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Royal & Historic Gardens With Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
86 Plays22 hours ago
Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Designer of the world's most Iconic and Important landscapes, from royal palaces to evolving historic estates, uncovering how history, design, and ecology shape Britain’s most significant gardens. Todd shares insights on restoring heritage sites, balancing conservation with the need for progress, and designing landscapes that stand the test of time. Discover the philosophy behind historic garden design, the importance of long-term planning, and how cultural landscapes continue to evolve. A must-listen for garden lovers, landscape designers, and anyone passionate about history, nature, and the future of gardening.
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Transcript
Introduction to Gardener's Lodge Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Step into the gardener's lodge with me, Michael Haw. Let's explore the fascinating worlds of gardening, nature and ecology through conversations with experts, thought leaders, passionate enthusiasts, and of course, some real good friends.
00:00:23
Speaker
All from the cozy heart of the lodge. Come on in.
Budget Garden Transformation
00:00:29
Speaker
My guest this week is in incredible. um Before we dive into the interview, let's answer your questions in my segment called Ask Michael.
00:00:39
Speaker
So my question this week is from Kelly and she says, hi, I've recently moved into a new house with a garden that feels a bit dot dot dot soulless. It's not ugly.
00:00:50
Speaker
but it's not great either. It just feels flat and generic. Lawn, patio, and a few shrubs. But I don't have the budget to employ a garden designer, and I'd like to do it myself so I have a sense of ownership over the space.
00:01:04
Speaker
But where do I start? Okay, Kelly, thank you for the question. Where do you start?
Tips for Garden Redesign
00:01:11
Speaker
I think the biggest mistake people make is to not have some sort of plan and that doesn't have to be a grand design done by a designer like myself or anything like that. You can just get your piece of paper, measure out your space. If there's not much in it, it's probably a little bit easier for you, but what you want to do is just start thinking about how you want to use the space.
00:01:30
Speaker
Um, what is a non-negotiable that you need in the space? Uh, Where can you take the space, get a vision board together, maybe online, pull some pictures of some some inspiration and then take that inspiration and start to put it onto a little bit of paper.
00:01:48
Speaker
What I'd also say is a lot of people, they, you know, buy one thing here and they get another thing over here, probably probably Don't do that. Get a little plan together, get a little scheme together. Think about a color scheme that works really well. I love whites, purples, blues, pinks, um obviously in flower colors. So stick to kind of a bit of a color principle. Think about texture, think about tone, think about shape and form. I know these all sound very complicated, but when you start to think about it,
00:02:19
Speaker
It'll, it'll make sense, particularly for your own space. And then my biggest tip is to start small. Don't try and do the entire garden in a weekend. Don't try and do ah it all at once.
00:02:31
Speaker
Just slowly pick a section, start that, finish that in entirety, and then move on to the next one. You'll have a lot better results that way. A lot of people get overwhelmed and overcomplicate things, just start really small.
00:02:45
Speaker
Even if it's just some pots for your patio, even if it's just one little section of a bed. But the most important thing is is to know that you've got a direction that you're going towards.
00:02:56
Speaker
Also my biggest tip that people often miss out is ah grasses. Don't forget grasses in a landscape. They add texture and movement and flow and ah they're beautiful. So ornamental grasses is a must.
00:03:09
Speaker
The other thing that I would suggest is to look out for your plant blindness. So I often see clients when I go into their gardens and they've done it themselves. And biggest problem is, is they're missing a whole section of plants. So for example, I went to a garden the other week and she had all shrubs.
00:03:28
Speaker
She'd missed out all the smaller perennials and she didn't have any extra height. So that's recognizing where your blindness is, is a good place to start. And that's a good place for any garden designer, any gardener to think about is where do I have a block? So when you go to the garden center, what are you immediately drawn to? What plants do you immediately go to?
00:03:50
Speaker
They're probably the ones you're going to pick up and buy, but they're probably not the ones that your garden is missing in the longterm once your garden is established. But if you'd like to ask me a question and I will endeavor to answer it on the next episode, you can go to thegardenerslodge.co.uk slash podcast. There's a form there, fill it out, and I will endeavor to answer your question as soon as I can.
Meet Todd Longstaff-Gowan
00:04:12
Speaker
This is already such a long intro on top of a amazingly rich episode with Todd Longstaff-Gowan. He is a landscape architect, historian, and collector. He has worked in and designed gardens in not only Britain's most historically and culturally important gardens and landscapes, but those across the world as well.
00:04:33
Speaker
We chat all about his approach to taking on historical landscapes right through to his writing work and to his own personal garden. He has such a wealth of knowledge on historical landscapes and I just ate it all up. It was an amazing chat. But before we dive deep, let's ask Todd his six rapid fire questions.
