Garden Design & Planning

Thoughtful garden design shaped by experience, practical knowledge, and a clear understanding of how your garden should look, feel, and evolve over time.

Thoughtful Garden Design Starts With Experience

At MNB Designs, we provide garden design and planning across Alton, Farnham, Petersfield and the surrounding Hampshire villages, shaped by more than three decades of hands-on horticultural experience. Every project begins with understanding how your space works, how you want to use it, and how it will develop over time.

Rather than applying fixed templates or generic layouts, we develop ideas that respond to your property, your lifestyle, and the practical realities of your garden. This creates spaces that feel natural, functional, and built to last.

Whether you are starting with a blank canvas or reworking an established garden, thoughtful planning ensures the final result works beautifully for years to come.

What Garden Planning Includes

Initial Consultation

We take the time to understand how you use your garden, your preferences, and what matters most to you.

Site Assessment

Every garden has unique conditions, including soil, levels, drainage, and light. These are all carefully considered.

Concept Development

Ideas evolve naturally, supported by experience, practical knowledge, and horticultural understanding.

Material & Plant Guidance

We help you select materials and planting that suit your garden and long-term maintenance.

Budget & Practical Planning

Planning helps ensure your investment is used effectively and avoids costly mistakes.

Flexible Design Approach

Gardens evolve during the process, and our approach allows ideas to develop naturally.

Planning That Goes Beyond Drawings

Many garden designs focus heavily on drawings and paperwork. While these can be useful, they are not always the most practical approach.

At MNB Designs, planning is shaped by real-world experience. Led by Christian Dupont, who brings over 30 years of horticultural and landscaping experience, our approach is grounded in practical knowledge gained from working on gardens, estates, ponds, planting schemes, and landscaping projects of all sizes.

This experience allows us to plan gardens that not only look good on paper, but also work beautifully once built and planted.

This experience-led approach is one of the key differences in how we design and plan gardens.

Designed With Real Plants and Materials

Working from Hillier Garden Centre in Liss gives us access to exceptional plants, materials, and suppliers. This allows planning decisions to be made using real products rather than catalogue selections.

Clients can view materials, explore planting options, and develop ideas in a practical and relaxed environment. This helps create gardens that feel authentic, achievable, and tailored to your space.

Garden Design & Build FAQs

Do I need a Garden Design?

You need a Plan. Perhaps not a full site survey and design but we do recommend having a plan. A working drawing, with measurements. Even if the best laid plans don’t survive the first week it's a healthy starting point. It helps to cost the project no matter the size and acts as a base line to start from. Do it right and do it once.

Is a design expensive?

A full design and site survey can be expensive, yes. So, for projects under £60-70K its probably not worth having as it can take up to 10% of your budget away that would be better spent on the actual needs of your garden.

How do we get started with a garden project?

We start with a discussion, a consultation about your project and start to determine your needs, this occurs at your property and often leads on to meeting at our base at Hillier Liss or our showroom at Coomers of Alton to look at and start to firm up details such as materials and plants. I normally ask for your wish list and then we work back from there and not forgetting that in almost every project I have ever done there is usually a discussion about washing lines or whirly gigs.

Do you handle both the design and build?

Absolutely - in fact we prefer this as it gives us total control over the project. This is not for any egotistical purposes but more for continuity throughout the project and having a complete understanding of the design and build project form the start allows us to keep on top of it from start to finish helping bring it on budget as well as being best able to handle those almost inevitable organic changes that often happen.

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