Whether it is bringing order to the sprawling grounds of an English stately, or breathing life into a compact London plot, the best landscape gardeners can be relied upon to transform even the most unwelcoming space with their green-fingered expertise.
Among the advisers featured in the Spear’s Landscape Gardeners Index 2025 are designers of gardens for the Natural History Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, and decorated veterans of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
The gardeners and landscapers in the Spear’s Index fuse creativity, sustainability and expertise to craft breathtaking outdoor spaces turning ordinary landscapes into living masterpieces, creating innovative high-end landscapes where bold architectural choices and naturalistic planting schemes alchemise. These spaces are, in the words of Top Flight adviser Dan Pearson, designed to ‘encourage people to connect with nature by producing beautiful, inspiring environments that provoke contemplation and self-reflection’.
These experts collaborate with luxury brands and partner with internationally acclaimed interior designers, sculptors, architects and developers.
Joining Pearson in the Top Flight, the highest ranking given to Spear’s 500 advisers are: Arabella Lennox-Boyd who has created more than 700 gardens and accumulated six RHS Chelsea Flower Show Gold medals during her five decades in the business, and the man many consider to be the world’s leading garden designer, Piet Oudolf.
Explore the 2025 Spear’s Home & Design Indices:
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These leading landscape gardeners have reshaped private oases and public spaces around the world, from a wildflower field in Virginia to the manicured displays of Rosewood London.
Click the links below to jump to a section of this article:
- Methodology
- Best landscape gardeners: some names to know
- Best landscape gardeners: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
Best landscape gardeners: some names to know
Ann-Marie Powell
Focus: Innovative use of materials
Ranking: Top Recommended
Firm: Ann-Marie Powell Gardens
Powell works from a studio on the West Sussex/Hampshire border, creating gardens that often blend contemporary design – and unexpected materials – with a more naturalistic style. Her impressive portfolio includes Grade I- and Grade II-listed private gardens, private school grounds, roof terraces and Gold-winning show gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Read Ann-Marie Powell’s full profile at Spears500.com
Charlotte Harris
Focus: Sustainable garden design
Ranking: Top Recommended
Firm: Harris Bugg Studio
Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg founded their garden design practice, Harris Bugg Studio, in 2017 and have since established a reputation for delivering creative and eye-catching gardens. Harris tells Spear’s that the largest portion of work they do is high-end residential projects across the UK – from Cornwall to the Highlands of Scotland – and in Europe.
Read Charlotte Harris’s full profile at Spears500.com
Sue Hetherington
Focus: Bespoke gardens
Ranking: Recommended
Firm: Courtingtons
Sue Hetherington co-founded landscape architecture firm Courtingtons over two decades ago with Jon Courtney-Thompson, the firm’s director of architecture. She works across commercial and domestic projects nationwide, with a portfolio that includes a planned boathouse on the banks of the Thames, as well as high-end domestic properties in the Cotswolds and beyond.
Read Sue Hetherington’s full profile at Spears500.com
Matt Keightley
Focus: Naturalistic planting schemes
Ranking: Top Recommended
Firm: Rosebank Landscaping Ltd
In the eight years since Matt Keightley and Cameron Wilson co-founded Rosebank Landscaping, the business has gone from strength to strength. Six RHS garden show medals, gold at the Shenzhen World Flower Show, and a gold award at the Pro Landscape Business Awards 2023 for best design and build. Although residential work accounts for 60 per cent of projects, Keightley and his firm have also brought their talents to a wide range of public spaces.
Read Matt Keightley’s full profile at Spears500.com
Best landscape gardeners: the complete list
Click the individual/company name to visit the full profile on Spears500.com. Entries are listed by ranking.
Contact us
- To apply for inclusion in The Spear’s 500, complete our submission form.
- For further information about rankings, please email research@spearswms.com; we aim to respond to all queries within two working days.
- For commercial enquiries and questions relating to enhanced profiles, please contact Commercial Director Shady Elkholy: shady.elkholy@spearswms.com
- To keep up to date with the Spear’s 500, subscribe to our magazine, newsletter and follow Spear’s on Linkedin and Instagram.
- If you have missed calendar deadlines for our research cycles in 2025, you can still register your interest for updates about upcoming research and rankings.
- Click here to order a print copy of The Spear’s 500.
