Gardens in Cornwall designed by Darren Hawkes

On the road before the sun rose, the quiet hum of the road beneath me. Throughout May and June in 2025, I set off to photograph a series of gardens from Fowey, Withiel, Koto at the Point, Polzeath to Salcombe, designed by the award winning landscape designer Darren Hawkes.

Gardens made for being. For pausing. For connecting. Each garden I visited was completely unique, yet unmistakably Darren's. His work seems to breathe with the land. There's a wildness to his designs—paths that meander, planting that sways and spills and surprises. There’s structure, but never imposing. It feels discovered.

Darren Hawkes, known for his multiple award-winning gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show, has a way of designing spaces that invite stillness and awe. And that’s exactly what I experienced—both as a photographer and as a person. His gardens are not just landscapes; they are living artworks. To photograph them was not simply to document but to witness and feel.

I wonder what they’ll become in a few years' time. Roots will deepen, textures will shift, and the spaces will only grow richer, wilder, more themselves. These are living places. Evolving places.