Sarah Wilson
Sarah changed to a career in horticulture in 2009, after moving from London to East Sussex. She studied RHS Levels 2 and 3 in Horticulture and launched her own garden maintenance company in 2010.
Sarah graduated from the London College of Garden Design in 2014 and has since worked on a number of design projects in London and the South East. She won a Gold at RHS Hampton Court for her conceptual Synaesthesia Garden and designed a garden for the Besiktas International Flower Show in Istanbul in May 2016. She also designed a garden at RHS Cardiff 2017 on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support.
Sarah teamed up with Claire Vokins in 2019 to launch Wilson|Vokins, a design practice focusing on sustainable and ecologically sound spaces that support biodiversity.
She also hosts Roots and All, a popular gardening podcast that won the Garden Media Guild Podcast of the Year in 2019.
Twitter – @wilsonvokins
The Legacy Garden Concept: “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit” – Nelson Henderson
The garden is designed so the visitor, whether real or imagined, is placed at the centre. The wooden sculpture in the middle is inscribed with the above quote. The features within the garden such as the concentric circles in the paving and the planting patterns radiate out from the centre, representing the ripple effects created by a person’s actions.
The idea that the actions a person takes in the present can have positive future consequences they may not necessarily see is further reinforced by the use of trees at various stages of maturity. Juvenile trees will be used in the areas of planting nearest to the bench, with three mature specimens used against the back wall. These are used to illustrate the Henderson quotation and can also be used as a reference point when linking the garden to the topic of wills and legacies.
