About Garden Ninja Lee Burkhill

Hi, I’m Lee Burkhill — the Garden Ninja. Award-winning garden designer, BBC1’s Garden Rescue presenter, RHS-qualified horticulturist, beekeeper, Type 1 diabetic, and proud owner of what I’d argue is the finest mohawk in professional garden design.

I’m based in Liverpool & Manchester, and I’ve been getting my hands dirty in gardens for over 35 years. 

For the past 15 of those, I’ve done it professionally, designing gardens across the North West and beyond, appearing on BBC1’s Garden Rescue, running online courses for gardeners at every level, and building one of the UK’s most visited independent gardening blogs and YouTube channels.

Before all of that, I spent 12 years as a senior IT project manager. It was a good career. It was also slowly killing my soul, one slow-moving corporate project at a time. 

In 2015, I did what everyone quietly thinks about doing…I binned the spreadsheets, let the mohawk out properly, and went full-time as a garden designer. It was the best decision I ever made.

All of my online gardening resources exist because I genuinely believe gardening should be accessible to everyone, not just people who grew up with a garden or went to horticultural college at 18. Whether you’re a complete beginner, a frustrated new build owner staring at a patch of builder’s rubble, or someone who’s been gardening for years but wants to take their design up a level, you’re in the right place.

What Can I Help You With?

People find their way to Garden Ninja for all sorts of reasons. Here’s a quick guide to what’s available depending on where you are with your garden:

What Ninjas Say About Working With Me

Don’t take my word for it, here’s what people who’ve booked a consultation or taken one of my courses have to say:

“Lee is as warm, inspirational, knowledgeable, and funny as he is on the TV. We left with a really clear plan of what to do. Lee followed up the next day with lots of resources and the sketched out plan of our garden that he drew when we were online. I can’t recommend Lee or the one-hour consultation enough.

— Sarah Howling, Garden Consultation Client ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“I had a fantastic 1-hour garden consultation with Lee. By the end of the call, I felt fully equipped with a clear vision and ready to dive into my garden project. I know I would have made a lot of mistakes without his guidance. Save the money and invest in this consultation.”

— Nicola Cockram, Garden Consultation Client ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“What a useful consultation we had with Lee. In no time he was able to spark a whole host of new ideas and get us started on our journey to create our new garden. Lee printed the photos I had sent him and annotated them with a basic plan.”

— French Fry2, Garden Consultation Client ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Qualifications, Awards and Media

I studied Horticulture with the RHS at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which gave me the formal horticultural grounding to complement the 35+ years I’d already been gardening practically. I’ve been designing gardens professionally for 15 years, working across the North West and further afield on projects ranging from small urban courtyards to large family garden redesigns.

On the TV side, I’ve presented on BBC1’s Garden Rescue since Series 6, regularly teaming up with Charlie Dimmock to makeover unloved gardens across the UK. I’ve also appeared on BBC Radio Manchester’s Saturday morning garden show as an expert panellist, and I’ve given talks on garden design for the RHS, including their school gardening projects. I’ve been featured in the RHS Garden Magazine, Landscaper Magazine, and Lancashire Life.

Awards and Recognition

Year	Award
2016	RHS & BBC Feel Good Gardens Winner — Garden showcased at Hampton Court Flower Show
2017	Garden Media Guild Alan Titchmarsh New Talent Award — Runner-Up
2018	Chelsea Flower Show — 5 Star Trade Stand Award & Director General’s Trade Stand Award
2018	Hampton Court Flower Show — 5 Star Trade Stand Award
2019	Vuelio Top 10 UK Gardening Blogger Award
2019	BBC Sunshine Show Garden — RHS Tatton Park
2021	BBC Community Garden — RHS Tatton Park

How the Garden Ninja Actually Started

The honest version of this story is that I spent 12 years being pretty good at something I didn’t really love. IT project management paid well, kept me intellectually occupied, and gave me transferable skills I still use every day in running Garden Ninja Ltd. 

But by 2015, I’d had enough of managing systems and processes that felt a long way from anything real, and my creative yearning got the better of me.

Gardening had been my escape throughout that entire period. Weekends, evenings, any spare moment, I’d be out in the garden or reading about plants. It had been that way since childhood, which meant that when I finally made the jump professionally, I wasn’t starting from scratch as I had decades of genuine hands-on experience, RHS qualifications, and a project management mindset that turned out to be rather handy when you’re running a design business, managing clients, and keeping build projects on time and on budget.

What I didn’t have was the traditional upper-middle-class gardening persona. I didn’t go to horticultural college at 18. I haven’t come from a long line of botanists or horticultural socialites. I’ve started at zero and worked my way up.

I have a mohawk. I’m openly gay, openly Type 1 diabetic, and I have zero interest in making gardening feel intimidating or exclusive. That’s the whole point of Garden Ninja. It’s to make proper horticultural knowledge and good garden design genuinely accessible to anyone who wants it, regardless of budget, background or experience.

My Design Philosophy

I design gardens that work for the people who live in them and the wildlife that visits them. That sounds obvious, but it’s surprising how often garden design prioritises aesthetics over function, or creates something that looks incredible in a show garden but is completely impractical to maintain in real life.

My approach starts with how you actually use your garden, or how you want to use it. Then I work backwards from that into the design. I use a plant-rich palette of herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees that earn their place across multiple seasons, attract pollinators and wildlife, and reduce the need for high-maintenance interventions that put people off gardening in the first place.

I’m a passionate advocate for ditching fake grass, reducing hard landscaping to what’s genuinely necessary, and designing spaces that age beautifully rather than looking tired within a few years. I’m also known for my hand-drawn watercolour design plans, which I still produce for every design client — each one unique and never repeated.

You can see examples of my design work across my Garden Ninja design portfolio.

Media, Press and Brand Partnerships

I’m available for TV appearances, radio programmes, podcast interviews, brand partnerships, magazine articles, and social media collaborations. If you’re a producer, commissioning editor, journalist, or brand looking to work with someone who brings genuine horticultural expertise, a distinctive voice, and an existing engaged audience, I’d love to hear from you.

My current media credits include multiple series of BBC1’s Garden Rescue, BBC Radio Manchester, RHS publications, Landscaper Magazine, and Lancashire Life. My YouTube channel has over 73,000 subscribers and 9 million views, and my blog reaches hundreds of thousands of UK gardeners each year.

Ready to Become a Garden Ninja?

Whether you’re here because you’ve watched Garden Rescue, stumbled across one of my YouTube guides, or you’re staring at a garden that’s defeating you and need some help, welcome. You’re in good company. There are tens of thousands of Ninjas all over the world who started exactly where you are.

The best place to start depends on what you need right now. If you want free guides and advice, the blog and forum are free and will always be. If you want to learn garden design properly at your own pace, my online courses start at £29. And if you want me to look at your specific garden and give you a clear plan, a one-hour consultation is the fastest way to get there — book yours here.