Quick-fire Questions with Todd
00:04:54
Speaker
Are you ready? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, favourite plant? Brugmansia or Datura. What's your favourite way to connect with nature? To be in it and contemplate as well.
00:05:07
Speaker
What's the most beautiful garden or natural landscape that you have ever visited? I'd say as a cultural place, I'd probably say somewhere like Machu Picchu. It's not much of a garden, but it's a landscape and it's It's mind-blowingly wonderful. It was when I was there as a child, anyways. It's probably changed, but it's some it's still um among the most powerful landscapes in my visual memory.
00:05:31
Speaker
Favourite garden tool? Spade. Classic. If you could be one, a plant or an animal? Oh, yeah. probably be i I wouldn't mind being a tree. I'd like to be an oak tree because I think I'd be all one of those very long living trees because I think it would give one immense perspective over, I mean, imagine those trees in California that live thousands of years. What you've seen is just incredible. When you're stuck and looking for reliable research on anything garden related, where do you go for the most trusted advice? I'm a bookman. So, i mean, I think, or I'd go to a botanic garden, or speak to a specialist. But my first inclination is I'm i'm in love with books. And ah just, I'm speaking to you now from my library, has thousands and thousands of books. And I just, I love being surrounded by knowledge, but I like it in books. I like it in pages, being able to take it into bed and read it.
00:06:30
Speaker
just at your own leisure and take it on the train. So yeah. Well, Rob, right back to the beginning.
Todd's Adventurous Childhood
00:06:35
Speaker
Yes. Tell me about your childhood, where you grew up and how you found your love of gardens in the natural world.
00:06:43
Speaker
I was born in right in the coldest part in the centre of Canada. And my family i was born into a family that has um there recent immigrants to Canada, I suppose. And they had in them kind of wanderlust.
00:06:57
Speaker
So my parents, acting on a romantic impulse, decided to move to South America when I was a boy. And that was a great adventure for all of us. And this was in the late 60s. It was the great adventure. And I think it sort of nurtured in me this great interest, which I've always had.
00:07:13
Speaker
of exploring, experimenting, and just being thrust in into new situations, you know, changing languages a new geography, new climate. It sort of got me very excited in gardening, I suppose.
00:07:27
Speaker
Since I was very tiny, I'd always been carrying hosepipes around and planting seeds. but this But I think it opened new doors. And when we arrived in Santiago, Chile, and I was about eight, we lived opposite this really remarkable garden.
00:07:42
Speaker
And to this day, it still haunts me because it was a volcanic plug, sort of like where Edinburgh Castle is now built. And it had this wonderful garden. It was called the Hill of Santa Lucia.
00:07:54
Speaker
And this remarkable romantic garden built on top. And I remember just spending every day running up and down this hill and looking through the gardens. It had lots of little buildings and architectural features and beautiful planting. And you've got these great and wonderful commanding views over Santiago, which is a spectacularly beautiful city, surrounded entirely by mountains.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I think that really started the ball rolling because I just thought this is such a wonderful environment. And in the middle of the city, I've just found the contrast. So So brilliant. And I'd never really registered gardens quite like that, I don't think, until that moment. And Wow.
00:08:32
Speaker
That is quite an out there childhood, very different from other children's experiences. Yes, they were very keen to, i mean, there were I think nowadays you'd almost call them sort almost hippies, but not quite. And um my father had a respectful job, but they were still inclined to want to explore and have a nice time. And they spent all their time traveling. So every weekend we'd bump everyone in the car and go on adventures visiting little towns and villages around Chile and looking at natural landscapes and um and ruins and things too. I mean, I think my whole family has been fascinated revocative ruins. And um so that's and also one of my great interests and always has been. just
00:09:13
Speaker
um I quite like dereliction and love and i love wonderful and romantic evocations of the past. Today, you've combined that love of history, your design work through academia. That's quite like a niche area that you've positioned yourself in. Was that intentional or was that just something that sort of had evolved through your life?
Career Journey and Opportunities
00:09:34
Speaker
It's evolved. I've never been very good about having direction. ah definite sort have just I've just fallen into situations. I think my if I have an overriding general philosophy for life, it's just make yourself available for and anything that seems on the surface be a rather exciting proposition.
00:09:55
Speaker
okay And it just means that I've tried to be open to circumstances that just present themselves. And it's served me well over the years because I've just... found that some things just have some sort of immediate attraction. And it's been fun to act on an impulse rather than sort of sit long and just contemplate, decide whether this is actually a very sensible thing to do or not.
00:10:16
Speaker
But just to just to trust my gut and say, this appears to be something worthwhile, interesting, something I'd like to do. And that's sort guided me through throughout my entire life. And I think where I've got to is the surprise to me as well, because i had...
