Magpie Gardening
A fast, hand-built website for a Norfolk native-gardening team — with a custom, no-jargon CMS so they can edit every word themselves.
Built with
- HTML
- CSS
- Typescript
- Netlify
- Serverless Functions
- Netlify Blobs
Services
- Web design
- Front-end build
- Custom CMS
- Hosting & deployment
Overview
Magpie Gardening is Alex & Bethan Beedle — a small Norfolk team designing and tending gardens the native, wildlife-first way. They needed a site that felt as considered as their work, loaded fast, and that they could update themselves without wrestling a page builder. We designed and built it, then gave them a simple CMS of their own.
The challenge
A specialist local business with a real story — native planting, wildlife ponds, willow weaving, hedge-laying — and no site that did it justice. They needed something that looked the part, ranked locally, and, crucially, that two busy gardeners could edit between jobs without calling a developer every time.
The approach
We built a fast, hand-coded site rather than reaching for a heavy template, and paired it with a custom lightweight CMS built for exactly their content — so editing the site feels like filling in a form, not learning software.
The site is hand-built with plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript — no page-builder bloat — so it loads fast and stays cheap to host. Every page’s content is driven from a single structured content file, which keeps the design consistent and the copy easy to manage.
On top we built a custom CMS on Netlify serverless functions: the team signs in with Google, edits their content and images through a simple admin panel, and changes publish straight back to the live site, with media handled through Netlify Blobs. An email allow-list keeps editing locked to approved people.
The result is a site that reflects the care Magpie put into a garden — and that they own and run themselves, with us a message away when they want something new.
Want results like A site the client can run themselves?
Tell us about your business and what you need. We reply to every enquiry within two business days.