Hello! I’m Nikki the designer and creator of Border in a Box.

It all started several years ago when I moved into a ‘new build’ property, the garden was a blank canvas – just turf and a wooden fence, which looked so boring and uninspiring, and I didn’t know where to start, it felt overwhelming and my funds were almost non-existent, so to buy the services of a professional garden designer was out of reach. This meant I had to create it myself which I loved so much that I decided to leave my career in IT and retrained as a garden designer. It was difficult moving into horticulture – the plant names were tricky and they all had different characteristics and needs! There was so much to learn!

It was clear to me that there is tons of information out there, but it takes time to wade through it all and so I decided to come up with an easy-to-follow plan that everyone could use and also enjoy the process of creating their own garden like I did. I use the analogy of cooking – there are lots of cook books out there, and you can buy all the ingredients from the supermarket, but if someone gave you a kit with everything in it, it would make life so much easier. Ta-dah! Border in a Box is here for you. It takes the anxiety out of trying to work out what goes where and the plants will live longer than a month!

I love creating planting plans and designing gardens, so immediately after finishing my college course, I applied to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS – www.rhs.org.uk) to create a show garden. It was such an exciting project, and I won a silver medal and People’s Choice Award.