Meet_the design duo
Anthea Howbert and Tig Mays — at Howbert & Mays in Clare Street, Dublin
A little about how you met and got into design work?
Anthea: We met as mature students studying horticulture, Tig was at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, and I was at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania - which is like Disneyland for plants. Tig came over for a student internship, and we met working in the garden. Very surreal, very romantic. We started emailing daily and Tig even made a little book of our emails. This was the dawn of email, mind you!
Before horticulture, we had both studied liberal arts — history, French, art history — and Tig also studied at Ballymaloe. Eventually, we both found our way to plants and landscape design. I started a little business called Anthea’s Gardens with a van, driving around doing planting jobs. It all grew from there.
And how did Howbert & Mays come to life?
Tig: We got married, worked on estate gardens (including a magical stint at Inis Beg in West Cork), and slowly built up our design business doing garden layouts around Dublin. My siblings were both architects, so we started working with people who were interested in modern design and planting. That helped build momentum.
Then the recession hit, and we pivoted. We set up a tiny online plant shop from our home called DYG (Delivering Your Garden). I remember selling a few bamboo plants to a neighbour and realising it was way easier and more profitable than full garden design. That lightbulb moment led us toward retail.
In 2012, we spotted a rundown shopfront in Monkstown that reminded Anthea of buildings from her hometown of Detroit. We had no savings, but a client we’d worked with on a garden offered to help us with a loan - he became our investor. That’s how Howbert & Mays began. We later bought him out, but his belief in us helped make it real.
We slowly built up our design business … we started working with people interested in modern design and plants
— Howbert & Mays gardeners, designers and shopkeepers
How do you make it work as a couple in business?
Anthea: It feels kind of old-fashioned in a good way. Like running a shop or a farm together. We have our strengths - Tig takes care of the business side and is also obsessed with finding the right art pieces for our Clare Street shop. I focus more on the colours, the objects, the feel of things.
We definitely have our creative tiffs. But we know each other’s rhythms so well it often feels like working with a twin. Our kids joke that we never stop talking about the shop - and now they even work part-time in Clare Street themselves.
And what do you both love discovering and collecting?
Tig: I used to obsessively collect Irish Arklow pottery. We had thousands of pieces at one point, most found in charity shops. Eventually Anthea persuaded me to start selling some through the shop.
Anthea: I’ve always been about atmosphere and making spaces feel right. I grew up in a creative house, went to a Steiner school, lived in beautiful old Georgian homes. For me, putting the shop together feels like childhood play - arranging things, layering history and objects to make something new.
Tig: We love sourcing affordable art, often from local artists or people we stumble upon. The goal is to make people feel something when they walk in.
Who or what is capturing your imagination right now?
Anthea: Shane Connolly has always been an inspiration. I bought his floristry book in my 20s before his name was everywhere. He brings such meaning and lightness to his arrangements — it’s never just about aesthetics. It always feels thoughtful. That's something we try to bring into the shop too — a sense of meaning behind the beauty.
Tig: I find myself regularly down rabbit holes on Manufactum — it’s this incredible German site that revives old, well-made household goods. You’ll find enamel buckets, wool slippers, even jam strainers. It’s like a department store for people who care about longevity.
And a book we always came back to while designing gardens A Garden in Three Houses. It’s so simple, unpretentious - full of ideas that blend the indoors and outdoors beautifully.
Have you noticed changes in what people are buying?
Anthea: Definitely. Younger people are getting into plants but don’t always have gardens, so there’s a lot of thoughtful houseplant gifting. More broadly, we’ve noticed a real shift toward things that last — tools, jackets, blankets, Japanese secateurs. Not flashy, just well-made.
People want gifts that feel personal and enduring. We’re not big on seasonal tat — we’d rather stock a hand-forged kitchen knife or felt ornaments from Nepal. Something someone will still have in ten years.
Actually, one gift I gave last year was an Abito overall — for my sister-in-law, picked up at Ballintubbert Festival of Gardens and Nature. It felt like the perfect balance of beautiful and useful. Like everything we try to stock — something you’d want to keep forever.
People want gifts that feel personal and enduring
— Anthea, Howbert & Mays
Photos - thanks to Anthea and Tig.
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Over the last two years we have enjoyed meeting so many people — including customers who have become collaborators over time — like Anthea and Tig whose company in the marquee made the Festival of Gardens and Nature an even better working weekend for us! So we are sharing their work life stories, inspirations and musings each month in this Journal, in the hope that you will enjoy their musings too.
Thanks so much Anthea and Tig for sharing the story behind Howbert & Mays. A classic. And thank you for reading.
Catherine & Eve Anne