The Gardener

Dear Reader,

Software design used to be architecture.

You drew the plans. Studied the terrain. Every component was specified. If you got it right, the rest would follow. Changes triggered reviews. Fixes spawned meetings. You designed for certainty in an uncertain world.

My father was a gardener for forty years. He spent his days in the Royal Botanical Gardens, later designing parks tucked between concrete blocks. His hands were always in the soil, understanding what each plant needed to thrive.

"Nothing perfect, everything grows," he'd tell me as we'd walk through his gardens. "You don't command a garden. You create conditions."

Now, software feels more like that.

Each project is a plot of land. Some ideas are annuals—quick experiments that bloom brightly then fade away. Others are perennials—core features that return season after season, growing stronger each time. A few become evergreens—foundational systems that provide structure and shelter for everything else.

Designing in the age of AI isn't about drawing the perfect blueprint. It's about cultivating the right conditions. You plant a seed—a prompt, a script—and watch what emerges. Tools like Cursor or V0 turn a sentence into scaffolding, a sketch into structure.

Some days I sit with the code and watch it grow in unexpected directions, like my father watching seedlings push through soil in directions he hadn't planned.

The gardener's work is different from the architect's:

• We prepare the soil rather than pouring concrete

• We plant possibilities rather than fixing structures

• We prune what doesn't flourish rather than demolishing failures

• We graft new ideas onto established systems

• We nurture growth rather than commanding completion

This approach requires patience. Not everything blooms at once. Some features need more sun, others more shade. Some need to be propagated, others need to be pruned back.

My father taught me to recognise the difference between a weed and a volunteer—an unexpected plant that might become the most beautiful thing in your garden.

It's disorienting, especially if you were trained to hold the pen tightly. But there's freedom in it too. You move from controlling every pixel to guiding systems, from planning certainty to nurturing emergence.

This isn't about abandoning craft. The skilled gardener knows which seedlings to thin, which branches to prune, when to water, when to wait. It's about shifting focus—from precision to possibility.

The best software, like the best gardens, feels both designed and alive. It has structure, yes, but also room to breathe and grow. It changes with the seasons. It responds to new conditions. It surprises you.

And perhaps that's what design has always been: not just imagining what should exist, but creating space for something to grow.

Keep digging, stay golden,