When you first meet me, I’ll listen to what you are looking for and will give you ideas straight away to start creating a design. I’ll make sure that I explain my service, fees and timescales with you and discuss elements such as terraces and patios, fencing and walls, storage and key features as well as plants and trees with year round interest. And when it’s all installed and planted I can support you with simple low maintenance plans and instructions so that you’ll be able to look after your new garden easily by yourself or with the help of gardeners I recommend.

Visit my portfolio to see some of the gardens I’ve created, including modern country gardens, traditional and contemporary town gardens, roof gardens and kitchen gardens throughout the UK.

My award winning service will give you the peace of mind that you have created a truly great garden.

My background and experience

After a degree in Italian at University College London, Jo Thompson trained as a primary school teacher and spent 5 years teaching in London, before re-training in garden design at the English Gardening School. Since then she has been working on projects throughout the Southeast. Her first project, the development of a Docklands roof terrace was featured in the 2006 Garden Design Journal Review and in The Independent: since then her work has been featured in a variety of publications.

Jo has developed a unique style, blending strong lines with soft planting. Born of Italian descent, her earliest memories feature holidays spent in the Mediterranean hills. "I was inspired by the Italian gardens," she recalls. "There aren't many flowers, but it's the villas, the architecture and the bold directional lines."

As the designer for horticultural therapy charity Thrive's Urban Garden at RHS Chelsea this year, she focused on a "masculine" palette of purples, browns, fiery oranges, caramels and lime greens.

In June 2009, Jo was asked to design a RHS Chelsea Courtyard Garden for Demelza Children’s Hospice, the brief being to create an environment which could after the show be enjoyed by children, families and staff alike. This garden won a silver gilt medal, and has now been rebuilt at the hospice.

In 2010 she designed a unique and contemporary RHS Chelsea Urban garden for Thrive, a charity that uses gardening to change the lives of disabled people. Not only did she obtain a gold medal for this, she won Best Urban Garden for only her second ever show garden. Again, this garden was designed with its life after Chelsea in mind, and it is now situated at Thrive's headquarters, where again it is used by clients and staff as a working area, teaching zone and as a place to relax.

Amongst her current projects are the rooftop gardens of the new combined headquarters of the London Wildlife Trust and National Youth Theatre,an interesting and challenging client combination, for which she has designed a range of oak bench planters, and planted a rooftop version of a native hedge, persuading and winning over the landlord owners of the building with her design. Other projects include coastal gardens in Sussex and Dorset, and lakeside terraces and mountain gardens in Switzerland.

Jo speaks about garden design on invitation, and is a tutor at the London College of Garden Design. She writes a regular blog for Horticulture Week and contributes to a number of gardening articles.

Jo breaks the rules with garden design sometimes, and sometimes she obeys them. It all depends on the location, the client and the garden itself and where its possibilities take her.