Garden Design Consultancy

Sinensis
Gardens

Modern, climate-conscious garden design for clients in South East London, Surrey, Kent and France.

Scroll

Recent Work

A portfolio of living places.

Scroll through a season in the gardens I design and tend — from a first walk through the space and the plant combinations that hold a scheme together, to the small botanical details, and back to where every project begins: a conversation.

Portrait of Alice, founder of Sinensis Gardens, holding secateurs in a garden

Meet the Designer

Every project starts with a conversation — about how you want to live outdoors, and the garden that gets you there.

Alice · Sinensis Gardens

01 / 10

Lush London courtyard garden with a stone path and terracotta pots

A Designed Space

Layered greens, a clear route through, and pots that move with the seasons — structure you can live in.

Courtyard

02 / 10

Acanthus mollis, bear's breeches, flowering in a cottage-garden border

Architecture

Bear's breeches earns its place: sculptural spires that hold a border together long after the flowers fade.

Cottage border

03 / 10

Salvia nemorosa paired with hardy geranium in a perennial border

Combinations

Deep salvia against soft geranium: the kind of pairing that reads as effortless because it isn't.

Perennial border

04 / 10

Nigella, love-in-a-mist, and white mallow in a cottage-garden border

Something Softer

Love-in-a-mist and white mallow bring romance and movement to the front of the border.

Cottage border

05 / 10

Close-up of an echinops globe thistle with silver flowerheads

Botanical Detail

Up close, a single globe thistle — the silver, spherical punctuation every planting scheme needs.

Botanical detail

06 / 10

Naturalistic Planting

Salvia and echinops woven through oak uprights — a little wild, and entirely intentional.

Naturalistic planting

07 / 10

Allium seedheads standing beside a log pile at a woodland garden edge

Through the Seasons

Left to stand, allium seedheads carry the garden's shape into autumn — and feed the wildlife too.

Woodland edge

08 / 10

Magenta rose campion, Lychnis coronaria, among silvered foliage

A Jewel of Colour

Rose campion's magenta arrives uninvited and always welcome — self-seeding through silvered foliage.

Botanical detail

09 / 10

Garden designer walking a lush, planted London garden path

The Last Look

And back out through the borders — a garden that keeps giving long after the design is done.

The result

10 / 10

Alice, founder of Sinensis Gardens, in her garden looking at the camera

About Me

An Anglo-French eye for modern gardens.

I'm an Anglo-French garden designer based in south London, with clients in London, Surrey and France. After a career in television news at the BBC — chasing headlines and breaking news — I decided to work for myself, creating gardens designed to last for years.

I retrained first in practical gardening, gaining RHS Diplomas Level 2 and 3 at Hadlow College, and then two further diplomas in Planting Design and Construction at the London College of Garden Design. Sinensis Gardens was set up in 2024 to create modern garden designs that will thrive as our climate is changing.

Projects since have included small family gardens, city courtyards, and country gardens in France and Surrey. I find solutions that work with the time and money each client can commit.

Every garden should only contain what is beautiful or useful. Outdoor space is too precious to waste.— My Design Philosophy

RHSDiploma Level 2 & 3, Hadlow College

LCGDPlanting Design & Construction

Est. 2024London · Surrey · France

Services

How I can help you with your garden.

Every project begins with a consultation. From there, clients step up through design, specification, and implementation — or choose a Planting Refresh for gardens that don't need construction.

Consultation

A 60-minute in-person visit and site analysis, followed by a bespoke written strategy report. We discuss whatever you need advice on — from plant identification and pest control to structural pruning and long-term aftercare.

Fixed Fee£200

Concept Design

An outline of a complete new design for your outdoor space, developed from an agreed brief and shared through moodboards, sketches and vision-setting conversations.

FromPOA

Full Garden Design

Detailed design including construction drawings, furniture, lighting, materials and full planting plans — everything your contractors need to bring the garden to life.

FromPOA

Implementation

Suggesting trusted landscapers, sourcing plants from professional nurseries, arranging delivery, and full planting services. A bespoke aftercare plan is available to keep your garden thriving.

Day RatePOA

Add-on

The Planting Refresh

For clients who don't need construction. I'll design new borders, source the plants from professional growers, and come and plant them out for you.

Enquire →

How We Work

A considered process, step by step.

Visit & Listen

We meet in your garden. I walk the space, ask questions, and listen to how you want to live outdoors.

Strategy Report

A written document setting out what works, what doesn't, and a clear direction of travel for the space.

Design & Refine

Moodboards, sketches and technical drawings — developed with your input until the scheme feels right.

Plant & Tend

Trusted landscapers, sourced plants, careful planting, and an aftercare plan so the garden keeps growing.

Red-render French country house with a terrace and stepping-stone lawn path in spring

Featured Project

A country garden in France.

An ongoing project set around a red-render country house — mature magnolia and willow, an old orchard, and a garden studio tucked into the greenery. The bones were already beautiful; the work is in the planting.

I'm developing the borders season by season: naturalistic, climate-conscious combinations that carry the garden from spring blossom, through high-summer colour, to the seed heads and dried arrangements of autumn.

FranceCountry garden

OngoingDesigned & planted in phases

Spring – AutumnDocumented across the seasons

Magnolia tree in full pink blossom over a lawn in spring — **Spring Blossom**The magnolia opens before the borders wake.

Garden studio set among orchard trees under a blue sky — **The Studio**A quiet building held within the trees.

Garden studio and new planting with a hanging rain chain of cups — **New Planting**Shrubs and grasses settling in around the lawn.

Black dog on a stone stepping-path through the garden at morning — **Morning Paths**Stepping stones threading the beds together.

Alice kneeling to plant beside a large euphorbia in the border — **Hands in the Soil**Planting out beside the euphorbia.

Sunset over the garden borders and stone path with a coral sky — **Summer Dusk**Borders filling in under a coral sky.

Dried autumn bouquet of hydrangea and grasses on a bistro table in the garden — **Autumn Cut**Hydrangea and grasses, dried from the beds.

FAQ

Answers to common questions.

Absolutely. That's exactly what the Consultation is for. A 60-minute site visit followed by a written strategy report will give you a clear sense of what your garden needs — and you can take it from there, with or without me.

Yes. As part of the Implementation service I'll suggest landscapers I've worked with and trust, source plants from professional nurseries, and project-manage the planting on your behalf.

New life for old borders. If your garden's structure works but the planting has tired, I'll design new borders tailored to your microclimate, source the plants, and come and plant them out — no construction required.

A full redesign is a multi-month project, and the cost depends on the size of your garden and the extent of the transformation you want to make. After an initial consultation I can give you a realistic estimate for the design and build phases.

South London, Kent and Surrey for regular projects, plus occasional work in France — where a number of my country-garden clients are based.