00:10:34
Speaker
My education has been really gone from being very specific to getting broader and broader and broader. And that was certainly with my university career. I'm starting reading architecture, then going to landscape, then doing historical geography. Well, I sort of it was an inverted pyramid for me where,
00:10:51
Speaker
instead of specializing, became more and more of generalist. and But that appealed to me because I wanted to be, um I wanted to have my options open. I didn't want to constrain myself to one particular discipline. And that's been always my fear. It's been,
00:11:09
Speaker
um I'd rather be more polyvalent and more susceptible to different influences that present themselves and and and opportunities that also just are thrown in front of me. I think you're right there. I mean, your career has been so vast in the different projects that you've had the opportunities to work on, particularly in landscape, working in some of the most sought after and historic landscapes and estates.
00:11:35
Speaker
probably on earth, your career really is unlike anyone else's. And it's kind of an interesting thought to just sort of be, I guess, maybe yes, man's the wrong word, but but but just be open to experiences and moving through what feels right other as opposed to sitting down and just planning to a tee everything that you wanted to achieve, because maybe you wouldn't have if you had.
00:11:59
Speaker
I'm sure that's right. And I think that this idea too, from the very beginning was that my parents were keenly said, you know, just go where you want to be and don't feel constrained that you have to stay somewhere because of family or because of other things. Go where the opportunities present themselves it will give you the most satisfaction.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I've just followed followed my notes. And I think that that has been a really useful thing. And I'm i'm almost certain that all of my interests, and they are very eclectic and very idiosyncratic,
Approach to Historical Landscapes
00:12:27
Speaker
have developed because of my um my upbringing, which was, um as you say, very varied and very exotic. Even when I went to university, I still persisted in that thing. I thought, well, I'll go first to Canada because I was born there.
00:12:41
Speaker
um Then I thought I'll go to the States because I wanted to go to what I thought was the best university for my course. And then i decided that... I was at Harvard, exactly. And um I was fortunate to get a scholarship there. And then when I...
00:12:55
Speaker
thought afterwards I finished that I thought well that was all very nice but I wanted to ah carry on with my education and that's when I came to London and carried on with my PhD and it was really taking i thought that I developed my design skills sufficiently that I could embark on a new kind of thing and i was I was keen to get greater intellectual sort of stimulation than I got in my design courses I wanted to focus on other things that Historical geography was just the perfect combination for me because it's a combination of social, cultural geography. um
00:13:31
Speaker
And it it it suited me down to the ground because it was just trying to and trying to comprehend what it is about the cultural landscape that makes it so attractive and how people move in landscape and how they live in landscape. And I found that really exciting because it kind of gave me a tool to begin to comprehend what it is that makes landscapes interesting and and up culturally and sort rich and things like that. And gave me an opportunity to explore these in greater depth.
00:14:01
Speaker
That's been the pleasure of what I do, I suppose, because I'm working in places which have oftentimes very rich histories. And I want to throw myself into them and I want to comprehend. I'm always adding a new layer. I'm not trying, as it were, to create replicas of the past. I'm keen, though, that my work should evoke some of that history because i I'm a player, one of many in these landscapes. So I find it very comforting in the way to know that I'm just one layer in the past.
00:14:33
Speaker
many layers in these great landscapes. And I love building on the shoulders of others. and I find it's just so much more inspirational for me to collaborate as it were, with people who are long gone or or cultures that have long disappeared. It's this idea of just acquainting yourself sufficiently that you think you can make an another contribution, again, which will be superseded or at least en enhanced in the future. um None of my work is complete as it were. it's all Everything's a work in progress and I accept that and I think that's one of the things I like most about what I do is that nothing's conclusive and I don't want it to be that way. i like being
00:15:17
Speaker
an ephemeral player in the larger in these larger schemes. Do you have a sunny space in your garden that you just don't know what to do with? Well, I have a treat for you.
00:15:28
Speaker
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00:15:41
Speaker
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00:15:53
Speaker
You can download your free perennial garden design, as well as my free Australian native garden design at the link in the description. It's an interesting thing, I suppose, because working in landscape, which is also evolving and ever-changing and there's always something new, and you working in these historic spaces gives you an element of a keen awareness that you were actually just a small part
Balancing Preservation and Evolution
00:16:20
Speaker
in that and that someone...
00:16:22
Speaker
in the next 70 years will come and put their own brushstrokes on the landscape as it may be. How do you go about approaching a site? How do you decide what will be preserved versus what will evolve and move forward? I suppose it has to do a lot with that look old sort of, it's a very ancient way of looking at things, at the genius loci, which is the the genius of the place.
