Press Release: Small home office to multi-disciplinary design practice in 10 years

Aralia Celebrates Ten Years in Business

It’s been a tough decade for many UK businesses but one landscape design practice has managed to not just survive, but to flourish, and has gone from strength to strength over the last 10 years.  Aralia Garden Design was set up in 2004 when Patricia Fox started out as a Garden Designer, working as a sole practitioner, and operating from her home office, very much on a part time local basis, in Hertfordshire and Essex.  Aralia is now celebrating 10 successful years in business and has developed into a multi-disciplinary landscape design studio with both UK and international clients, and a string of prestigious national awards to their name.

Aralia has from the outset invested wisely in three core business areas:  people, design & technology, and marketing.  As a practice Aralia set out to distinguish itself from other local garden designers, and to provide a real point of difference to their clients.  ‘We wanted to develop a highly innovative, professional design studio which placed itself at the cutting edge of landscape design,’ says Patricia Fox, Managing Partner.   ‘It’s been an interesting journey, but when I look back at how much we have achieved over the last decade I feel incredibly proud of the team, and just how far we have come’.  In the early days Aralia was involved in small local garden designs with landscaping build budgets of around £10k.  Aralia’s design team are now involved in a range of high end projects including a series of penthouse roof terraces at the prestigious Chelsea Creek Development, London, with world class Property Developer St George PLC (part of the Berkeley Home Group) – with a build budget exceeding over £2 million for the series.

 In 2012 Aralia secured a Show Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The garden was sponsored by RBS and entitled ‘Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow’.  It was awarded a Silver Flora medal by the RHS and it was here at the flower show that the Chairman of the Berkley Home Group saw the rooftop garden and was inspired by what he saw, requesting that his team speak directly to the Aralia design team.    ‘We have thoroughly enjoyed working with the team at St George’ says Fox, ‘they are highly demanding, expect only the very best, and need it done ‘yesterday’! However, I believe we acquitted ourselves admirably, and the design and technical team at St George have been impressed by our deliverables.  The first seven penthouse roof terraces are currently being built, with more to follow later this year.

The Aralia design team have a wide selection of projects on their desks, or more accurately on their PC’s, from sprawling country estates to high specification urban gardens.  Aralia works on a broad range of projects, but tends to be involved on design projects that require a core element of innovation.  This they believe is their speciality, coupled with their underlying professionalism in their approach across the board, from the design process through the full spectrum of their services. 

Aralia provides the broad range of services you would normally expect from a Landscape Architects practice.  In addition they also provide a ‘design and build’ service for clients that prefer this combined approach.  ‘We find that most of our private residential clients would rather we handled the project from start to finish’ says Fox, ‘they lead busy lives and really just want to handover the whole project to a professional team that they can trust and rely on to deliver the project, on time and with minimum disruption’.  With a string of national awards to their name the team is well placed to provide that assurance and confidence to their clients.  Aralia believes that the early stages of the project are absolutely key.  Fox says ‘We spend a significant amount of time in the early stages working through the objectives for the brief and really exploring concepts and design styles with our clients. It is essential that we take the time to do so: it is the only way to know for sure that you are designing a landscape that is going to satisfy your client’s needs!’

The future for Aralia is looking good.  They are rapidly developing their relationships within the public sector and are keen to explore new ideas in landscape design for both the public and private sector.  ‘We want to continue to grow steadily into a larger practice’ says Fox, ‘whilst remaining small enough to continue to provide a very personal, tailored service to our clients’.

For further information please contact Patricia Fox or Edward Flaxman on 0044 1279 721461 for an initial conversation.

Images of some of our favourite completed projects.