I LOVE the whole process of designing a garden for someone else. For me, it starts with the initial excitement of visiting the existing space.

We British are renowned for being nosey, and what better excuse for getting to see other people's gardens than offering to restructure them.

I use the (quite legitimate) excuse that the more gardens you visit the more inspiration and ideas you can gather.

The simple fact is that I just enjoy seeing the many permutations that can be created from plants, lawns, pots, gazebos, paint and statues.

The current trend of open gardens is a fabulous.

For a small price (which usually goes towards a registered charity, the village hall funds or the local church roof) you can get round 20 or 30 gardens in just one afternoon (many of which obligingly serve a mean cream tea).

Now that's what I call an interesting, entertaining, and value for money day out.

On the makeover front, a first visit is always a time for delicacy and diplomacy. You have to remember that we all want something different from our garden and that someone else's taste may not be the same as yours.

As a designer you can offer suggestions, but it's not generally good practice to ridicule others efforts. You also have to avoid the temptation to use their gardens as experimentation laboratories.

Mistakes can be expensive to rectify, and it doesn't do your reputation any favours either.

The most important part of the process has to be communication. The client must be offered the chance to define precisely what they want from the finished product. Important factors should be taken into consideration such as how will the garden be used, who will be using it, when will it be used, and what sort of maintenance programme can they cope with.

It's no use putting in big borders full of delicate flowers if that part of the garden doubles up as a football goalmouth during winter and a tennis court in June.

Similarly, creating a garden that looks good in winter is of no use if you spend November to March in Spain.

It's during this stage of talking through the aspects of a garden design that you can really get to know people, and from that gain an insight into what they may or may not want from you.

This is also where you make some good, life long friends. Like any artistic creation, a garden that you have had some influence in bringing to being is very hard to just walk away from after completion. There is always an urge to revisit and see how it has grown and evolved.

Quite often you get called back for the next phase of development, or for some new ideas.

I recently visited some friends for whom I had done a design earlier in the year. I only popped in to make sure that there had been no horticultural hiccups since our last meeting, and to mark out a potential new border. Eight hours, a home-made curry and several bottles of wine later I had to order a taxi home. Now, that's the sort of designer/client relationship we should all be aspiring to.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Sunday

Farmers' Market at Nature's World, Acklam, Middlesbrough from 10am to 4pm.

Hutton Rudby Open Gardens from 1pm to 6pm, admission £2.50 for adults.