Week 1
The first walk
Two hours on site with you. We look at light, soil, drainage, sightlines, neighbours, history. We ask what you want this garden to mean. We leave with a notebook full and you with no obligation.
Gardens designed, built, and looked after, across Bath and the Cotswolds.
A small studio of designers and landscapers. We start every garden with a long conversation, end it with a planting plan you can read in winter, and stay around for the seasons that follow.
11
Years working in the South-WestStudio founded 2014, Bath
~14
Gardens a yearA small studio on purpose
3
RHS-trained designersPlus four full-time landscapers
BALI
Registered memberCode of conduct & insurance backed
A note on the studio
We make slow gardens. Designed properly, built once, looked after for years.
Wildhouse was started in 2014 by Hester Marston, after a decade of working at larger landscape practices in London. The brief from day one was small: three or four gardens a season, designed and built by the people who'd be looking after them.
Twelve years on, we still aim for that. We work on roughly fourteen gardens a year — a mix of new builds, restorations, and long-term planting projects. We don't take on volume work, we don't sub-contract the landscaping, and we'll happily tell you when a year's not the right one to start.
Every garden begins with a slow visit, a notebook, and the question that matters most: what is this place going to feel like at four in the afternoon, on a Wednesday in November?
— Hester & the studio
What we offer
From a planting plan to a full five-year garden.
We work in stages so that you can stop at any point and still have something whole. Each stage stands on its own; together they grow.
i.
Garden design
Full master plans, planting plans, lighting strategy, hard-landscape detailing. Drawn in plan, section, and to-scale axonometric so you can read it in winter as easily as in June.
ii.
Landscape build
Paths, paving, walls, decks, steps, pools. We work in limestone, oak, brick, sawn York. Our own team builds; we don't subcontract. Most projects four to twelve weeks on site.
iii.
Planting design & install
Perennial schemes, climbers, trees, hedging. We grow on a number of plants ourselves, source the rest from a small number of UK nurseries we trust. Planted by hand, mulched, signed off.
iv.
Restoration of existing gardens
Inherited gardens that need editing rather than starting again. We'll keep what matters, lift and divide what doesn't, fix the structure, and rebuild the planting around what's worth saving.
v.
Ongoing garden care
For our own clients: a planted-bed maintenance plan, four visits a year, one designer involved throughout. We don't take on gardens we didn't design — keeps the standard up.
vi.
Outdoor lighting
Designed alongside the planting, so the garden reads at dusk in the months when you'll actually use it. Hunza, LED Linear, Garden Zone. Specified, installed, and quietly hidden.
Recent work
A walled garden in Bradford-on-Avon
Designed across the winter, built in two visits, and planted out last October. Below: the brief, the materials, the planting list.
Project 18 / 2025
"Soft, walked-through, edible at the edges."
The brief from Annabel and James was a garden their two children could grow into. We added a kitchen border under the south wall, an orchard of four heritage apples on the west, and a long perennial bed with as much winter structure as summer colour.
Built in seven weeks across late summer 2025, with help from the existing limestone walls; planted out in October.
- Designer
- Hester Marston
- Landscape lead
- Toby Crane
- Materials
- Cotswold limestone, oak, brick
- Plants
- 148 species · 7 nurseries
How we work
Five stages, across a year, on average.
We don't hurry the design and we don't hurry the build. The right pace for most gardens is one season from first sketch to first planting.
Weeks 2–8
Design
Master plan, hard-landscape details, planting plans, lighting. Two formal presentations, plus as many tea-break revisions as it takes. You'll get a printed package at the end.
Spring & summer
Build
Hard-landscaping on site by our team. Most builds run between four and twelve weeks. We work to a written programme; you'll know what's happening on every day of it.
Autumn
Planting
Perennials in October–November when possible. Trees and hedging in winter dormancy. Annuals and tender stock in the following May, once the frost risk has passed.
Year two onwards
Care
For clients who'd like us back: a four-visit-a-year maintenance plan, run by the same designer. Quiet involvement; never a parade of vans.
From clients
"The first garden we've ever actually used."
A few notes from the last three years. We've left out the awkward ones, but we'll happily send those over too.
"They sat in the garden for hours before they drew anything. The plan that came out felt like it had always been there. Eleven months later it's the first garden we've ever actually used."
AC
Annabel & James Crawford
Bradford-on-Avon · Walled garden, 2025
"We'd inherited a complicated garden from the previous owners. Hester edited it rather than starting again. She kept the magnolia we love and quietly disappeared the rest."
PM
Penny & Marcus Wells
Combe Down · Restoration, 2024
"Three years on, the garden looks better than it did at handover. They come back four times a year. It feels less like maintenance and more like a friend visiting."
RH
Ruth Hadley
Tetbury · Garden care, 2022 onwards
"The first quote was for less than we expected and the final invoice was less than the quote. In twenty-five years of having work done that has never once happened."
DH
David & Helena Faulkner
Bath · Front garden & entrance, 2024
Where we work
Bath, the south Cotswolds, and west Wiltshire. Within reason.
We try to keep the studio within an hour's drive of Bath so that visits stay generous and the team doesn't spend the day in traffic. If you're further afield, we'll be honest about whether we can give your garden what it needs.
- BathBA1, BA2
- Bradford-on-AvonBA15
- Combe DownBA2
- FromeBA11
- TrowbridgeBA14
- TetburyGL8
- CirencesterGL7
- MalmesburySN16
- Castle CombeSN14
- CorshamSN13
- DevizesSN10
- MarshfieldSN14
Get in touch
Tell us about your garden.
We try to reply to every enquiry within a few days, with an honest answer about whether we're the right studio for your project. If we're not, we'll usually be able to suggest someone we'd happily hand it to.
— Our books for spring builds usually close around October. Autumn-planting designs typically take bookings through June.