The Design Off – Choose Between Garden Designs by James Alexander Sinclair and Adam Frost

Design Off – Choose Between Garden Designs by James Alexander Sinclair and Adam Frost

A very special start to mark the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Carlow Garden Festival. Two of the UK’s most respected garden designers – Adam Frost and James Alexander Sinclair – come together to present two design concepts for an outdoor space.

Adam and James will present two previous garden designs they have worked upon, providing lots of information and advice and helpful hints to create your own outdoor space. Expect to hear about key design principles that guide the creation of an average sized modern garden that can then be applied to any sized garden. Friendly banter yet serious gardening information and advice will be the focus for this garden talk, along of course with a steely determination to capture the audience’s imagination and their votes!

Adam Frost

Adam Frost is an award-winning British garden designer, television presenter and motivational speaker.

Best known for his successes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Adam is passionate about inspiring adults and children alike to create their own gardens and watch hedgerows spring to life appreciating each one of our distinct seasons as they unfold.

Adam is a presenter on BBC’s Gardeners’ World (BBC Two) and also appears regularly on the BBC’s coverage of the RHS Flower Show. He has also featured on The One Show and DIY SOS (BBC One) as well as The Alan Titchmarsh Show (ITV). In 2016 he won ‘Best New Talent’ at the RTS West Awards.

Since 2007, Adam has amassed seven gold medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. He regularly lectures on a wide range of horticultural topics, both nationally and internationally and is a regular contributor to Gardeners’ World and other horticultural magazines. Adam’s first book Real Gardens was published in 2015 by Red Planet Publishing while How to Create your Garden: Ideas and Advice for Transforming your Outdoor Space was published in 2019 and The Creative Gardener: Inspiration and Advice to Create the Space You Want in 2022.

Adam’s love for the great outdoors started from a young age when he helped on his grandparent’s allotment. His fascination with watching plants and vegetables grow and the wildlife they attract has stayed with him and he remains passionate about passing this on to future generations.

He is trained in horticulture and landscape design and began his professional career in the mid-1980s with an apprenticeship at the North Devon Parks Department. Adam later moved to Rutland where he began working with Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale Gardens where he helped design and create many of the 38 small gardens which are still on show to the public today.

In 2014 Adam set up The Homebase Garden Academy with the specific aim of helping Britain’s next generation of horticulture students to kick-start their careers, by teaching them about garden design and landscaping. As well as running his own garden design and landscape business he also sits on the Board of the Horticulture Trades Association; is an RHS Ambassador and runs The Adam Frost Garden School where he hosts master classes on design and other gardening courses.

Adam and his wife Sulina live in Lincolnshire with their four children, one horse, two ponies, two dogs and an ancient cat. Adam is a natural speaker who credits his love of horticulture from his earliest childhood memories, to working with Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale Gardens, before going solo in 1996 for the rollercoaster ride of designing multiple award-winning show gardens!

He enjoys passing on his knowledge and travels all over the world speaking to people about his ‘journey so far.’ From a lifetime in the garden, Adam’s talks are always full of amusing stories, as well as advice and inspiration for anyone hoping to have a career in horticulture.

James Alexander Sinclair

James Alexander-Sinclair MSGD is a renowned British garden designer. He began his career as a landscape contractor in London before moving to the English countryside in 1992. Since then he has designed private and public gardens both large and small throughout the UK and occasionally beyond.

James is also a well-known writer, contributing to many of the British horticultural publications (Gardens Illustrated, English Garden, Country Life, The Garden etc) and was voted the Garden Media Guild Garden Journalist of the Year in 2019. He has had a varied career as a television presenter and is a long-term member of the BBC team for coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show.

Anyone who has seen James on stage will attest that he is a lively and engaging speaker. James has been a Royal Horticultural Society gardens judge since 2006, Chair of the Chelsea Flower Show selection panel and Chairman of the International Jury at the Moscow Flower Show amongst others. In 2011 he was elected to the Council of the RHS and served 10 years, he continues to be very involved with the society and has recently been appointed as a Vice-President. In 2016 James created a garden at the Scottish Spinal Injuries Centre for the Horatio’s Garden charity, he continues to oversee the garden and in 2021 accepted a role as trustee.