Ernest George is a landscape architect, garden designer and founder of Geo Designs, based in the glen of Strathconon in the Scottish Highlands
Here, garden designer and founder of Geo Designs, Ernest George, reflects on an unconventional path to his craft, the pull of his native Ross-shire, and why the best gardens are the ones that look as though they were always there.
An unconventional beginning
My route to landscape architecture was anything but straightforward. Before I ever set foot in a lecture theatre, I spent my early years as a Chieftain Tank Crewman in the armed forces, serving in Germany, Canada and Belize. When I left the army in the early eighties, I worked as a croupier in Mayfair – not an obvious precursor to garden design – before setting off to travel through Africa, Asia and the Far East.
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I decided to study formally. I enrolled at the University of Greenwich, graduating with a BA (Hons) and Diploma in Landscape Architecture in 1995. The course was a revelation.
From the outset we were taught to observe and critically analyse the world around us: how our cities, towns and rural landscapes relate to one another and how thoughtful design can strengthen that relationship.
Landscape architecture operates at every scale, from a single garden to an entire urban district, shaping the green and open spaces that communities depend on for wellbeing, biodiversity and connection to the natural world. The course instilled in me an understanding that good design is never just aesthetic; it carries a responsibility to the environment and to future generations.
The man who inspired me most during those five years was Tom Turner, who lectured at Greenwich and wrote extensively on garden design history. His insistence that gardens must be understood in their wider cultural, historical and ecological context — not merely as aesthetic exercises — shaped how I think about every project I take on. It was also during my studies that I first encountered the concept of genius loci, the spirit of the place. That idea has never left me.
Building a practice, and coming home
After graduating I established Geo Designs as an independent garden design and build practice in the mid-nineties. Within eight years we were gaining national recognition, from roof gardens in Chelsea to large private gardens in the Home Counties.
We won Best in Show at the inaugural Urban Gardens Show at Olympia and an Association of Professional Landscaping award for Best in Category. The team grew, the portfolio expanded, and it was an exciting time.
But the pull of the Highlands was always there. I was born and raised in Ross-shire and my heart has always belonged here. When the moment came to return, the transition felt perfectly natural. I was home.
That was nearly twenty-three years ago, and I have been designing gardens from our studio in the beautiful glen of Strathconon ever since.
What the Highland landscape teaches you
Nothing inspires me more than this landscape – the mountains, the moors, the glens, the forests, the islands and coasts. But it is more than inspiration. The Highland landscape has a way of keeping you both rooted and humble. However long you have worked here, it continues to teach you. The learning process never truly ends.
Every garden here is unique. The requirements for an urban garden in Inverness might be completely different from a garden on the rural Black Isle. A town client might want more privacy, an entertaining space and lower maintenance.
A country client might need shelter from the prevailing wind, retained views, and a native planting scheme. Urban or rural, it is now critical that we consider our gardens within a greater environmental context — acknowledging that our outdoor space is not only a place for pleasure but also our most direct conduit to the natural world.
The Geo Designs ethos
Our ethos at Geo Designs is simple: “Every garden begins with listening; to the land, the light and the landscape around it.”
I don’t have a signature style in the way some designers do. I’m not trying to impose an aesthetic on a garden that has its own logic. What I do have is a strong conviction that a garden should look as though it belongs where it is; that it grew from the landscape around it rather than being dropped into it.
In practice, that means spending time on site before I draw a single line. It means understanding which direction the wind comes from, where the frost sits, what you can actually see from the kitchen window in February when there’s nothing in flower.
The design comes out of all of that. Sometimes a client arrives with a very clear picture in their head of what they want, and my job is to help them achieve it. More often, the conversations we have early on shift things in directions neither of us expected, usually for the better.
I work with both private clients and estates across the Highlands, from relatively modest domestic gardens to substantial grounds where the brief spans woodland, walled garden, formal areas and wilder, more naturalistic planting. The scale changes but the approach doesn’t.
Highland Garden Tours
We have some extraordinary gardens here in the Highlands. Perhaps lesser known than those further south, but no less remarkable for it. That’s partly what led me to establish Highland Garden Tours.
Inverewe and Attadale on the west coast, Dunrobin and Gordon Castle’s walled garden on the east are among my favourite gardens in Scotland and constant sources of planting inspiration.
Giving people access to spaces like these feels genuinely important.
A garden of one’s own
We have created many dream gardens for clients over the years. My own garden, however, is very much a work in progress. It has developed organically over time and features a woodland, an ornamental and vegetable garden.
Yew and beech hedging provide shelter from the south-westerly winds; Japanese acers bring autumn colour; drifts of spring bulbs and climbing roses add scent through the seasons.
A garden is never truly finished. But as with most things worth caring about, it improves with age.
Professional credentials
Ernest is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture and a pre-registered member of the Society of Garden Designers, working towards full membership — a mark of the rigorous professional standards he holds himself to throughout his practice.
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