Meet the designer: Tom Hoblyn

A cold Monday afternoon in January, and Tom Hoblyn is seemingly relaxed on a video interview with us. This, despite having spent his entire weekend wire brushing 51 old pine boards – formerly pilings for docks in the Norfolk Broads – which will be used to make the fence surrounding part of Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion.

“They must be, I don’t know, 100 years old or more, but being in the water for so long has eroded the wood, and all the knots are sticking out…so I’ve spent the weekend wire brushing them off to have a look at what’s underneath them.”

Most of us wouldn’t be wire brushing 51 old wooden boards for our weekend fun, but that’s symbolic of the quiet dedication that Tom is devoting to Hospice UK’s first ever RHS Chelsea garden – which will be displayed in the renowned ‘show garden’ category.

And reclaiming materials which have already long since been paid for in terms of carbon footprint is part of the cornerstones of Tom’s design. Sustainability is, he says, a link between the Mediterranean and the UK’s hospices, who as a sector are pushing to make their services and infrastructure as sustainable as possible.

It’s Tom’s love of the Mediterranean and its landscapes that have inspired his design for Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion. With rocky boulders creating a strong sense of being grounded in nature, and drought-tolerant planting (the garden relocates to St Cuthbert’s Hospice in Durham after the show, which is the second driest part of the UK), the design quietly draws on the spirit of Mediterranean landscapes. 

By doing so, it shows how thoughtfully designed spaces can play a crucial role in providing comfort and calm at the end of life – just like hospices.

But Tom nearly didn’t become a garden designer – he had been earmarked to take over the family farm in Cornwall. He explains how his career fortuitously had its roots in an early side hustle: 

“I started doing a spot of gardening for older ladies on weekends to help make ends meet. I was paid £5 an hour and all the Victoria sponge cake I could handle…I suddenly thought, gosh, this is a much nicer way to make a living than farming! So I decided to retrain in horticulture at Hadlow College and became a head gardener of Gullet Farm, a small garden in South Devon.”

Tom’s journey from farm to garden took another step forward when he then left Devon to get a horticulture qualification at Kew Gardens in Richmond, where his tutor was eminent garden designer Christopher Bradley Hole. Tom landed a job with him after getting his RHS qualification. 

It was whilst he was at Kew that the seed was sown for a love of garden design: “The only reason I applied to Kew was purely to escape my boss as you could say that we didn’t see eye to eye… but I then had the best three years travelling all over the world looking at plants and rainforests. I got really into garden design while I was there.”

He always knew, adds Tom, that he would end up working outdoors, but says that he would never have made a good Head Gardener at a big garden: “I suppose garden design is a sort of glory job, in a way…I’m almost a little bit embarrassed about it! 

“But I couldn’t do what Head Gardeners do – because I just lack organisational skills. When I do work with head gardeners on projects I just think, God, I couldn't do what they do. My brain doesn't work the same way as theirs – they’re going to be project manager, plants person, gardener, people person…they have to do all these things that I'm just no good at doing.”

So what it is that lights a fire underneath Tom in his day to day work as a garden designer? It is, he says, the methodical analysis aspect of horticulture that gets really drives him forward:

“It’s definitely 100% the plants that I love. That's what I studied at Kew – botany – and I just love that aspect. So that might be making choices about planting – assigning the right plant to the right place. 

“I get very excited about it. Analysing the climate, the soil, the particular microclimate, and then determining what plant is going to go best there. And then going on the hunt for new plants. I like to trial them here in my garden [Tom lives in Suffolk – incidentally placing above Durham as the number 1 driest climate within the UK] and then put them into my design. I really, really enjoy that and I still get just as much of a kick out of it now as I’ve ever done.”

We discuss his design process – and whether there are any particular influences in his work.

“At Kew, we learned about the colour combination of Gertrude Jekyll’s planting; we learnt about her way of doing it and I still do it now like she did. I just take watercolour to paper, work out my colours and then assign plants to those colours.

“It shows how old I am,” adds Tom, “because when we first started we drew everything by hand and I just took to watercolour, although a lot of people in my year at Kew used felt tip pens. I just preferred watercolour because I like making things as vague as possible. 

