Meet the founder
Simon Lawson
Founder of Garden Living & Chairman, Lawsons Group
Garden Living started with a simple belief: that the connections people form through a shared love of growing are worth nurturing. Simon built this community to give every gardener a home online: somewhere warm, unhurried, and genuinely useful.
Read Simon's storyAbout Simon
Four generations of building things that last.
Simon is the Chairman of Lawsons Group, an independent timber, building materials, fencing and landscaping merchant with roots stretching back to 1921. As a fourth-generation member of a family business built on trust, community, and long-term relationships, Simon understands better than most what it means to tend something carefully over time.
He joined the family business in the 1990s, helping to modernise its branch network and develop its focus on the trade community across the South East of England. That experience of building something you believe in, for people you respect, is what shaped the way he thinks about Garden Living.
Simon's LinkedIn profile describes him as "passionate about building a values-based business built on trust and empathy." That's not a mission statement for Garden Living. It's just who he is.
Community first
Garden Living is a community before anything else. Connection, not conversion, is the measure of success.
Long-term thinking
The best things in life, gardens, friendships, businesses, take time. There's no rushing it.
Trust and empathy
Every decision about how Garden Living is run starts with the question: is this fair, and does this make people feel welcome?
Why Garden Living
Gardeners deserve their own place online.
Simon founded Garden Living with a simple observation: gardeners are some of the most generous, patient, and kind people around. They share knowledge freely, help total strangers, and find joy in small, slow progress.
They deserved a space built for them. Not a general forum where plant talk gets lost. Not a dating app with a garden filter. A proper community, where every question is welcome and every harvest is worth celebrating, and where friendship, if it grows, grows naturally.
Read the full storyFrom Simon
Recent writing
Simon writes about gardening, community, and the things that make the growing life worth living.
Why I Built a Community for People Who Love to Grow
The personal story behind Garden Living, and why Simon believes gardeners deserve their own place to find connection.
Read article
How to Find Your Gardening Community (Online and Off)
Gardening is better shared. Here's how to find the people who'll make your growing life richer.
Read article
The 5 Tools Every Beginner Needs Before Digging Their First Bed
These five tools are genuinely all you need to get started, and they'll serve you well for years.
Read articleGrow with us
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