00:16:47
Speaker
I really enjoy going to see new landscapes and new gardens. I like having this visceral kind of reaction to these places. And do almost always get a very immediate feeling and not necessarily that it's correct, but it's informed by what I've seen in the past and what I know about places before I go. So I do a little bit of a research, but I like also just being struck.
00:17:11
Speaker
I don't want to over familiarize myself with things because I want to be struck by what's actually there on the ground and then responding to it, I suppose. And, I suppose that one of the things in dealing with historic landscapes, I should mention that as ah I can see there are sort two different kinds of ways that I deal with historic landscapes.
00:17:31
Speaker
One is when I'm working with places like the Royal Palaces, with whom I've been working for almost 30 years in in like Greater London, places like Hampton Court and Canterbury, things like that, where we have visitors that have expectations about the history of the site and what things should know how the landscape should respond and how the landscape should inform them about the historic use of the site.
00:17:57
Speaker
And these are kind of unchanging because their form they have particular expectations, having read things or seeing things when they're promoted. this This kind of landscape is a little bit less flexible in what you can do just because people have already formed ideas about what they should represent.
00:18:15
Speaker
Whereas oftentimes working on historical estates, which are are living, breathing organisms where people are actively making changes because they're not, because they are necessarily in a family estate, no matter how you know whether it's a tiny one or a big one.
00:18:30
Speaker
But where you have the history of a site, but it's it's still evolving and there are active patrons who are doing things. And there you kind of feel that you have a little bit more liberty to...
00:18:43
Speaker
to explore new things because you're not constrained by the expectations of anyone other than the owners. And, um, and that's a little bit more liberating and, um, can, um,
00:18:56
Speaker
can be more rewarding in a way, and not that both aren't, but I think that, you know, they're two different beasts, as it were. And I quite enjoy that that combination. I find more now that i when I began my work, after I finished my PhD, it was after the Great Gale in 1987.
00:19:14
Speaker
I'm still reading my PhD, but I was advising people. it was a good moment for, I must say, i never thought... how I was going to get a job or what I was in fact going to do when I graduated because I would have been at university i was for almost 11 years.
00:19:31
Speaker
But it never occurred to me that I had to get a job, not if not not some not in any other means that I'd really never thought about. working. i just was so caught up in my studies that I just sort of, I watched all my friends go into the city and make tons of money and I thought, well, I don't really want to do that, but um just carry with my studies with my nose to the grindstone.
00:19:53
Speaker
And when I was actually sort of spit out, i um it was an opportune moment because lots of landscapes had been devastated by the Great Gale and there was a need for people who had an interest in architecture and knowledge of architecture, landscape,
00:20:09
Speaker
um cultural history, other things like that, and um horticulture. And it just happened that I had the available skills, and I drifted into this. and hit some So from this um natural cataclysm, just found my on my feet.
00:20:25
Speaker
And um it was just a great way of familiarizing myself with these um these wonderful landscapes across the country. And that's really what got me interested in historic landscapes and and the potential for them to become um rather more dynamic than most people assume because we sort of always think of historic landscapes as being well-designed. But really, you know, if you do have active patrons, they are incredibly wonderful dynamic organisms that are capable of immense possibilities. So that was how I started getting into historic landscapes.
Landscapes and Human Interaction
00:21:00
Speaker
And it served me well over the years because it it feeds my interest in
00:21:05
Speaker
history and design. I really enjoy working with um with owners too because that's part of the fun. you know These are reflections of people's wishes, desires, expectations, any number of their fantasies. And to work closely with some individuals or a family or or a group of people, a small group of people important.
00:21:30
Speaker
is great fun because I think landscapes are all about human interaction in space. You know, it's really about responding to these things. It's not just creating, in my view, um I'm not creating natural landscapes. and These are cultural statements and they require a different kind of mindset.
00:21:50
Speaker
Do you see them more as like living works of art or historical documents or something else completely? i see them as everything, really. mean, they're sort of they yeah They do document what's taken place in the past, and I find that interesting.
00:22:05
Speaker
But I think that i the dynamism of a garden is what really attracts me. And I think that, and I'd say probably I'm more inclined to consider myself someone who's more interested possibly in landscape. and I say the distinction myth for me is that landscape is obviously the bigger, more extensive kind of area.
00:22:26
Speaker
concept of landscapes because I'm really quite taken by things like views and I like connecting things. i like the big picture. And whilst gardens are can be very satisfying, I'm really, I love having trained as an architect. and I really feel strongly that, you know, landscapes must relate to structures and buildings and views.
00:22:48
Speaker
And it's so much part of a larger and cultural sort of concept of a space. And I find that much more, I find that complexity really interesting. So it's more than just plants, it's about social relationships, it's about, um you know, the history of society, it's about all these layers and layers and layers. And I find you I find that sort of superposition of all those layers really interesting because you can find so many different ways of combining them.
