Career Change Stories
Real stories from graduates who followed a passion for gardens and built a new career in design.
One of the most common questions we hear is:
"Am I too late to start?"
The graduates featured here once asked themselves the same thing.
Before studying garden design, they worked in industries as varied as healthcare, education, business, construction and the creative arts. Some were looking for a more creative career. Others wanted to work outdoors. Many simply wanted to build a life around something they genuinely loved.
Their paths were all different.
What they shared was the decision to take the leap.
Read their stories below.
DIRECTOR | SARAH MCLAUCHLAN GARDENS
Sarah McLauchlan
Physiotherapist. Jewellery maker.
Demolition company director. Garden designer.
She wasn't looking for a new career. She was following an old dream.
There's a moment Sarah McLauchlan describes that most people will recognise: the feeling of losing yourself so completely in something that hours pass without you noticing.
She was at a friend's house, looking at a landscape plan they had been given for a courtyard renovation. Sarah thought she could do better. She sat down, started sketching alternatives by hand, and somewhere in the middle of it, time stopped.
When she surfaced, her husband looked at the drawings and said:
"Why don't you finally go and study garden design?"
That was it. The moment a long-held dream became a decision.
What makes Sarah's story so compelling is how much life happened before that moment.
She trained as a physiotherapist. She took a year off to design and make jewellery, running her own small business. She even enrolled in a landscape design course at Swinburne, only to pause when she started a family. Then, for close to a decade, she ran a commercial demolition company in Melbourne with her husband, managing everything from WHS and HR to government tenders, payroll and procurement, while raising her children and growing what she called her "urban farm": a productive patch, a micro-orchard, chickens and rooftop bees.
She was good at all of it. But something was always pulling her elsewhere.
"I've always loved nature, the outdoors and design," she says. "I grew up on a working farm and come from a long line of gardeners and makers. When I was in high school, I remember thinking that working in a nursery would be pretty cool."
The demolition company was successful. Life was full. But the garden was always where she went to feel most like herself.
Enrolling in the Garden Design Program at LCGD Australia wasn't without its doubts.
"I was so nervous at first. I wasn't sure if I had it in me to start over and learn something completely new."
But she quickly discovered something important: learning is easier when you're passionate about the subject.
She threw herself in. CAD was the hardest part. It was "like learning another language", but once it clicked, it gave her a new level of precision and creative confidence. The guest lectures, the excursions, the feedback from Director Brent Reid on space and flow, it all helped shape her approach.
Then came the moment that announced her arrival.
While still a student, Sarah entered the Open Gardens Victoria Design Competition and won. Her concept, Nature's Pantry, debuted at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and went on to earn her the title of LCGD Australia Student of the Year.
Nature's Pantry was exactly what its name suggests: a living pantry. A garden that proved edible growing and beautiful design don't have to be in tension. Sarah designed a highly productive space integrating food crops with native and exotic foliage, anchored by corten steel planters filled with herbs, leafy greens and fruiting trees suited to Melbourne's climate.
Structural, sustainable and genuinely beautiful, it was a distillation of everything she believes a garden can be.
"The goal was to prove that edible gardening can be both sustainable and a beautiful, structural addition to any home," she says.
For someone who had quietly wondered whether she had it in her to start over, winning that competition and seeing her design brought to life on one of Australia's biggest garden stages was no small thing.
A piece of advice from Brent stayed with her when uncertainty crept back in:
"You don't have to have it all figured out. Opportunities will present themselves, or you'll create them yourself."
He was right.
Today, Sarah runs Sarah McLauchlan Gardens on the Mid North Coast of NSW, with a thriving design practice, a full client schedule and work featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Pip Magazine, The Weekly Times and Focus Magazine.
She loves residential projects and the opportunity to shape an entire space from the ground up. She describes herself as "a bit of a layout nerd", someone as passionate about flow and spatial logic as she is about plants.
Then there's the project that meant something beyond all of that.
A Federation home in Grafton came to her through clients who had no idea the house once belonged to her grandparents. It was where her mother grew up. A place she'd visited as a child and later brought her own children to.
Designing the garden for that home felt like coming full circle.
"Backing myself and pursuing something I truly love is one of the best decisions I've ever made," she says.
"The regret usually comes from not taking the leap."
She pauses, then adds something that might be the most useful thing anyone considering a change could hear:
"You don't need to know exactly where it's going to take you. But you'll never regret trying."
Thinking About a Career in Garden Design?
Sarah's story is just one example of the many different paths that lead people into the profession.
If you've ever wondered what a future in garden design could look like, we'd love to help you explore the possibilities.
More Stories Coming Soon
We're looking forward to sharing more graduate journeys from across Australia and New Zealand.