Finding Your Element (And Why Gardens & Garden Design Are Mine)

I recently watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk Do Schools Kill Creativity? and it struck a nerve.

Here’s the link — it’s well worth

watching:

It led me back to his book Finding Your Element, which explores a simple idea:

Your Element is where what you’re good at meets what you love.

That immediately made me think of my own path.

School Never Felt Built for Me

I struggled with maths and anything too formulaic.

The subjects where there was only one correct answer never really clicked.

But give me something creative…

Something visual…

Something that let me imagine and make…

That’s where I came alive.

Looking back, that was the clue.

For me, that overlap has always been outdoors.

The Suffolk landscape.

Walking the River Stour.

Noticing how light, trees, and seasons shape a place.

Garden design became the perfect mix of:

It’s work that feels natural to me in a way school never did.

I’m not interested in gardens as trends.

I care about spaces that:

That’s what Studio Stour is rooted in — people, place, and purpose.