I grew up in Dorset close to ancient heathland, spent a childhood seeing adders and smooth snakes, listening to warblers and nightjars. I knew early on I’d need to work outside.
I’ve been a landscape gardener most of my working life. I studied horticulture at Kingston Maurward in Dorchester, which gave me theory, but you learn most on the job. Sourcing the right plants when what you want isn’t available. Fixing a bodged pruning job on an apple tree. De-silting wildlife ponds. Racing to replace century-old drains before the weather turns.
I build stone walls, plant hedges, lay pathways and driveways, erect fences. I plant perennials, shrubs, trees and orchards and renovate gardens and restore woodland, it feels good to grub out invasive species and open up canopies. I work with a good network of local contractors when a job needs an electrician or tree surgeon or specialist kit.
People tell me I’m laid back and patient. But I’ll tell you straight if something won’t work.
When I’m not working, I enjoy being out on my mountain bike, baking bread, watching football.
I’m Debbie — but please call me Bee Lilyjones. Together with my husband Michael I’ve designed, planted and restored nature-led gardens for many years — tiny gardens, terraced gardens, walled gardens, woodland gardens, and an award-winning public garden and sets for theatre and television. I work slowly, drawing each garden by hand at the drawing board, and I take on very few new commissions. I’m always glad to talk gardens, though.
These days most of my work is in writing and community archive. I’m a non-fiction writer, naturalist and, somewhat accidentally, a community archivist and local historian. I run a small creative project called Before We Leave, which helps individuals, families and communities notice, record and share what matters about the places they know — before it slips away. You can find out more at beforeweleave.co.uk
Gardens carry history in ways that are easy to lose. The varieties grown, the decisions made and the hands that shaped a space over decades… These things rarely get written down and say you move home or a garden changes hands or a practice winds up, so much of it disappears. I’ve loved working in gardens since I was a child, and I understand that world from the inside. If you run a nursery, a garden business, or tend a landscape with a story worth keeping, I can help you build a living digital archive of it — something that captures not just the facts and the knowledge but the character of the garden and the care that went into it.
I also write for garden-related businesses and publications. I love helping people find the right words for what their practice is and what it stands for. And I mentor fledgling garden entrepreneurs who want to build regenerative gardening businesses. If you’re starting out and need someone to talk through the practicalities, the philosophy, the nuts and bolts of running a garden practice that doesn’t exploit the land or yourself, get in touch .
About the garden in the wood
A new house and terrace set among mature woodland. About The Garden built a composting area, laid turf, seeded meadow grass with wildflowers and bulbs appropriate for the site, and planted beech hedging around the boundaries.
Much of the garden remains deliberately wild, and it’s all untreated by chemicals. The cow parsley, the hedge mustard, the native grasses that were already here persist. The garden doesn’t resist them. Instead it works alongside what was already growing, allowing the boundary between cultivated space and the wider landscape to soften and blur.
-
- Tree Cinema
