Meet the designers of A Space to Read Balcony Garden sponsored by Viking at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025
Ben Gifford (l) & Freddie Strickland(r)
Ben Gifford
After completing a degree in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth, Ben made the shift to landscape construction and discovered the joy in working outdoors and engaging with gardens. He spent 18 years building gardens before deciding he wanted to be more involved in the design process and completed a master’s in Landscape Architecture at the University of Gloucestershire. After graduating Ben took on a role as Senior Landscape Architect with a garden design firm, where he worked for over two years on a wide range of landscape projects.
Ben now enjoys a blend of both design and construction work, with his company Yardstick Design Ltd offering design and build services. This allows Ben to pursue his passion for garden design as well as still being able to get his hands dirty on site. Ben’s approach is to reuse as much as possible within a design, use locally sourced plants and materials and bring a natural feel to the finished garden.
See A Space to Read Balcony Garden sponsored by Viking
Freddie Strickland
Freddie is an award-winning garden and landscape designer based in Bristol and working nationally. In his designs, themes include a focus on plants and sustainability, as well as a celebration of natural materials used in new and exciting ways.
Freddie was awarded RHS Young Designer of the Year 2021 for On Tropic at RHS Flower Show Tatton Park. The environmentally conscious garden highlighted a changing palette of plants in a warming climate, and also won Gold and Best Construction.
Having grown up in London, Freddie chose to swap city life for the Cornish coast, where he studied and worked for eight years, graduating with a degree in Fine Art from Falmouth University. Freddie’s love for the outdoors found him working for an environmental charity, before his passion for horticulture led him to further study Garden and Landscape design at the Eden Project.
Freddie has been inspired by the gardens of the South West, and these influences are present within his latest designs. Other themes include a focus on sustainability, and he hopes this can be seen with the plants, materials and construction methods he chooses to use.
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