Earliest garden memory Sitting in the long grass and Yorkshire fog on my mum’s allotment, eating handfuls of peas and giggling with my little sister while listening to my mum talking to her allotment neighbours, interspersed with the snip, snip, snip of secateurs, the leafy rip of lettuces and fleshy rip of tomatoes as she collected produce for dinner.
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First plant love A short gooseberry bush on mum’s allotment. Bright-green, eyeball-like orbs, blushed crimson and burgundy with little hairs on them. I fell in love because it was so spiky, but the fruit was so delicious in mum’s gooseberry crumble and I loved how unassuming it was.
Who has inspired your career the most? My mum, garden writer and founder of Verde Flower Co, Caroline Beck. I had the privilege of a childhood running around gardens causing chaos as mum desperately attempted to interview and write around us. Our time together working on Verde is one of my fondest memories of creativity, unravelling and growth.
I want to ensure that the growing spaces are not merely intensive cutting zones, but create habitats for nature and a sort of calm chaos for the soul.
Favourite garden After I finished my degree, Mum took me on a trip visiting gardens in the south of England. The first was Charleston, and its hollyhocks and echinops have been with me ever since. I was so inspired by the melding of art, gardening and colour that its influence has never left me.
Horticultural heroes Vanessa Bell, for her art- and colour-led planting, and Cel Robertson of Forever Green Flower Company, who is doing remarkable things for our industry and sharing her passion and knowledge.
Most valuable training Two courses with Nicole Masters, a hero of the regenerative agriculture movement, who shaped how I understand what the plants we class as ‘weeds’ tell us about the state of our soil.
‘Weed’ you’re happy to have in your garden I adore shepherd’s purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris. I encourage it where I find it, cutting it in great armfuls for drying.
Favourite planting style I’m experimenting with how to create productive spaces that are easy to cut from, but that can be read by the untrained eye as a wild natural space. I want to ensure that the growing spaces are not merely intensive cutting zones, but create habitats for nature and a sort of calm chaos for the soul.
Biggest challenge facing gardeners Climate change. My Nuffield Farming Scholarship research looked at whether the British cut-flower industry is prepared for a 2oC warming world. Meeting with growers on the front line of climate change revealed both how fortunate we are in the UK, and the enormous challenges on the horizon.
One easy thing to be more sustainable in gardening Go peat free. Our peatlands are a nature-based solution to climate change, locking in carbon as well as storing vast quantities of water and preventing downstream flooding. Going peat free helps us protect those precious landscapes.
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