00:23:15
Speaker
And it really depends on the site. So one doesn't necessarily go with expectations, I think, to any side. You just go with the tools you're equipped with to um to read these places.
00:23:28
Speaker
And then you do your best to do that. And then that's in conversation, of course. It's a dialogue. It's collaboration I never say that this garden is mine. I'm more inclined to say that this is a collaboration between me and somebody else or my my studio and somebody else. it's and And that's the pleasure of this, really. I mean, landscapes are collaborative and and not strictly in the present, but in the past, mine is a conversation with, you know,
00:23:55
Speaker
people who've been on the site and have affected these places over whether it's decades or centuries.
Detective Work in Reading Landscapes
00:24:01
Speaker
and And whether these people are there or not, you can still read these marks on the ground and you can discern by looking at the landscape what decisions they've made in the past as to how to guide this place. And I think reading the landscape as you see it on the ground is really an incredibly exciting part of what one does because you have to try and, it's like being a detective piecing things together, trying to understand the rationale or trying to understand the decision-making that compelled people to make some changes or improvements or interventions in the past. And I love that. I think it's really great, it's a game in a way just finding trying to get to grips with these places.
00:24:45
Speaker
a puzzle that you're kind of slowly putting together and discovering as you go along, I suppose. Is there any times in in these kind of historic landscapes that I guess you look back and you go, why'd they do that? Why have they put that there? Or that just doesn't make sense to me. Do you ever experience that kind of tension?
00:25:04
Speaker
There's quite a bit, I suppose. i mean, there are lots of decisions which are just bad decisions by people just making unsubstant changes to landscapes, whether it's putting a car park or, you know,
00:25:15
Speaker
um some sort of horrible thing that's probably very practical but was possibly done without too much thought. So yes, there are those, but there are also just things that make you wonder about, you sometimes go to someone, you think, why, yes, why did someone possibly even think of doing this? and There are, I suppose, some things can be explained by historical trends. um For instance, you know, this you can see how the great formal landscapes of Europe for the most part were um transformed very dramatically in the early 19th century or possibly earlier by the imposition of what is now as the English landscape style.
00:25:56
Speaker
And it was very pragmatic, really, because it was cheaper. cheaper yeah it was it was um not only was it aesthetically very attractive, but it was simpler.
00:26:07
Speaker
It was less expensive. was about field gardeners. It was something that... um could be accommodated by new changes in our relationship to nature, everything. It was an incredible oh transformation, but one that I think had very you know pronounced pragmatic notes to it. And um so some of these things can be explained by some of those general trends, but then there are lots of peculiarities. But I suppose i'm constantly...
00:26:39
Speaker
aware of the fact that influences it's very some it's very difficult sometimes to always to try to ascertain what may have caused particular things to take place because if the people who made these in the first place were as eclectic or idiosyncratic as I am and one would never know the source. And, but it yet, you know, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I was at a place the other day in Lancashire, there's a client and it's, and then the site is just so remarkably dramatic. It's got these great discarbments overlooking great views and wonderful um rolling landscape around it. And with the convergence of two rivers,
00:27:23
Speaker
And the house set high on this ridge. And you just thought, well, this is as such an astonishing place to be. And you can imagine how it was, how they first established possibly in the Middle Ages, late Middle Ages, to put the first house on this place.
00:27:38
Speaker
But then to so sort of see how it's evolved over the centuries, just come. And, you know, in the last century, through terrible neglect, you know, being largely... ah hidden by trees and and losing that sense of connection to the large landscape. and So that's when you want to revitalize a place, when you understand, i mean, this is so obvious, this place was built with a view, and the fact that the view is gone must be um must be incorrect. i wouldn't say wrong, but you know it seems kind of crazy that something might impede what would appear to be the original inspiration for actually building a particular site.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah. So just on that aspect, it's pulling down trees, right? Which I think today a lot of people would would want to avoid, right? And they would want to protect that. So how do you kind of balance that with your own sensibilities of, you know, seeing the view and going, well, it should be there. And it and it should, because that is where the house was built. But then how do you marry that to kind of an ecological betterment of a site? I think that one has to take long view. And i think that lots of people's reactions are very short term. And I think that one wants to think always about the future.
00:29:01
Speaker
So when i for instance, of the more controversial free removal exercises I've been involved with was at Kensington Palace where having decided on a course of action which was really to try and reconnect the historic gardens with the larger and more extensive landscape of Kensington Gardens.
00:29:21
Speaker
it'd been so It had been almost entirely, um the views had been occluded and that um the site had more or less been split entirely through so tree plantations, put together with an aim of creating privacy when when the palace was largely inhabited by um these these people who had been placed there as royal retainers. and They were intent on keeping their privacy and keeping the public from looking in, whereas this garden was conceived to be open to the larger landscape.
