Garden design, maintenance and advice
About Us
Helping local people enjoy their outside spaces more
Our Story
Sprout Up is an all-female garden design and maintenance business that is here to help you get more from your outdoor space. Led by award-winning garden designer, Seonaid Royall (pronounced “Shona”), we are deeply rooted in South London, living and working across Balham, Brixton, Crystal Palace, Dulwich, Forest Hill, Herne Hill, Norwood and Streatham. First and foremost, we are expert gardeners and designers who listen hard to workout why you aren’t getting the most from your garden. Sometimes things simply need tidying up; or if it’s a design issue, we’ll re-imagine the space in a way that suits your style and meets the whole family’s needs. For those who are short on time, our maintenance team can keep on top of regular tasks from bulb-planting to pruning, so your garden looks its best, year after year. Clients say they appreciate that we communicate clearly, arrive on time and fit around their work and family schedules, including baby naps. If it matters to you, it matters to us. When you work with us you are also helping to support our social enterprise, Sprout Up Schools, which uses unwanted plants and materials to build better outdoor spaces in local schools. You can read more about Sprout Up Schools and Seonaid’s RHS Hampton Court show garden, Believe in Tomorrow, here.
Meet The Team
Seonaid Royall
Founder
Potted history Seonaid (“Shona”) Royall is an award-winning garden designer and the founder of Sprout Up and Sprout Up Schools.
Raised in a very outdoorsy family of gardeners, Seonaid initially rebelled by moving to London and becoming a BBC production manager. After having children she realised it was going to be difficult to be everything she wanted to be and she looked about for an alternative career. Creating her ‘Happy list’ she worked out that returning to her childhood and getting back outdoors, was most likely to make her happy and ‘successful’ so she set about retraining as a garden designer.
Since founding Sprout Up in 2011, Seonaid has designed hundreds of gardens across South London, improved the outdoor spaces at a dozen or more local schools, crowdfunded an RHS Hampton Court show garden (which won a silver-gilt medal). On weekends you can find her in her own garden in Streatham, enjoying a well-earned gin by the firepit.
Favourite garden task “creating cloud pruned shrubs out of existing planting.”
Lucy Quick
Garden Designer
Joined 2019
Potted history Nature lover Lucy worked as a lighting designer and a writer before retraining as a garden designer and joining Sprout Up. Her garden at home in West Norwood is small and north-facing, but she has still managed to fit in a wildlife pond. Lucy is passionate about finding the right plant for the right place, planning her designs so there’s something for clients to enjoy all year round.
Favourite garden task “Design, but I also love going back and doing maintenance, and seeing how the plants have performed over time and in different seasons.”
Ali Munroe
Lead Gardener
Joined 2020
Potted history Ali got into gardening when she bought a house with a big garden, and decided to do a maintenance course at Capel Manor to learn how to look after it. A former teaching assistant, she worked for another garden design business before her friend Lucy put her in touch with Sprout Up. Ali lives in Crystal Palace, and describes her own garden as a work in progress.
Favourite garden task “Rose pruning. I love the puzzle of working out which shape it needs to go in, although my hands get cut to shreds.”
Mary Waddam
Gardener
Joined 2022
Potted history Mary, who grew up in Somerset, has always enjoyed gardening and created a country-style garden full of mature shrubs at her Gipsy Hill home. She also helped friends and family with their gardens while working at a newspaper and then a school, before deciding to take up her hobby professionally.
Favourite garden task “I like the variety of our work, but if I had to choose, I’d say topiary. I enjoy shaping bay trees, pittosporums… I haven’t made a cockerel or anything!”
Rose Harrison
Logistics Manager
Joined 2020
Potted history Rose is mainly based in the office, speaking to clients, managing the diary and overseeing logistics. She is also heavily involved in Sprout Up Schools, which she co-founded with Seonaid in 2020 – often sourcing materials or tracking down funding for school projects. Based in Streatham, she loves cooking for her family and friends using vegetables and herbs that she’s grown in the garden.
Favourite garden task “Probably weeding, we have a big, raised veg bed and I really like weeding that when I get into it.”
Sara Kalantri
Gardener
Joined 2024
Potted history Former academic Sara lived in Iran, California and Norway before settling in London. A former ski champion, she found the indoor nature of her London life depressing, and took a garden design course at Capel Manor, which persuaded her to quit her job at UCL and get into gardening full time. Sara lives in Vauxhall, where she makes a lot of jams and pickles from the fruits grown in her small garden.
Favourite task “I like planting, especially when it’s plants rather than bulbs, because you can see the immediate effect.”
Jim Willis
Gardener
Joined 2021
Potted history Our only male member of staff is a musician whose other job is fixing guitars. Jim grew up enjoying an incredible garden at his family home in the Malvern Hills, Herefordshire, but doesn’t have an outdoor space at his flat in Brixton – so working with Sprout Up is a way to get a dose of nature.
Favourite garden task “I quite like digging holes, because it’s a bit like doing the washing up – you can just get on with it and afterwards everyone thinks you’re a hero.”
Veronica Lorraine
Gardener
Joined 2022
Potted history Veronica went back to college to study horticulture in lockdown after deciding she needed a change from her journalist day job. Since she's joined Sprout Up part time, she's used all and everything she learns on the job, to help her other career as Gardening Editor of The Sun. Working with the Sprout Up team helps to inspire her weekly column - and it brings her utter joy to get out of the office and into a garden, surround herself in nature, get her hands dirty, and put the world of news at arms length.
Favorite gardening task "Pruning of any kind - I find it calming and it suits my need to keep things neat and tidy."