Tell us about the new book and why you wrote it In September 2021, the wheels had come off my life. During Covid we’d had to close our garden school, Mrs Frost had been really poorly and was in hospital for 11,12 weeks and I was juggling that with four kids at home. There were times when Monty couldn’t film, so I had to record ‘Hello, welcome to Gardeners’ World’ in the morning, then run off to the hospital at lunchtime. And then our youngest daughter was ill. Then I was shut in a room with Covid for 10 days.
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Next thing, I was sat in front of a psychiatrist with depression and burnout. We talked about everything from my childhood to where I am now, which is a bizarre story in itself. We also talked about why plants and gardens have played such a big part in my life and something I was less aware of - my connection with music. I was telling Dorling Kindersley about these conversations and we decided that I could talk about the creation of a new garden and the 150 plants - some old, some new, some that are like old friends, that I wanted to include in it, and memories. So I suppose that’s why I wrote the book - I sat down with someone that knows more about my brain than me, and then someone suggested that it would be quite interesting if I put it on paper.
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What did you learn from writing the book? Before, I had a massive 3.5 or 4-acre garden. I was running a garden school that was open to the public, and it was on the telly. But all I could see was lists and lists of jobs, and it was overwhelming. As a working-class boy, I'd been given the idea that if you work and work, you can get a better life and a bigger house. But actually, when you get there, it’s not quite what you were told. The moment I downsized, I walked out in the garden with a cup of coffee and felt safe. I've got to a point in life where I really don't care what people think. I think we worry too much about the outside world. I literally get up now to have a nice day. It's about becoming comfortable in your own soul.
If there’s one piece of advice / idea that you’d like to share from the book, what would it be? The idea of experimenting and playing with plants. Don’t think everything's got to be perfect. Things come, go and change - just treat your garden as just one big playground. Don't stress about it. If the garden gets a little bit of hand, it gets out of hand. Don’t worry about what Mavis thinks four doors down.
Tidy Nan and Scruffy Nan sparked my interest in gardening
I’ll read anything about/by… Darren McGarvey, who wrote The Social Distance Between Us. He writes about class. I find it bizarre that we live in the society that we do, which is why I go and escape to the garden. What I read tends to be people- or music-driven.
The books on my nightstand/kindle right now Charlie’s Good Tonight, the authorised biography of Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones drummer. He was a jazz musician – he was the cool one.
What music are you listening to at the moment? I got invited to Jules Holland’s Hootenanny, which was amazing. One band that jumped out for me was Jungle, so I've been listening to them. David Gilmour’s album Luck and Strange is really good.
What first sparked your interest in gardening? Tidy Nan and Scruffy Nan. I spent a lot of time as kid with my grandparents. Tidy Nan had the classic Seventies back garden with the washing line, concrete path and rectangle of lawn, but they had the allotment and a small greenhouse. Scruffy Nan had more of an overgrown wilderness that was all about freedom. I had this movement between the safe grandparents and the slightly wacky ones that would give you the freedom to get absolutely covered from head to toe then chuck you all in the bath at the end of the day.
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Tell us about your garden and any future plans for it It's a good size suburban garden, in a village. The front garden is probably about 30m x 10m, and I've got double that in the back. It’s an odd shape and it’s on different levels, so it’s deceptive. If it gets out of hand, I can spend a good weekend in it and square everything away.
Anything inside the house, I'm rubbish with. I'm just not consistent enough with house plants.
We had access before we moved in, so I'd been over to look around it. It was one of those designs that was literally 10 minutes on a piece of paper, but it was more than that, really. It told me what it needed, rather then me telling it, if that makes sense.
Now I’m really just fine tuning and playing, adding a lot more pots and detail. The front garden is going to become even more of an ornamental kitchen garden. I'm at that stage where I can enjoy gardening, adding three or four plants and taking odd bits out.
What’s your guilty gardening secret? I play a little bit with cacti, but anything inside the house, I'm rubbish with. I'm just not consistent enough with house plants. I disappear for work for periods of time and much as I love my lot, I can't trust them to look after them.
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Can you share your biggest gardening mistake or failure? I make mistakes literally all the time. It’s all just an experiment. I often say on the telly, ‘This or that has gone wrong.’
What’s your favourite garden or landscape to visit? Normally the last garden I've been to! We spent the New Year in Iceland. We flew into the north and the landscape blew my mind. It was a reminder of the power of what's going on under the ground. I don't think there are many places in the world where you can swim in lakes that are 40 degrees while your hair's freezing on your head at -17. And then, at the top of a volcano you can watch mud coming out of the ground that’s 200 degrees. It’s a great reminder that we're only a really, really small part of something, and of what a wonderful world we live in.
Anything exciting in the pipeline? A tour, which will be good fun because I’ll be able to dip a little more into the music, the people that have influenced me along the way, the countries I’ve been to and the troubles I’ve got myself into. It will be about the creation of the garden, too. Apart from that, we've got some lovely design work on the go and gardens being built and, and then it's back on the wonderful gardening treadmill - Gardeners’ World will be back on, and we’ll be back at the shows… And so it goes on…
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