00:29:52
Speaker
so In the event the landscape was going to be the rural palaces, stork rural palaces had decided that they were going link the two again, reconnect the landscape and the gardens, a very noble aim, and that there was going to be much more public um access.
00:30:09
Speaker
And this required that we that we actually remove trees first to make more visible, secondly to connect the landscapes. And there were, I think, roughly 60 trees of different sizes, none really significant, but some you know, about 100 years old.
00:30:25
Speaker
And um there was plenty of evidence. I mean, here we were we were informed by historic precedent and And the landscape, still the bones were there, had just been covered with new layers in the past, none of which had been very sympathetic. And it was, the palace is still there and the larger landscape is still there, but there was this interstitial zone which had just been very abused.
00:30:52
Speaker
So um it was, our intention was to try and link this. And to do that, we had to remove trees. And there were, there was lots of evidence to suggest that this landscape had been conceived in the eighteenth early 18th century to be open and the views were carefully framed.
00:31:10
Speaker
So we had lots of evidence to put this idea forward. It wasn't popular, it must be said, with with lots of historical groups and lots of residents at first, but there was ample evidence to suggest that this was, if we were going to try to relink these gardens, that we had to take these measures. And my view was that we just, we should plant trees that were lacking in the park that would have completed some of these views and coordinate our activities with the rural parks, with our neighbours, and and really take things forward and really think about how these gardens want to be presented in the future. And in the end, we we did manage to do what we wanted to do. We we saved a few trees, but for the most part, they came down. And um when we eventually finished our consultation, which was quite lengthy,
00:31:59
Speaker
um only one person objected. When I met with that person and explained what was going on, they two were fine. So we have strong emotional ties with trees. And I am a grape tree lover and a tree planter. And I take pride in the fact that I hope planted tens of thousands of trees yeah um in my life.
00:32:19
Speaker
And so i feel that I'm making a positive contribution, but I see that also sometimes trees aren't planted in the right place. And we must be bold enough to sometimes accept that if we want to try and um recover some of these landscapes. And it's not purely for the pleasure of just saying this is an historic landscape, must do this. that's Sometimes these trees can really um disrupt or or change the meaning of a landscape in a way that's not helpful and that might make it more susceptible to subsequent degradation, you know, whether for development or other changes. And I think that I'm trying to, when I'm
00:32:59
Speaker
When I'm saying I want trees removed, it's larger because I have the larger landscape in mind and I'm really thinking about protecting it because if we lose the essence of some of these gardens, it's very easy that they should just become very corrupted and unrecognizable and then they lose all meaning whatsoever and then they disappear. So I'm keener to keep these places evolving and changing and living and um rather than just disappearing through um as it were, poor maintenance or lack you know poor judgments over the years. so um
00:33:37
Speaker
So I think it's it's some it's something that we come up against as landscape architects and gardeners all the time, is is difficulty
Managing Royal Gardens
00:33:46
Speaker
in trees. and But it's it's something I feel very strongly about, and I'm really happy to go to battle if I feel that it's a worthwhile cause and um there we go yeah yeah no completely um i guess we should move into your work with royal palaces you know kensington palace hampton court palace what are the kind of unique pressures when working on a site with that kind of level of history ah suppose the biggest
00:34:20
Speaker
The biggest thing, is change I suppose, historical palaces. I mean, they were some formed as a charitable trust him after the Hampton Court fire in 1986. And then very derelict landscape precipitated the the formation of this new charitable organisation, ultimately called Historical moral Palaces. And our aim has always been to use history to inform how we um guide the future.
00:34:46
Speaker
and where possible to ah not conjecturally reconstruct but to use what we know about the past and these palaces are and the landscapes are very well recorded to inform how we actually go about presenting the gardens.
00:35:01
Speaker
And for a very long time it was guided almost entirely by historical documentation, topographical views, um archaeology, and other such things that could give us evidence as to how they looked in the past and how we might have ah this would inform how we want to see them in the present.
00:35:22
Speaker
And this gives us you know has been ah had been a very rewarding way of working. So we were able to do rent, deal restoration, refurbishment of the gardens.