“Watercolour is quite good for that because it doesn't pin you down too much. When you show a client, ‘this is what your garden's going to look like,’ if it's just kind of wishy washy colours with a bit of pen thrown in there, they go ‘oh, this looks fantastic!’ And it still leaves me options to flex, and move around in it.”

And would a person know a Tom Hoblyn garden design if they saw one? Tom doesn’t believe so, preferring to work to individual clients’ briefs rather than bring his own distinct style. He says that he likes his gardens to not look ‘designed’ in the traditional sense - but that he does have a few key principles:

"We only use British materials, if we can. I like celebrating craftsmanship, so I tend to work with materials and makers from the area where the garden will be located. I try and keep it so it fits in with the environment."

This ethos is behind the hard landscaping of Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion, where even the rocky boulders – symbolic of the Mediterranean landscape – have been sourced from a few miles away from St Cuthbert’s Hospice.

“The person I borrow most heavily from is a chap called William Robinson. I think he was friends with Gertrude Jekyll, and he was the one that did away with all the formal planting and replaced it with a much more natural style. I guess if I do have a style, which I suppose I might have, that's what I bring most into it. 

“For example, when it comes to roses, rather than training it to within an inch of its life against the wall of a house, I'll grow it up through a tree and let it do its own thing. I like the fact that you’re just letting the rose do what it wants because it wasn't put on this planet to climb up trellises on the sides of houses – it was actually meant to grow up trees. 

“That's why roses have hooks, to get up the tree. You might think that it is a defence mechanism, but it's not, it's a climbing mechanism. When you see the term ‘rambler rose’, it’s because they were meant to ramble up trees!”

Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion will be Tom’s tenth – and final – garden design for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and will mark the completion of his journey from would-be farmer to Gold Medal-winning garden designer. But how did he make the leap into the world of RHS garden shows? Tom explains that it’s in many ways thanks to a well-known car manufacturer…and his opportunist confidence as an early career garden designer…

“In the early noughties I decided I wanted to do Hampton Court Flower Show. And I literally phoned up companies asking whether they’d sponsor me. To my surprise, Volvo said, ‘sure, we'll do it, here’s £16,000 to build a garden.’

“That actually isn’t very much when it comes to flower show gardens – so I grew all my own plants and I got my friends to come and help plant it. I even camped at the campsite just down the road to save money. I’m really proud that I did this garden at Hampton Court on such a small budget…And although it was a small garden, it was really good fun.

“And then Homebase saw my garden at Hampton Court and said, ‘will you do ours next year? Here's £100,000.’ I was amazed! So I did it… and then they asked if I’d do it again! I did it two years running before Homebase stopped doing gardens there. 

“And I just thought, oh, that's the end of my show garden career then. But then the show manager at RHS Chelsea phoned me up and said that they liked my garden at Hampton Court, and that they had a last minute garden at Chelsea – just 5 metres by 5 metres – and would I fancy designing it?"

“I made that leap to Chelsea in around 2003 or 2004, in what was then called the ‘Urban’ category. I went to Chelsea and did this tiny little garden. I remember where it was – it couldn't be further away from the show gardens – we really were tucked away down there. And to my utter astonishment we actually won a gold medal for it. 

“After that, someone at RHS Chelsea would say, ‘oh, can you do ours next year?’ You get on these lists and that's how it works.

“I've obviously taken breaks every so often. But I was always worried that if you have a proper break, you stop being asked!”

We asked Tom whether it was intimidating making the leap from Hampton Court to RHS Chelsea – which is widely considered as one of the most prestigious garden competitions in the world.

“Yeah, it was a bit actually! Chelsea was a different league really. On my first garden there, we were very much sort of bottom of the pecking order, I remember, and no one knew who I was or anything like that. 

“We were stuck right on this corner as well. When you drive through Chelsea, during the build-up, you have this one way system that everyone comes past to their garden, and they were kind of going, ‘who the heck is that, and what on earth is he doing?!’ 

“But there is a certain buzz you get from doing it. Even our little garden then, I remember it was on the opening credits of the 6pm BBC news. You think, oh, I did that! That was brilliant.”

Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion is not Tom’s first garden for a hospice charity. He explains why linking up with Hospice UK was natural fit – and why it’s a cause that he feels passionate about. 

