Iona has been designing gardens since 2001 and has worked all over the UK, from her Aberdeenshire homeland to the far south of England.
She was originally introduced to landscape design on a visit to Australia in 1988. A landscape architecture firm in Sydney, which shared offices with Saatchi and Saatchi, offered her work before starting university. Even now the overpowering smell of ammonia takes her back to that office in The Rocks where the plotting machines would spit out vast plans in sepia of corporate and civic sites. This was followed by studies in French and Russian at Bristol leading to journeys to the Russian Caucasus and Central Asia, and time spent in the Pyrenees. After her degree she revisited Australia for a year where she designed and made clothes for private clients.
Returning to the UK in 1993, Iona joined the City where she spent seven years as an investment banker. However, searching for more creative stimulus, she called time on that career and totally absorbed herself for two years re-training in landscape design.
Iona has always loved to travel; the untamed places, the wilderness, and the rhythms of landscape seen in both Scotland and Spain - countries in which she has grown up and knows well - have supplied the basis and continuing inspiration of raw form. Adjusting these rhythms to suit imposed design is where Iona has found her home in the context of landscape making.
Have a look at her inspirational website: http://www.ionahilleary.com/
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