00:35:32
Speaker
everything for the privy garden of hampton court hampton court's been the most active of all the gardens that i've dealt with in world palaces and we've done and i feel like my finger's been almost every corner of that pie um but it's been um a fascinating journey insofar as ah you know we have we put together first a master plan that just gave us the loosest possible view as to the scope for improvements across the landscape and it was really just taking a very degrading historic landscape you know there's a cultural landscape that's almost a thousand years old yeah and and trying to first understand what the history is and what the relative importance is different parts and then assessing that coming up with what's variety can consider you know conservation management plan to guide us and this had very general principles as to how we might
00:36:23
Speaker
look at the whole landscape. So we divided into portions because everything has different characters. We have character areas and then we have an overall picture. And then we thought, well, maybe what we should do is imagine that we will work towards the scheme because it's just so impossibly expensive to do lots of these repairs that we would take a very long-term view and always love when i lecture in america and i say know hampton court we have a 300 year management plan um so but it's true and we started with this long-term aim because if you're looking after if you're a custodian of an ancient landscape that you hope will just carry on being ancient and well
00:37:01
Speaker
um You've really got to take the long view. And I i really, really love that because it's it's just what we should be doing, you know, conserving. and I don't mean keeping everything in aspect, but just loving and looking after these places.
00:37:16
Speaker
And it's, it's been wonderful of being part of that. So we, we put together these schemes. We, we then started, um, putting in place various initiative initiatives like replanting Longwater Avenue, which planted in the 1660s and was collapsing and had very, been very degraded over last few centuries.
00:37:34
Speaker
So that was a very ambitious thing to do. took many years to plan. That actually succeeded in the Privy Garden and things, but there are lots of things we haven't done, but, um, We're working our way towards those things.
00:37:45
Speaker
But what has changed over the last number of years, and probably very recently, is our interest in sustainability and creating greater biological diversity and other things like that. And it is a quandary for us in historical landscapes because it's How much can we change to adapt and still not, as it were, throw the baby out with the bathwater? I mean, how can you take these gardens and try and evoke a 17th century parterre and maybe try and make it a lot more ecological? It's some...
00:38:17
Speaker
we're still wrestling with some of these ideas as to how we can make changes and still not disappoint our visitors who come to us all the time to say, where is the 16th century garden? Where can I see the 18th century? What's it? And um so we've got to take our visitors with us. We have to, we have to show them and, guide them to say, you know, these landscapes cannot be entirely in a specific, they have to change as well, but how they change, we haven't quite yet determined because um we have to
00:38:51
Speaker
take our visitors with us, as it were. So we're yes slowly coming to grips with this, but it's um it's part of the natural evolution. So it's not just the history now, which was so important for so long.
00:39:02
Speaker
It's now saying that is part of this equation, but we must also deal with new variables. And those are really important, not only to us, but increasingly to people who do come and see us because they want to know how we're dealing with climate change and how we are dealing with all these other factors that they have to deal with at home.
00:39:23
Speaker
In a way, what the palaces have done since they've been, the gardens particular, have done since they've been open to the public about the 1830s onwards is
00:39:33
Speaker
is that they've been kind of an experimental ground and a place where people got lots of inspiration. You know, the first visitors to Hampton Court mobbed the gardens, and they were, for the most part, members of the working classes and the mercantile classes who'd never seen any kind of gardens like this in their life before.
00:39:52
Speaker
They arrive at Hampton Court, which by then are very degraded, royal demean because draw to forth and stripped out most of the statuary and all the things. The gardens were very, um, in a very poor state because they really hadn't been looked after since the 1770s when the court moved out. So they were in a strange way. Everyone thought they were going to see great rural gardens, but in fact they saw shadow of what had been in these great rural gardens, but it led to some curious innovations, you know, um an interest in topiary and topiary started,
00:40:24
Speaker
in that it was not even ancient topias. The topias they're looking at was sort started by Capability Brown in when he was actually, surprisingly, the rural gardener. And this led to all sorts of new innovations. And also um when these park keepers or these new people who start looking after the gardens for the public at Hampton Court start looking after them, they have a very didactic program. They want to improve people, both morally and intellectually and other things. So they start planting beds for them of annuals and herbaceous plants and they put labels and these become very popular. People come and they want to learn about what they can see there and take home they can have a little piece of Hampton Court in their own gardens and
00:41:07
Speaker
It's both an interest in gardens and sometimes an interest in patriotism, any number of stimuli. but it's So they these gardens were immensely influential and it's really interesting to see how how this has um ah has played out over the over the last two two and a half centuries or two centuries because it's been this give and take with the custodians of the gardens and and the visitors themselves and trying to trying to both innovate and um satisfy the expectations of our visitors. 2026 is upon us and I have limited spaces open for my garden coaching and consultation sessions.
00:41:50
Speaker
Whether you're looking for help with plant identification, advice on care and maintenance, or tips for improving your soil and plant nutrition, I'm here to help. As a garden designer, I'll help you think creatively about your outdoor space, offering tools and ideas to give you a fresh perspective on your garden projects.
00:42:10
Speaker
My coaching and consultation sessions can happen right in your garden if you live in the yeah UK or online if you're anywhere else in the world. My goal is to meet you where you are and support your unique garden journey.
