About Me
Hi, I'm Sari.
I’m a garden and landscape designer, teacher, and lifelong observer of gardens.
For more than 20 years, I’ve designed gardens and landscapes, from private residential gardens to shared and public spaces. My work considers the whole landscape — its layout, structure, levels, materials, and planting.
And if there’s one thing all those gardens have taught me, it’s this:
Beautiful gardens don’t begin with plants. They begin with learning to see.
Most gardeners don’t need more inspiration or another long list of plants. They need a way to understand their garden as a whole: the space, the structure, the conditions, the connections between different areas, and only then the planting.
That’s what I want to help you with here at Garden Design Stories.
I share the principles, questions, real garden examples, and design methods I use in my own work—so you can learn to see your garden with a designer’s eye and make confident decisions about what belongs there.
The Questions Gardeners Bring Me
After more than 20 years of designing gardens, I’ve learned that the questions people bring me are often surprisingly similar.
“Where should my woodland-edge garden actually begin and end?”
“I have so many plants, but why doesn't it feel like a garden?”
“Where should I even begin?”
“How can I make this beautiful without creating more work than I can manage?”
These are the kinds of questions I love.
Very often, the answer isn’t another plant. It begins with stepping back, looking at the garden as a whole, and asking a better design question.
That’s where good garden design begins.
A little about my background
Sari Lampinen, MSGLD
Garden & Landscape Designer
For more than 20 years, I’ve worked professionally in garden and landscape design, creating private gardens as well as shared and public landscapes in Finland. My work spans the whole garden and landscape — from overall layout, levels, structures and hardscape to materials, planting design and the details that bring a garden together.
I trained in Garden Design at KLC School of Design in London and am a Registered Member of the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers (UK).
Alongside my design practice, I’ve taught garden and planting design, written about gardens, and shared my expertise through magazines, books, television and other media. I currently serve as a garden design expert for Viherpiha, one of Finland’s leading garden magazines, and have appeared as a garden and landscape designer on Finnish national television, including Yle’s morning program in 2026.
My design practice is also a professional member of Maisemasuunnittelijat ry, Finland’s professional society for landscape designers, where I served as a Council Member from 2017 to 2021.
What Is the Ultimate Purpose of Garden Design?
For me, garden design has never been simply about making a garden look beautiful. A garden is a place to live in and good design helps make it beautiful, functional, and enjoyable to use.
In this short clip from Finnish television, I talk about this idea and the role a garden plan can play in bringing it all together.
The interview is in Finnish with English subtitles.
Photo: Stas Voronin
Keep Learning to See Your Garden Differently
The Garden Blueprint is where I share garden design ideas, real examples, and questions that can help you see your own garden with a designer’s eye.
Continue with The Garden Blueprint