Leonie Cornelius – Gardens can teach us about resilience and empathy!
When we met Leonie as a toddler nearly 40 years ago, little did we know that she would go on and become an award winning garden designer, author and writer. But first things first. Leonie dipped her toes into music management straight out of school, went on to study interior architecture at the ATU Sligo and then studied Garden Design at KLC university in London.
“My journey to Garden Design really came through architecture as I also studied interior architecture”, she tell us, “I loved the work but wanted to study something which gave me a unique approach and Garden Design offered this. To this day, I use so many things I learned in architecture in my everyday practice as a designer especially when I create inside outside spaces like this year’s nourish Garden at bord Bia Bloom.”
Growing up in the wild of Leitrim
Moving to Ireland with her parents in the late 80s, Leonie grew up in Leitrim, where she now has, what she describes as a ‘wild garden’ with small pockets of designed areas within a larger wild meadow scheme beside a small lake. She calls it her plant laboratory where she tries out different combinations to see what kind of soils are needed to grow different types of species. “Nature is always surprising,” she says, “the more I grow the more I know I don’t know and I love the learning side of this.” Leonie also loves growing some of her own food, primarily in her polytunnel, which she started 2 years ago. “I make salads every day from my garden.” She also loves growing herbs, “I drink a big pot of herbal tea every evening and I love to mix up the herbs for whatever I need on the day. “
Creating gardens is to plug back into the power of the wild
We want to know, what is her advice to people new to gardening and the encouraging answer is: “Don’t be afraid of trying things out. It is inevitable in gardening that things fail. I am still learning every time I try out a new plant and see how it matures.” But what about a more specific design advice would she give: “Create a concept and a vision which connects you to yourself, your family and community through the wild and create a space which has meaning and makes you want to go there all the time.” Leonie is very clear in her garden philosophy: “Really if you think about it, the whole reason we create gardens is so that we can plug back into the power of the wild and everything nature has to offer.”
Garden design in a changeable climate
One of the most common request from clients is shelter for the Irish climate and Leonie’s answer is designing pergolas and garden rooms. “It’s so important in our changeable climate to consider how we can make more use of the outdoor spaces.”
Are you designing with the climate crisis in mind we ask and the answers is swift: “Absolutely, we have seen a massive shift in the extreme in our climate, much more rain and much more sun and this year it’s been very prevalent. With this extreme we have to design differently, especially when it comes to soil. For the past few years I have been using much more gravel soil mix specifications and even ones quite heavy in sand ratio, which allow much more free draining for periods of heavier rain.”
What about plant selection? “I am also experimenting a lot with plants which are more drought resistant in this context and there is definitely something which many designers called the ‘slow creep north’ meaning that plants which used to not grow here, can now happily thrive if they are grown in well draining soil.”
Biodiversity is the first building block in my garden design
Naturally we are interested in her take on biodiversity in the garden? “For me biodiversity is the first building block of everything we do as Garden designers,“ Leonie explains, “it’s something which is ingrained in me not just as an add on but rather as the driver behind the garden spaces I create.” What does she think gardening can teach us? “I think gardens can teach us so much about resilience and empathy, something which is often forgotten and definitely suffering in the times we live in. For me there is so much healing and wisdom and simple hope and delight in observing nature and all the wild creatures that we share it with.”
Leonie, Gaby and Liz in the apothecary of the Nourish garden at Bloom 2025.
“I love growing nourishing food.”
Having known Leonie for so long we have the privilege of always getting a very special tour through her show gardens at Bloom and this year was no different. “I absolutely love growing nourishing food, especially for salads and herbs for teas and my small apothecary. That was the original idea behind what became my Bloom garden this year,” an excited and happy Leonie explains while walking us though the Gold winning Nourish garden. “The idea is growing plants in a garden which you cannot just look at and tend to, but also include in your daily nourishing dishes as well as well-being rituals. My garden is my sanctuary and I’m out there every single day when I am at home.”
Nourish – The Caragh Nurseries Garden at Bloom 2025
Drawing inspiration from Mediterranean living and ancient herbal traditions, Nourish features a sensory apothecary room surrounded by climate resilient, edible and ornamental planting. The garden invites visitors to slow down, restore and rediscover the pleasure in nature.
Having watched Leonie’s award winning career from the sidelines we ask her what winning at Bloom means? “That’s a question I look at nowadays with a lot more balance” she reflects, “the first time I won Best in category and Gold at bloom was in 2012 with my first show garden. Since then I’ve had various gold gardens but also silver and silver gilt, so to be quite honest you can never take it for granted. Lately I have started to design gardens which make my heart sing and which nourish me and my team in the process. This was something that was very important to me this year. The medal was really just the bonus at the end.”
Leonie Cornelius uncovered
1. What is your favourite food? Anything fresh and wild Greek inspired, think juicy sunshine ripened tomatoes with fresh basil from the garden, olive oil and feta cheese and red onions.
2. Finish the sentence: A garden designer is always a bit crazy. We can never make up our minds and every design will spark something new in us. It’s definitely the joy of what i do as it never gets boring’
3. The country you travel for food: Greece, France, Portugal, Italy. So much joy in Mediterranean cooking but in the last 10 years, I’ve also discovered Brazil which has such incredible cooking to offer like their moqueca fish stew type of plates which are divine!
4. Three things you always have in your larder/fridge? Lots of different organic cheeses to go with my Rye bread (Gaby’s recipe!) -I am a cheese addict. Good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Herbs for tea.
5. What is your most used gadget? My i-phone 16 pro- I use it a lot to take pictures of gardens and nature and the quality is absolutely incredible. It also allows me to stay in touch with family who live in Germany and Brazil so it’s very important to me.
6. Do you read gardening books and which one do you come back to? Definitely! I go back again and again to ‘Planting’ by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury. I love all the books by Charles Dowding. One of my favourites is ‘Grounded in the Garden’ by a friend of mine , TJ Maher, who is the designer of Patthana garden in Wicklow. I also really enjoy books which are not necessarily pure garden design but rather the psychology behind them like Sue Stewart Smith ‘s ‘The Well Gardened Mind’ .
7. Who is your inspiration (not necessarily from the garden design world)? I have so many people I am inspired by from Architects to fashion designers, artists writers and more. I think it’s really important to have a broad range of influences and inspirations so that your design practice does not get stagnant. The most inspiring people are people who understand that art doesn’t live in a vacuum and who celebrate the connectivity between everything.
8. What are you currently listening to? I always have a few albums on the go. Currently, it’s Sza’s LANA album, some Berlioz and some King’s of Leon.
9. Something people don’t know about you? I lived on a Greek island as a child for a year. I definitely think my love of heat, scented herbs and Greek food comes from that!
10. What will be hot in 2025/26? Empathy, kindness and peace. That’s what I’ve decided anyway. Can we make that the new trend please across everything we do?
To find out more about Leonie’s work and get in touch here is the link https://leoniecornelius.com/
Dream Gardens by Leonie Cornelius
A clear and easy-to-follow guide to creating a garden design from scratch. Leonie provides an outline of the skills necessary and inspiration to take on your garden space, and help ensure that you end up with your dream garden.
