Creative Roots — Nottingham · Est. 2010

The Cancer Research UK Legacy Garden

RHS Tatton — 2021

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An Award-Winning Practice

A family-owned garden design studio with six major show gardens at RHS Tatton, RHS Chatsworth and BBC Gardeners' World Live.

Three disciplines, one vision. Design, build and maintain — across Nottinghamshire and the wider Midlands.

— 01 —

Design

From first sketch to final planting plan. A considered, RHS award-winning design process that begins with how you want to live in your garden.

Begin a Design →
— 02 —

Build

Multi-award-winning landscape construction, built to the same standards as our show gardens at RHS and BBC events.

See Recent Work →
— 03 —

Maintain

Over 100 residential gardens and grounds management for commercial clients across Nottinghamshire — kept beautifully, year-round.

Maintenance Care →
"
A garden is the most personal landscape a person ever owns. Our job is to listen first, then translate a way of living into something rooted, layered and lasting. Fifteen years in, every single project still starts the same way — with a conversation.
Neil Sutcliffe Director & Lead Designer, Creative Roots
Portfolio

Selected work, 2013–2025

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Major Show Gardens
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Years In Practice
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Residential Gardens Maintained
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Team (Including Bramble)
Shows & Awards

Six major show gardens in eight years.

From BBC Gardeners' World Live to RHS Chatsworth and RHS Tatton — including charity collaborations with Cancer Research UK and Cruse Bereavement Care.

2021
RHS Tatton Flower Show

The Cancer Research UK Legacy Garden

Charity collaboration with Cancer Research UK — a garden built around the idea of legacy, memory and the act of leaving something behind.

2019
RHS Chatsworth Flower Show

Eutierria

Entered into the mindfulness category. A garden about reconnecting with the natural world — softness, repetition, and the quiet beauty of woodland-edge planting.

2019
BBC Gardeners' World Live

Harborne Botanics

Built for the APL Avenue, exploring the theme of travel — a journey through textures, planting layers and material storytelling.

2017
RHS Chatsworth Flower Show

The Cruse Bereavement Care Garden

For the charity Cruse Bereavement Care — a meditation on the journey through terminal illness, designed as a space for reflection and quiet courage.

2015
BBC Gardeners' World Live / RHS Birmingham

A Lifestyle Garden

Entered into the lifestyle category at the final RHS Birmingham show — a celebration of how gardens are actually lived in, day to day.

2013
BBC Gardeners' World Live / RHS Birmingham

Metamorphosis

Creative Roots' first major show garden — and the one that won a place in the final four. The beginning of a long relationship with the show garden circuit.

Commercial Maintenance

The first impression for many businesses is the garden.

Alongside our design and build practice, Creative Roots provides year-round grounds management for commercial clients across Nottinghamshire — from national retail brands and restaurants to care homes and apartment developments.

  • Major retailers — landscaping & seasonal grounds care
  • Restaurants — entrances, courtyards & seating areas
  • Care homes — therapeutic & accessible gardens
  • Apartment developments — communal grounds & first-impression spaces
  • 100+ private residential gardens, maintained on rotation
Discuss A Maintenance Contract →
A Creative Roots commercial landscape
Our Film

Fifteen years in five minutes.

Voices

What clients & collaborators say.

Private ClientWest Bridgford

The team listened harder than any designer we've worked with.

Neil walked our garden three times before sketching anything. Two years on, every layer has settled in exactly as he described.

Charity PartnerCancer Research UK

A garden that carried the weight of legacy with extraordinary grace.

Working with Creative Roots on the 2021 Tatton garden was a privilege. The result spoke to thousands of visitors over the week.

Apartment DeveloperNottingham

Our grounds are the first thing prospective residents see.

Creative Roots have looked after the development for four years. Punctual, immaculate, and quietly proud of the work — exactly what we need.

Restaurant OwnerNottinghamshire

The courtyard transformed our covers — and our reviews.

A small space, a tight brief, a remarkable result. We've recommended Neil and the team to every restaurateur we know.

