Meet the Legacy Garden DesignersMeet the Legacy Garden Designers
Tom Simpson
Tom Simpson is the designer of our award winning 2019 show garden, Pledge Pathway to Progress.
“I am thrilled to be working with Cancer Research UK again and hope to build on the success of last year’s RHS show garden. During show week in 2019, I felt humbled by some of the stories people would tell me after visiting the garden. Some tragic, and others of survival and hope. I hadn’t expected people to engage with the garden as much as they did. In some instances, people left a gift in their Will as a result of visiting the garden. This was the greatest achievement.”
“I always had a passion for gardens and natural landscapes. Gardens are living spaces for people to enjoy, that help us relax and improve our lives. My aim is to create beautiful gardens that people will fall in love with."
You can see footage of Tom's Legacies RHS show garden here.
Neil Sutcliffe
Designing and building a show garden is an amazing experience for the whole team, but working with Cancer Research UK towards such a good cause means so much more. It’s a subject that touches so many lives and I think a garden is a perfect way to tell the story of just how much of a difference leaving a legacy in your Will can make to so many people in the future.
Gardening for me often has a really uplifting effect and often brings quite an instantaneous impact, but the real thrill is how it grows and develops after you’ve put in the effort and that really does tie in well with this central theme.
I'm a big fan of contrasting the rustic and raw with the contemporary and clean lines that gardens can incorporate and of course ensuring the plants do the talking!