Lee Bestall BSc Hons MSGD MBALI
Founder | Director of Design & Innovation
MY STORY
“Hello and welcome to Bestall & Co, a company I’ve been cultivating since April 2004. Over recent years, our company has been recognised as one of the best garden design practices in the Midlands & North of England, and we have won many awards at prestigious flower shows including three medals at the world famous Chelsea Flower Show. A particularly proud moment was in 2017 when I met Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, was named Channel Four Grand Designs Garden Designer of the Year by Kevin McCloud and named Northern Garden Designer of the year in 2017 and 2020.
I’m often asked by potential clients “How did you become a garden designer?” so for all those curious people out there, I’d like to share with you our story, which begins long before it was just me and a mower.
I began gardening with ‘Grandad Shed’ when I was around four years old, and have been growing herbs and vegetables on and off ever since. As a teenager, I was a closet gardener, so whilst my friends were zooming around their BMX bike (yes, I was an eighties child), I was trying to achieve a striped lawn with a Flymo!
On graduating from university, I was offered a position in a friendly consultancy office, where I spent much of my time gazing out of the window, longing to be outside. After working in sales and then HR for three years, I left the high-pressure world of recruitment and set up a garden maintenance company called Inspired Gardens, (which would later become Inspired Garden Design in 2010 when we became Limited). My bosses at the time supported me through the transition and have remained mentors and friends ever since.
By October 2004 I’d been cutting grass and weeding borders for around six months, and as the days started to shorten, so did the number of clients who wanted my summer services. Late one afternoon whilst cleaning the mower blades, thinking ‘how is my business going to survive the winter?’ I had a surprise call from the BBC. They were commissioning a gardening programme called Garden School – ‘The Apprentice’ for aspiring garden designers. They were responding to an application I’d made two years earlier and congratulated me on being selected from four thousand applicants, making it down to the final three hundred (there would be only eight winners, so I still had some way to go).
The series was filmed in 2005 and aired as an eight part documentary on BBC2. Presented by Diarmuid Gavin, my journey culminated as one of the eight winners where I spent six months training with the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley.
When I returned to Sheffield, I knew I couldn’t go back to cutting grass (I’d sold my van and lawnmower anyway to help pay for our mortgage). Working with Diarmuid had been extremely inspirational, but his design course certainly hadn’t been conventional (which he acknowledged was intentional), so I felt further training in the theory of garden design was essential, and found myself back at university, returning a couple of years later lecturing part time, as well as designing and project monitoring the construction of gardens.
The years rolled on and the business grew, mainly through recommendations and my association with the Society of Garden Designers, and the British Institute of Landscape Industries. I am now the Founder of Bestall & Co Landscape Design, I changed the name from Inspired Garden Design in 2017 due to the increasing number of competitors throughout the country with the same name.
Fast forward five years and a pandemic, and we’d more than doubled in size and it was time to introduce a management structure, so I brought in two new directors who both have a 30% share in the business. This division of responsibilities means I can concentrate on my passion which is design and innovation, and the operational and client experience are managed by Jamie and Paula retrospectively.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve built a fantastic team of creatives, landscapers and many wonderful clients, many of whom have become friends, and to all those people I extend my sincere gratitude, because every single one has helped me edge closer to my long-term goal, … to set a new standard within our industry through our commitment to continuous never ending improvement.”
Lee Bestall has been designing and managing the construction of gardens for over twenty years and his genuine passion and enthusiasm are infectious. He regularly writes gardening and outdoor style articles for glossy magazines, and is stand in presenter of BBC radio Sheffield’s Gardeners Question Hour.
SHOW GARDENS & AWARDS
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2005 – RHS Tatton Park. Sponsor: Brother Plant Labeller
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2006 – Gardeners’ World Live. Sponsor: Dukeries Garden Centre
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2011 – Fully registered member of the Society of Garden Designers
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2012 – Harrogate Flower Show. Self funded.
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2012 – Grand Designs Live, Birmingham NEC. Self funded.
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2015 – Harrogate Flower Show. Client: Great British Pub Card
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2015 – RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Artisan Garden. Sponsor: Welcome To Yorkshire
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2016 – RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Fresh Garden. Sponsor: Victoria Business Improvement District
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2017 – RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Main Avenue. Sponsor: CAPCO
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2017 – RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. Sponsor: Visit Peak District & Derbyshire
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2017 – Winner of Northern Garden Designer of the year
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2018 – RHS Chatsworth Flower Show – Principle contractor for Sarah Eberle installation
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2019 – RHS Chatsworth Flower Show – Design mentor and principle contractor for BBC Radio Sheffield ‘Elements of Sheffield’
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2019 – RHS Chatsworth Flower Show – Design mentor and principle contractor for BBC Radio Stoke ‘An Imagined Miners Garden’
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2019 – RHS Chatsworth Flower Show – Design mentor and principle contractor for BBC Radio Derby ‘The Brewery Garden’
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2020 – Best of Houzz award for customer service
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2020 – Winner of Northern Garden Designer of the Year
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2020 – Winner of Culture Champions – Action Coach Sheffield region
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2020 – Winner of ‘Best overall business’ – Action Coach Sheffield region
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2021 – Finalist Northern Design Awards
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2021 – RHS Tatton Park Flower Show – Design mentor and principal contractor for BBC Radio Manchester ‘The Windrush Garden’ by Dawn Evans
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2021 – RHS Tatton Park Flower Show – Design mentor and principal contractor for BBC Radio Merseyside ‘My Garden Our City’ by Sue Burke
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2021 – RHS Tatton Park Flower Show – Design mentor and principal contractor for BBC Radio Lancashire ‘Bee Happy in the Garden’ by Denise Reddin
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2022 – RHS Tatton Park Flower Show – Design & creation of a show feature to celebrate the 50th year anniversary for BALI (British Association of Landscape Industries)
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2022 – RHS Tatton Park – Design mentor and principal contractor for BBC Radio gardens
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2022 -Finalist Northern Design Awards
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2022 – Winner of Culture Champions – Action Coach Sheffield region
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2023 -Finalist Northern Design Awards
About Lee | Media Biography
Lee’s career began with the opportunity of a lifetime back in 2005 when he was selected from 4000 people to take part in a BBC2 gardening documentary called Garden School. Presented by Diarmuid Gavin and dubbed ‘The Apprentice meets Big Brother in a garden’ followed 8 students as they studied horticultural techniques at RHS Wisley and were inspired by trips around the gardens of Europe with Diarmuid.
In June 2011 Lee became a fully registered member of the Society of Garden Designers (which is no mean feat!) and his garden at home helped a Sheffield based landscaper win the Principal award at the BALI awards in London for best domestic garden construction 2011.
In October 2012 Lee was selected by Kevin McCloud as the first ever Grand Designs ‘Garden Designer of the Year’ with his award winning garden ‘Cloud Nine’ and after successful award winning gardens at Chelsea 2015 and 2016, Lee created a garden on Main Avenue at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2017 for CAPCO named 500 years of Covent Garden.
Lee was brand ambassador for Sheffield based garden tool manufacturer Spear & Jackson from 2016 – 2022.
Lee was name Northern Garden Designer of the year in both 2017 and 2020, securing his position as one of the countries leading garden designers.
This year has already been a very exciting year, as Lee and his team are working on around 30 different projects including the development of a large private residential walled garden in Nottingham along with several projects in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
