About
About
Mia Witham
Mia Witham is an award-winning Swedish landscape and garden designer based in Suffolk and she used to teach garden design and plant design at Otley College for five years before deciding to design gardens full-time in 2015.
She has a passion for plants and works both in the UK and abroad on wide ranging projects. She takes careful consideration of plants’ natural habitats in her planting schemes to ensure plants will thrive and seeks inspiration from nature where she studies plant communities, the shapes and forms of plants and how they combine.
'Landscape design is a problem solving exercise which takes into account human values and needs, nature’s possibilities and limitations as well as aesthetic qualities. To me, design is a playful exercise which also requires careful planning and thought. It is the multifaceted nature of landscape design that makes it so exciting.
I had my first garden not long after I moved to the UK in 1998, which is where my creative experimentation with plants begun. With a science background it was my curiosity that was the driving force at first; working out why my Lavatera died when moved in the middle of the summer when in full bloom and how the soil determined what plants would thrive. I also noted early on the calming influence working with plants has, which in our fast-pace society was something I definitely needed and still do.
The creative process of experimenting with plants continues to this day and my current Suffolk garden is my playground and includes a wide range of plants that I allow to grow and self-seed freely in order to learn about their behaviours in response to environmental conditions. I get involved in both domestic and commercial projects in the UK and abroad where my understanding of plants translates to the spaces I work on as a landscape designer with strong combinations of plant forms, colours and textures characterising my schemes.'
Mia Witham