Garden Thinking
The story so far — and what's next.
Founder of Garden Thinking
Co-Creator of Tending to Endings
Garden Thinking is a seedling studio & practice, with a growing subscriber base and network of 2,500+ professionals from sectors including museums, healthcare, business, academia, government, the creative industries, and more.
At root, we are exploring the Garden's potential — as a physical environment, but also as an imaginative and metaphorical space — for cultivating more grounded, nature-wise ways of thinking, working, and living together.
We don't claim that gardens represent the answer to all of humanity's problems.
We do believe, however, that they represent a significantly under-utilised source of intelligence, wisdom, and well-being — particularly in our civic life and economy.
We believe it's time for a horticultural renaissance: a radical re-imagining of the role that gardens might play in our thinking, our work, our institutions, and our society.
Some of the key questions that have informed the project so far include:
— How might we use gardens as containers for transformative insight and innovation — in terms of how we design, adapt, collaborate, and grow community?
— What can gardening teach us about cultivating (rather than forcing) change, especially in complex environments and contexts?
— What if decision-making happened in gardens, instead of boardrooms?
Some resources from Will, that give a sense of Garden Thinking:
Garden Thinking's main focus and achievement to date has been co-producing Tending to Endings — a card deck that helps people have better conversations about endings, using metaphors from the garden.
After a sell-out run of our prototype last year, Tending to Endings quickly became a key reference-point in the field of endings-work, and coaching / consultancy more widely.
The resource has been used and praised by individuals working for organisations including:
- The Centre for Public Impact
- The Museums Association
- Doughnut Economics Action Lab
- The NHS
- The Bio-Leadership Fellowship
- Henley Business School
- B Lab UK
- Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking
- The Government Digital Service
— along with a range of businesses, universities, and local councils.
We have been working to produce an updated, digital version of the resource — along with a comprehensive, 60-page facilitation guide — which will be released in July 2026, and made available on a pay-as-you-can basis under the Creative Commons License.
Alongside Tending to Endings, we've also been developing and piloting Garden Thinking workshops with a wider scope.
'From Control to Cultivation', for instance, was a series of 3 online workshops, bringing together a group of 12 organisational development practitioners around the question:
What happens when you stop trying to engineer organisational development, and start cultivating it instead?
Above: slide from the workshops.
The workshops were developed in collaboration with Kyle Soo (Partnership Manager at B Lab UK, and Design Council Expert), and Sabine Koppe (Independent Organisational Development Consultant & Strategist) — with participants coming from organisations including the UK Government, Impact Hub, and Strategic Investment Board.
Will has also been delivering workshops in-person at large events — such as the
Nature-Connected Coaching Live Conference at Henley Business School — as well as independently organising visits, gatherings, and salons at gardens in and around London.
Following these early successes, we are now seeking a grounding partnership with an organisation or institution that sees the potential of this work, and that would be keen to continue to grow it together — through collaborative research, workshops, and other activities.
Who are we looking to work with?
We are primarily seeking a major institutional partner in London, with a garden (or gardens) available to use for events and workshops.
Longer term, we hope to cultivate an ecosystem of aligned organisations, bringing together professionals and practitioners from across sectors — as well as local communities — to explore more imaginative and innovative ways of using gardens.
How are we proposing to work together?
We aim to grow an organic, symbiotic relationship with our partner(s). In other words, we'll start with a seedling conversation about where our ideas and ambitions align, and explore how we can grow together.
As a strategist, designer, and facilitator — and with experience spanning the arts, academia, heritage and museums, and other sectors — Will brings a wide-ranging skill-set, and a substantial network that can be drawn on to help develop projects.
Some of the things we can help partners with:
— Consultancy on diversifying the use-potential and value-generation of garden spaces.
— Co-designing, marketing, and delivering corporate / team away days involving the gardens.
— Engaging local communities and the broader public with workshops (e.g. for community gardening groups), and through talks / lectures / a seminar series.
During our initial engagement, we will explore our shared vision for how Garden Thinking can take root in your context: strategising, co-designing, and piloting work together. This would involve scoping a project budget or day-rate for initial consultancy, budgeted for with the partner organisation.
Once we've done this groundwork, we will move into delivering what we've designed together — perhaps using a profit-sharing arrangement for any ticketed events / workshops that Garden Thinking helps deliver.
Looking further ahead, we would hope to raise funding to enable more ambitious projects and programmes of work. We imagine that a significant portion of this could be committed from an aligned trust or foundation — as well as from partner institutions themselves, perhaps with help from supporters and donors.
We would also be open to exploring corporate sponsorship to support our work, if and where we felt there to be strong alignment.
If Garden Thinking's vision resonates with you, and you may be in a position to help us grow, we would love to hear from you.
Please complete the short form on the next page, and we'll be in touch.
