider joining the increasing number of home-owners looking to share their gardens with nature.
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