Charity PartnerCruse Bereavement Care

A garden that held space for grief without ever being heavy.

The 2017 Chatsworth garden gave visitors a moment of quiet that many of them did not know they needed. Beautifully done.

Private ClientThe Park, Nottingham

Fifteen years of show-garden craft, brought to a townhouse.

We could see the same attention to layered planting and material detail you see at the RHS shows — but at a domestic scale. Worth every conversation.

Private ClientWest Bridgford

The team listened harder than any designer we've worked with.

Neil walked our garden three times before sketching anything. Two years on, every layer has settled in exactly as he described.

Charity PartnerCancer Research UK

A garden that carried the weight of legacy with extraordinary grace.

Working with Creative Roots on the 2021 Tatton garden was a privilege. The result spoke to thousands of visitors over the week.

Apartment DeveloperNottingham

Our grounds are the first thing prospective residents see.

Creative Roots have looked after the development for four years. Punctual, immaculate, and quietly proud of the work — exactly what we need.

Restaurant OwnerNottinghamshire

The courtyard transformed our covers — and our reviews.

A small space, a tight brief, a remarkable result. We've recommended Neil and the team to every restaurateur we know.

Charity PartnerCruse Bereavement Care

A garden that held space for grief without ever being heavy.

The 2017 Chatsworth garden gave visitors a moment of quiet that many of them did not know they needed. Beautifully done.

Private ClientThe Park, Nottingham

Fifteen years of show-garden craft, brought to a townhouse.

We could see the same attention to layered planting and material detail you see at the RHS shows — but at a domestic scale. Worth every conversation.

About Creative Roots

A family-owned practice, established in Nottingham in 2010.

Founded by Neil and Keith Sutcliffe, Creative Roots has spent the last fifteen years becoming one of the most decorated landscaping practices in the Midlands. Six major show gardens at RHS Tatton, RHS Chatsworth and BBC Gardeners' World Live — built between 2013 and 2021 — sit alongside a quieter, steadier body of residential and commercial work.

Three disciplines: Design, Build, Maintain. One vision — that a garden, like a relationship, is built over years rather than weeks.

The team is now seventeen strong (plus Bramble, the unofficial team mascot), serving Nottinghamshire and the wider Midlands. We do not chase the volume of contractors. We try, very hard, to do a small number of things exceptionally well.

Start A Conversation →
The Creative Roots approach — Eutierria, RHS Chatsworth 2019
The Team

Eighteen people (and one dog).

Every garden we build passes through every hand in this team. From first design conversation to ongoing maintenance, you are working with the same studio, the same standards, throughout.

Neil Sutcliffe

Neil Sutcliffe

Director · Lead Designer

Keith Sutcliffe

Keith Sutcliffe

Director · Co-Founder

Alex Brooker

Alex Brooker

Studio Team

Matt Turney

Matt Turney

Studio Team

Adam Ridley

Adam Ridley

Studio Team

Bramble

Bramble ♡

Team Mascot

Jay Manners

Jay Manners

Studio Team

Leon Thomas

Leon Thomas

Studio Team

Ryan Walton

Ryan Walton

Studio Team

Jack Hammond

Jack Hammond

Studio Team

Charlie Rockley

Charlie Rockley

Studio Team

Ben Bliss

Ben Bliss

Studio Team

Alessia Natali

Alessia Natali

Studio Team

Luke Evans

Luke Evans

Studio Team

Sam Parsons

Sam Parsons

Studio Team

Matt Richardson

Matt Richardson

Studio Team

Helen Reynolds

Helen Reynolds

Studio Team

Lilian Gibson

Lilian Gibson

Studio Team

Get In Touch

Start a design project. Or just discuss your garden.

Every project we work on begins with a conversation — whether that is a full design commission, a maintenance contract for a commercial site, or the early thinking around what a garden might one day become.

We work across Nottinghamshire and the wider Midlands. Studio appointments and on-site consultations available by arrangement.

0115 981 2282 neil@creativeroots.com
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire

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