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From rock musician to garden designer via management consultancy: no-one could describe the career path of 38-year-old John Williams as predictable. Playing in a band in Manchester in the early 1990's there was clearly a strong creative streak in John but, after a few years struggling to pay the bills, he decided to settle for a 'proper job' in the energy industry. He worked for several utility giants, including Shell and British Gas, ultimately becoming a very successful and respected consultant. But after several long years, travelling almost constantly, he felt compelled to re-assess his whole work/family life balance. He had always wanted to be self-employed but pondered how he could combine his creative talents with his commercial skills to do something new which he could feel passionate about. His 'eureka' moment occurred one lunchtime, among family and friends, in 2005....
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Kent-based Jane Reynolds graduated with a Diploma in Garden Design from GDS in 2006. She has a long-standing passion for the great outdoors which stretches back to the degree she took in Rural Environmental Studies in the 1970's. During the past 20 years she has devoted her life to raising three children and supporting her husband's farming career, including being in charge of the busy lambing season and, more recently, advising other farmers on environmental issues and applying for government grants on their behalf. She first started to think seriously about training to become a garden designer about five years ago, realising that it was something she found inspiring that she could also combine well with her other work and domestic commitments.
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Maureen Lock graduated
from Garden Design School in 2004 and has
since set up her own, thriving consultancy
business. Like many GDS students, Maureen
had previously worked in a variety of roles
unconnected with gardening or garden design:
in fact, she’d held several jobs
in international sales and marketing with
blue-chip companies such as Philips Telecom
and Eastern Electricity. She made
a conscious decision to leave the ‘rat
race’ when her husband took early
retirement from the Fire Service in 2001.
Together
they moved from East Anglia and settled
in Dorset. However, it was only a matter
of months before Maureen felt ready to
put her energy into a new project. In common
with many GDS trainees, she decided to
explore ways in which she could turn her
life-long love of gardening, planting and
design into a career.
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 47-year-old
Steven Warne decided several years ago
to leave behind the high tech world of
IT and robotics systems in the pharmaceuticals
industry. He had worked in a number of challenging
sales, marketing and product support
roles but gradually realised that he
found corporate life unfulfilling. So
he opted to strike out in a new direction
- doing something he both understood
and enjoyed – and he set up his
own landscape design and contracting
company.
For a while he
made a perfectly reasonable living from lots
of fairly small domestic projects. However,
he took a long, hard look at his business.
He realised that he simply wasn’t
pitching for the larger, more complex
and rewarding contracts he really wanted.
He also recognised that he didn’t
possess the technical design skills of
some of his competitors. So it
was very much a commercial decision that
led him to train in garden design.
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 Helen
Prestedge is living proof that garden
design is a career that can work well
with the demands of a young, growing
family. Helen originally studied Biology
at Southampton University, became a qualified
teacher and progressed rapidly to a senior
departmental role in a leading Berkshire
primary school. But, having taught full
time for seven years, and with two children
under the age of four, she decided to
take a step back and look at ways of
restoring a healthy work/life balance.
She had always
loved gardening, natural history and the
outdoors, so the decision to re-train as
a garden designer was a logical extension
of her interests. She studied two courses
at the RHS (General and Advanced Certificates
in Horticulture, both passed with commendations)
before taking the GDS Diploma in Garden Design
in 2003/4.
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 Thirty-two year
old Andrew Stevenson was already a graduate
of Landscape Architecture before taking the
GDS Diploma Course. Having completed his
degree in 1994 he joined Nottcutts, one of
the UK’s leading nurseries, then moved
to Chessington Garden Centre where he has
been Landscape Manager for the past five
years.
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