It was a visit to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in her early thirties that set Dr Catherine MacDonald on a path to a new career as landscape designer. Specifically, it was the pizazz of the Gold-medal winning Savills Garden designed by Philip Nixon and Marcus Barnett – it was an outside gallery, with polished concrete, very clean lines and soft planting, she explains – that spurred her to leave the world of scientific research behind and find herself a garden design diploma.
Chelsea has loomed large in her life ever since. It was where she first worked alongside her now husband Mark Britton, then part of the landscape team at Landform Consultants and now managing director at The Outdoor Room. It was where in 2011, as project manager of Landform’s build team for The Australia Garden, she experienced what it felt like to be part of a garden build where everyone was valued. “There was an atmosphere of great camaraderie and everyone was treated with respect. There was also a notable lack of ego. It inspired me to try to make sure that when I designed and had a team building for me that everybody would feel part of that team.”
Catherine must surely be one of the most experienced Chelsea participants, starting as a volunteer planter, then as part of build teams, assisting designers with technical design and graduating to becoming a solo designer in 2016. Even so, she admits that she finds the months leading up to the first day of a build are “a bit challenging”.
There was an atmosphere of great camaraderie. It inspired me to try to make sure that when I designed and had a team building for me that everybody would feel part of that team
This year, the garden she is designing for family owned jewellers Boodles celebrates Historic Royal Palaces sites and features an asymmetrical pavilion, inspired by the painted ceiling in the picnic room at Queen Charlotte’s Cottage in Kew Palace. Catherine seems unruffled in the run-up to the show, knowing that she has worked closely with the same fabricators, contractors (in this case Gadd Brothers) and planting team for years. That she’s also using Gadd Brothers for the RHS Royal Legacy Garden, an RHS feature garden which she is designing in collaboration with His Majesty The King for the inaugural RHS Sandringham Flower Show in July, is also taking some of the pressure off.
Details of the design are still under wraps, but Catherine can reveal that His Majesty’s interest in patterns in nature gave her the starting point, and it was inspired by fractals and branching patterns in trees, and by the lines, visible from above, along coastlines and through marshes. She is also familiar with His Majesty’s favourite plants (which include delphiniums and roses) from time spent implementing the planting design for the new Topiary Garden at Sandringham, which was installed in 2023.
Catherine’s interest in both science and the arts emerged when she was in her teens, which has meant that she enjoys the technical side of landscape design as much as the creative side. Her degree in biological sciences led to a PhD in population genetics and a post as a molecular ecologist at Rothamsted Research, where she used DNA techniques to track the movement of beneficial insects. After her one-year diploma in garden design she joined Luciano Giubbilei’s London studio and learned from the successful Italian designer how attention to detail can be the key to creating winning designs, both in terms of show gardens (his three Chelsea show gardens for Laurent-Perrier all won Gold) and clients’ gardens. In 2010 she moved to Landform Consultants, where as principal landscape designer she was encouraged by managing director Mark Gregory to build up a design team, undertaking larger and more demanding projects.
Many designers launch their own studios shortly after gaining their qualifications. Was Catherine ever tempted to go solo? “When I got married I did think about it – Mark [Britton] is still the best site project manager I’ve ever worked with. But we both like working in a team, and Mark Gregory has given me so many opportunities. He sponsored my first show garden at RHS Hampton Court, which won Gold and best in category, and allowed me to grow the Landform design team but still use my own name.” Loyalty, respect, gratitude; these are all qualities that matter to Catherine. She regards the time she gives to mentoring RHS Young Designers and sitting on selection panels for various RHS shows as payback for all the opportunities she’s had. “There are so many great people at the RHS who’ve helped me over the years.”
You never get to do anything quite so creative as a show garden
Designing a Chelsea Flower Show garden makes big demands on your personal life, Catherine admits. She’s had no time to tend her own Surrey garden, which she re-designed with her husband during lockdown and in which she planted many of her favourite trees including the orange crab apple Malus toringo ‘Brouwers Beauty’, or to propagate the chillies she loves to grow from seed. But Chelsea remains the pinnacle of her design year. “You never get to do anything quite so creative as a show garden.”
USEFUL INFORMATION
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