A small garden practice working in the naturalistic tradition. Gardens shaped with care, allowed to deepen across seasons.
Based in Surrey, working across London and the home counties.
I take on a small number of gardens each year — for ongoing care, consultation, planting work, and occasionally full design. If your garden feels unresolved, please write.
A narrow east-facing bed reworked in September with miscanthus, sanguisorba, and late salvias. The brief was simple: something that holds attention from late summer into November.
Read more in the journalIf your garden might be one I should know,
please write.
Writing on gardens, plants, books, and the slow work of building a practice. Published monthly, or whenever there is something worth saying.
There is a quiet resistance built into good garden design — a refusal to hurry. The oak takes its time. The hornbeam hedge takes its time. Anything worth looking at in a garden was planted by someone who agreed to wait…
Read the essaySanguisorba is one of those plants that teaches patience. Nothing much in spring — a thin rosette of leaves at ground level, easy to miss. Then, almost without warning, the stems rise in June and by late summer the garden is full of small burgundy heads drifting at waist height…
Read the essayA first essay explaining what Rossi Gardens is for, who it is for, and the slow tradition it intends to sit within. Not a manifesto — more of an opening note, written in the quiet month before the season begins…
Read the essayRossi Gardens is a small practice in its foundation year. The work is naturalistic, seasonal, and slow.
I came to gardening by returning to it. After a decade of other things, I’m building a practice around what I always came back to.
I am training through the Royal Horticultural Society (Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture), working alongside an experienced gardener in Surrey, and taking on my own clients one at a time. My aesthetic reference points are the naturalistic school — Dan Pearson, Piet Oudolf, Sarah Price, Tom Stuart-Smith — and the long tradition of English garden writing that sits behind them.
If your garden feels unresolved, or you simply want a second pair of eyes on a planting scheme, please do get in touch.
Surrey — Godalming, Guildford, Farnham, Dorking, Reigate, Haslemere.
London — Richmond, Barnes, Wandsworth, Clapham, Chelsea, Kensington.
Further afield on request.
Pricing is not published — every garden is different, and the right starting point is usually a short conversation. Please write.
Regular visits — weekly, fortnightly, or monthly — for established residential gardens. Hand-weeding, pruning, cutting back, planting succession, plant health. The opposite of the mow-and-blow approach.
Best for clients with existing designed gardens who want a gardener with an eye, not just a strimmer.
A two-hour on-site visit. We walk the garden, talk through what is working and what is not. Within a week you receive a written follow-up with three to five specific recommendations — planting, structure, seasonal care.
Best for owners who feel unsure about their garden but aren’t ready for a full redesign. Often the most useful first step.
For a single border, bed, or small garden area. Site visit, soil and light assessment, scaled planting plan with plant list, sourcing notes, and installation guidance.
Best for a specific bed or area that needs reworking — a tired border, a newly prepared bed, a shaded corner.
Full design for small residential gardens up to approximately 150 square metres, across Surrey and London. Site survey, design concept, planting plan, hard landscaping specification, and oversight through the build.
Taken on selectively while the design practice grows. The best first step is usually a consultation.
For any of the above, please write.
yusef@rossigardens.comGodalming sits on some of the best garden ground in Surrey — sheltered, well-drained, with the kind of mature plot sizes that reward considered planting. I work across Godalming, Milford, Witley, and Hambledon, taking on a small number of gardens each year for ongoing care, consultation, and planting work.
The Wealden soils around Godalming are typically free-draining and slightly acidic — kind to grasses, salvias, and the looser, naturalistic plant palettes that have come back into fashion through the work of Pearson and Oudolf. They suit a planting style that emphasises seedhead, structure, and the long autumn season rather than the high summer peak.
Most gardens I work on locally are between a quarter and a half acre — large enough for proper structure, small enough to be cared for by one person with an eye. Many are inherited gardens that need editing more than redesigning.
The usual first step is a two-hour consultation. I walk the garden with you, listen to what is and isn’t working, and follow up within the week with written recommendations. From there, ongoing care, planting plans, or fuller design work can follow if it’s the right fit.
I work across Guildford and the surrounding villages — Shere, Albury, East and West Clandon, Wonersh, and Bramley — taking on residential gardens for care, consultation, and planting design.
The North Downs and Surrey Hills around Guildford produce a particular kind of garden: sloping, often chalky, frequently overlooked from the kitchen window across half an acre or more. These are gardens that benefit from a long view — planted to look right not just in June, but in October, in February, and on a damp Tuesday in March.
The naturalistic palette translates well here. Hornbeam, beech, and yew for structure; grasses and umbellifers for movement; a quiet seasonal succession that doesn’t depend on annual replanting.
For most clients, the right starting point is a consultation visit — two hours on site, written notes within the week, no commitment to anything beyond. From there we can talk about ongoing care, planting work, or a fuller design project if the garden calls for one.
I work across Reigate, Dorking, Betchworth, Brockham, and the villages on the southern edge of the North Downs. The work ranges from regular seasonal care to consultation, planting plans, and occasional full design projects.
The greensand and clay belt south of Reigate produces some of the most rewarding gardens in Surrey — generous in scale, with good views, often with mature trees and the kind of plot history that calls for editing rather than rebuilding. I’m drawn to gardens here that have been well-loved over decades and now need a careful hand to keep them moving forward.
A recent project in Reigate involved reworking a tired east-facing border with grasses, sanguisorba, and late-flowering salvias — planted in drifts, allowed to weave, designed to peak in late September rather than midsummer.
A consultation visit is the most common first step. From there: ongoing care, planting work, or design — whatever the garden actually needs.
I work across Richmond, Barnes, East Sheen, Mortlake, and Kew. The London gardens I take on are typically small — walled, terraced, courtyard-scale — and benefit from the kind of considered, hand-worked attention they rarely receive.
Most of the gardens I see in this part of London are between 30 and 100 square metres. They are bounded by walls or fences, often east- or north-facing, frequently inherited from previous owners with little plan beyond “something low-maintenance.” What they reward is the opposite — close attention to a small palette of plants chosen for the conditions, simple structure, and seasonal care that respects the limited space.
The best small gardens in London are not miniature country gardens. They are their own thing: walled, intimate, often shaded, requiring a different vocabulary of plants and a different sense of scale.
For small London gardens, a consultation is almost always the right first step. I can also offer planting plans for individual beds, full small-garden design (selectively), and ongoing seasonal care for clients who want a regular hand rather than a one-off project.
I take on a small number of gardens each year across Wandsworth, Clapham, Battersea, and Putney — typically the kind of walled or terraced garden that comes with a Victorian or Edwardian house in this part of south-west London.
The terraced and semi-detached houses across Wandsworth and Clapham tend to come with long, narrow gardens — often shaded by neighbouring buildings, frequently north- or east-facing, with the kind of clay soil that needs improvement before any serious planting. They are gardens that reward patience: a year or two of soil work and structure planting, then a slow build of layered planting that comes into its own in years three and beyond.
The naturalistic palette translates well to these spaces if it’s edited carefully — fewer species, more repetition, an emphasis on plants that hold structure through autumn and winter when the garden is most exposed.
A consultation visit is the most useful starting point. From there we can talk about ongoing care, planting plans, or full small-garden design.