“George [Plumptre, outgoing CEO of the National Garden Scheme, who are one of Hospice UK’s main funders] contacted me and asked me whether I’d design a garden for Hospice UK. I think that’s because he knew that I had created a children's hospice garden in Essex at Woodford Green and I think that's why he asked me – because I knew about hospices.

“And I’d gone through that project with Haven House Hospice through lockdown. They had had their funding problems then, like many hospices had – and still do have.

“So I saw the struggle that Haven's House went through for three years. It was an absolute nightmare for them. 

“All our meetings, even though I was often sometimes in the grounds, took place on Zoom because I couldn't go into the actual hospice. I was interviewing bereaved parents. I was interviewing siblings who've got their sisters and brothers in there. And then the carers too, and even the music therapist. Parents couldn't even go in to see their own child. So I saw what they were all going through. 

“So when I was asked to design Hospice UK’s garden, I thought I've got to do this. I have to.”

[photo above: Tom's garden for Haven House Children's Hospice, courtesy of Greenfingers]

It’s a process that has Tom completely engaged in the round. From his Instagram account he shares snippets of his R&D, with regular updates from the nursery and landscaping (and sometimes, Mallorca) – partly to diarise his process, and partly to reinforce what he’s trying to do with the Hospice UK Garden of Compassion. 

“I've never done it like this before, and this time I thought this is how I'm going to do it. It keeps me completely focused. And that’s helpful because I've got a tendency to go off piste, you see. So by doing this and reinforcing the message all the time, it keeps me focused. 

"I spent all of last weekend cleaning wood and you'll see that soon on my channel. This weekend we're going to see the water bowls, and I've made some spouts that we're going to try putting water through and see how it works. So I'll film that, make another one. And it's great because it keeps me right on track.”

“I think the more I can do that for Hospice UK and Project Giving Back [who are fully funding Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion], with me doing all these things, it's going to get so many people engaged that they'll want to come here to see it. No other sponsor has ever done that with me before.”

“I'm doing some woodland planting at The Nook, near Norwich, which is part of East Anglia Children's Hospices. It means a lot to me because I know what the problem is. I know and I feel that this is a really great way to kind of highlight the issue that people don't understand that how funding has to come into hospices. No one knows that. I didn't know that before I started. And to me, that's what’s important – I think people need to know that they need money.

Tom explains that the concept of the Hospice UK Garden of Compassion was beautifully framed by his sister-in-law, who works in end of life care in a Canadian hospice:

“She said she’d noticed that patients would say they wanted to go out into the garden…and when she wheeled them out there, she could just sense this feeling that they are connected with Mother Nature. Then it becomes more of a positive experience for them in what might otherwise be quite a negative time. So I'm trying to make this garden where the users are firmly connected with Mother Nature.

And Tom’s design for RHS Chelsea 2025 features design elements which in many ways mirror the experience in a hospice:

“I’m having this series of rooms, so you can choose if you want more private or more communal areas – and either way, you’ll be able to connect with Mother Nature. 

“I've chosen a Mediterranean theme because it appeals to the senses and textures that are so important for people to connect with: bright colours, smells, sound, things they can feel. So all the senses are hopefully fully engaged, and in the design I sort of amplified everything so that it's a bit louder and stronger and smellier than usual. So you get a very good sensory experience and therefore a very good connection to Mother Nature.”

That the garden is designed for hospice patients, their families and staff makes the name – The Garden of Compassion – very apt. After RHS Chelsea in May 2025, the garden will relocate to St Cuthbert’s Hospice in Durham, where it will put into practice the very ethos and principles for which Tom has designed. It will become a working garden and benefit hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are experiencing hospice care.

Tom will be on hand to oversee the garden’s transition from London to Durham, which means for him, forgoing his usual post-Chelsea reward:

“Normally what I would do after RHS Chelsea wraps is I’d go on holiday almost immediately, to rest and restore. But I can't do that this time – I’ll be looking after the move up to St Cuthbert’s. 

“And that will involve two phases. The team at the hospice will start doing the landscaping and then come back and do the planting later on in the autumn. 

“So this year I’ve moved my holiday forward to March instead – that’s because otherwise I'll miss all the late spring wildflowers, which I love – so I'm going up to the mountains in southern mainland Greece to go and look at them. That will get me really excited for Chelsea.”

Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion will be on display at RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 20 – 24 May 2025.