TV presenter and gardener Frances Tophill's new book documents her work on her own small garden. Below she explains more about what to expect from A Year in a Small Garden, and her path into horticulture.
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What is your new book about? It is about my garden – the first I’ve ever owned. I moved in in early 2023, and BBC Gardeners’ World filmed it. Then BBC Books asked me if I would document the first year of how to tackle a new garden. Initially, I felt I’d have to have something concluded by the end, with a big reveal. But that’s not how I’d approach a new garden. So it is really just the documentation of that first growing season, what I managed to do, and how I approached it.
What did you learn from writing it? It gave me an overview of my gardening journey. I had a very traditional start – as an apprentice at 19, my job was to pick up dog poo and make the head gardener tea. Then at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh I learned about conservation, community gardening and ethnobotany. Slowly, cogs move and you end up miles away from where you began, without really noticing that it’s happened.
What one idea would you like to share from the book? It’s that lesson of not rushing in, and stopping for a year if you possibly can, observing what happens, such as how the light moves through the year. My garden is in full shade in winter, then in March the first peep of sun comes and quickly, the garden’s in full sun in the morning.
What books are on your shelves? For me it is fantasy, adventure – anything that sparks the imagination, so, embarrassingly, I’m listening to Harry Potter audiobooks. I also love podcasts. I like Studio Lab, a really good science podcast. A lot of it is botany-based, looking at amazing research that people are doing about plants and plant life.
What sparked your interest in gardening? An appreciation of the natural world is deeply rooted in me, but in terms of it as a practical job, no one ever said it was an option. After school I worked at Marks & Spencer and did a foundation degree in art. Then a gardening apprenticeship came up and I made a snap decision. I walked around the garden with the head gardener and just thought, oh, this is amazing, I want to work here. I realised I like being in soil and muddy and the creativity that doesn’t involve sitting at a desk.
‘No one ever said gardening was a job option’
What are you doing in your garden at the moment? My garden is smaller than average (9m x 10m) with morning sun and really nice soil that’s very silty, on limestone, so it’s not acidic. It gets a lot of rain as I’m on the south edge of Dartmoor, but it drains quite quickly. The only thing I created last year was a greenhouse because I have quite a collection of tender pelargoniums and tender edibles such as lemongrass and liquorice. When winter came, I could protect them. I’m now creating more structure, gathering reclaimed bricks for paths, and adding plants.
What is your biggest gardening mistake? My friend Rupert built my greenhouse out of old windows. He came with two magnificent pub windows that were 2.4m and 1.8m across. I put it in a sunny spot so it warmed up but as it was wider than I’d anticipated, it created a tiny little corridor at the far end of the garden, in the sunniest corner, that’s almost unusable. I’m trying to turn it into a little nook of a suntrap. I’ve slowly put some tiles on the floor, and a deckchair, and maybe a hammock. But it is classic mistake – you should never create a wasted space in any garden. Especially in a small garden, and especially in the sunniest part.
Do you have any guilty gardening secrets? I don’t compost. I love compost – I compost at work and it’s the best stuff in the world. In my garden I had one of those little Dalek things but I had to get rid of it as it was a rat’s nest.
What’s your favourite garden to visit? I just love being among trees and love walled and botanic gardens. My favourite garden is probably Sissinghurst, near where I grew up. When you visit a garden as a gardener, you analyse it. But when I go to Sissinghurst, I can switch off that part of my brain, immerse myself in it and imagine, what if I lived here?
A Year in a Small Garden: Creating a Beautiful Garden in Any Space
by Frances Tophill,
BBC Books, £26,
ISBN 978-1785948640