About
Bréagha Garden Design is a Glasgow-based design practice run by Nicola Todd-Macnaughton. A trained horticulturalist, Nicola specialises in designing spaces which are not only beautiful, but biodiverse and wildlife friendly. She is passionate about helping her clients connect to the outdoors and to the rhythms of the year, and believes that gardens are powerful places from which to do this.
While Nicola designs gardens across Scotland, as far north as the outer Hebrides, she predominantly works across Glasgow, Stirlingshire and the Scottish central belt.
Design Services
If you aspire to have a garden that flows seamlessly and meets you and your family’s needs, or one filled with vibrant, happy plants, have a look at my design services.
Gardening Tuition
An immersive, tailored hands-on course to enable you to understand and care for your plants and growing space through every season of the year
Writing & Media
I am a gardening journalist and have written about gardening for several publications including The Scottish Daily Mail & The National Trust for Scotland.
Projects
What our clients say…
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“Nicola quickly became an integral part of our garden, bringing a vast knowledge and love of plants and an eye for design. Her ability to translate and work the client’s ideas into a living and evolving natural environment is outstanding.”
Stewart Thomson, Lenzie
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“I cannot recommend Nicola highly enough. She not only has expertise and vision, she is extremely helpful, listens to her clients and tailors her advice accordingly. She has transformed my back garden as well as providing me with valuable aftercare advice. Nicola is thoroughly professional in every aspect of her work; from the initial planning design through to the implementation. She also works extremely hard. I am so pleased that I stumbled across her website whilst on holiday. It's been the highlight of my summer!"
Eleanor Gordon, Glasgow west end
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Nicola was an absolute pleasure to work with and has excellent communication. Myself and my partner are designers and had begun to think about the layout of the garden but really had absolutely no clue where to start with choosing plants or when and how to plant. Nicola came and visited our small garden in Glasgow and from our very basic brief together with considering the orientation and conditions of the site, produce a lovely garden design for us which takes into consideration the orientation of the site, seasonal changes in flowering and the overall variation in massing to the garden. We're looking forward to the spring where we can get going with lots of the planting and would happily recommend Nicola to anyone.
Oscar Murray, Hampden, Glasgow
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"Nicola understood our needs and designed a garden which met our requirements, maintaining a good sized lawn and using hedging, small trees, flower bed designs as well as a curated selection of plants to provide all year round colour and interest"
The Moodleys, Aberlady
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"It was a pleasure to work with Nicola after our move to Scotland. She carefully considered all our ideas and requests, then translated them into a design that would meet our request as far as possible, given the orientation and conditions of the front and rear gardens in our Glasgow West End townhouse, as well as the Scottish climate. We were delighted with the gardens after Nicola and her team planted them out. Her design took into account the fact that we would often be absent, meaning that watering and maintenance might to be done by other residents as regularly as we would do it. Our confidence is also boosted because Nicola agreed to keep visiting the garden to plant spring bulbs and to continue working with us to improve the gardens. We highly recommend Nicola for her excellent communication, as well as her design and planting skills. "
Andrea and Graham, Dowanhill, Glasgow
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"We contacted Nicola to help restore my mum's garden to its former glory. She was recommended to us by a local plant nursery who spoke very highly of her. Nicola came to view the garden and give feedback on how it could be improved. We were impressed with her plant knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm for making a difference to a much loved space. Nicola's calm demeanor put my mum at ease and her line of questioning helped button down what the brief was to avoid any ambiguity. She subsequently put together detailed planting design documents with information about every plant she proposed to put in. It made agreeing to her proposals very straightforward as alll questions were answered. The work was carried out with the utmost care and respect to the property."
Ainsley Mackay, Surrey
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