00:42:25
Speaker
Whether you're just starting out, looking to refine your skills, or simply need a second opinion, or someone just to bounce ideas off, you have found your space.
00:42:36
Speaker
Head to the link in this episode description or shoot me an email at hello at thegardenerslodge.co.uk.
00:42:46
Speaker
You know, a 300 year plan is wild, to be honest. It kind of, I don't even know where you'd begin. But you're right when it comes to these ah changing ah perspectives with climate change and an increased need to build biodiversity and things
Long-term Planning for Historical Landscapes
00:43:05
Speaker
like that. and the responsibility of these estates to be the trendsetters and to be almost the forefront of these movements. Yes.
00:43:15
Speaker
How in practice, and I know you said you haven't quite worked it out yet, but how in practice do you see this playing out over the next, what, 280 years? at First, I'll just explain how we come up with 300-year deadline.
00:43:31
Speaker
And that's because we used our avenues at Hampton Court as a source for this because our avenues were planted in the 1660s and the lime trees that we used to plant them have 300-year life, roughly.
00:43:46
Speaker
so um So that's how we established that 300 years. it's kind of And you see, we have we have a number of avenues, many several of which have been repaired and replaced entirely, and some of which are due to be repaired for the next number of years. And takes a long time to take this action. So we need a long time to plan. So that's how we end up with 300 years. It's kind of a funny number.
00:44:08
Speaker
um so And also these things are expensive, they take a long time to plan. But I suppose there are some features of the landscape which are so, to me, so culturally important that that even if they're not entirely, you know, ecologically sound, that, you know, we must sort think about how important they are in defining the the the bones of these landscapes. And once and the avenues are again are pointed a case in point because these avenues were created...
00:44:39
Speaker
after the restoration of the monarchy. and it was And what they do, historically what avenues do, is that they sort of connect distant parts of landscape. And they sort of, I always compare it to the throwing fishing line over a landscape and sort saying, well,
00:44:55
Speaker
By throwing an avenue over a series of fields, you're sort of saying these are all mine because I've cast my netto in these places. And so, and you see- Just to clarify for listeners, and you can if correct me if I'm wrong, an avenue is a road that is lined by trees.
00:45:11
Speaker
Exactly. So in the French, they call them alleys or alleys. And they are they become very popular again in the 17th century. And we adopt these things that come from the continent.
00:45:23
Speaker
But they were important at the palaces because a lot of these places had actually been like Windsor had actually been broken up during the Commonwealth. And they had been stuck back together, you know, very Humpty Dumpty-like, after the restoration of the monarchy. And the avenues were important things to sort say, okay, we've unified these landscapes. You know, please now these avenues cross over these fields and we're...
00:45:48
Speaker
all back together again. And it's in terms of the history of the landscape, it's really important for saying it's part of this general reunification of the landscape. So it has a strong cultural meaning to me.
00:46:01
Speaker
And you can change some of the trees that grow in the avenues so that they have, you know, things like oak trees, limes, maybe they'd have much more ecological richness as they get older and have a longer life. But culturally speaking, alleyway avenue is a quite important part of the landscape. so And ah other bits, though, are maybe a little bit less, um you know, ah less important, but still sort of project, as it were, important parts of our history. And it's how we do that, as you say, it's it's trying to find alternatives, I suppose, that present a kind of physical dimension of what these places were like. But I think part of this has to be explaining to the public that
00:46:44
Speaker
um why why our response is what it is. I mean, that since the 1760s, there's been no great royal participation in the gardens at many of the royal palaces, and certainly at Hampton Court, because um that's when the court ceased to meet George II, really, at the beginning of the accession of George III. They don't meet at Hampton Court, so it just becomes a royal backwater.
00:47:10
Speaker
yeah And as consequence, it's sort of the landscape is dictated by antiquarians and by people who live in grace and favor, that is people with um great pretensions but no means, who are placed there as an act of gratitude by the reigning monarch. So they start, as it were,
00:47:26
Speaker
i I don't want to say corrupting because they also enrich in a strange way, in a very vernacular way, these landscapes, but they transform them into something entirely different. And I suppose it's now that's as as as valuable a layer as any other, um but lots of that has been now wiped away.
00:47:43
Speaker
and where we have a much more kind of ah landscape that represents a shorter number of periods, but a still a great number of styles across the landscape. We have, it must be said, generally in this country, and certainly Royal Palace has been very conservative in the way we've actually managed and changed the garden. So we have lots of layers and a lot of richness and is trying, I suppose, for me, what seems a really exciting prospect is pointing out to people where we have things that we may not assume of of great antiquity or interest or cultural significance and just explain to them, you know, these little walls come from fish ponds and now, can say, in the pond yards at Hampton Port, the oldest part of the cultural gardeners,
00:48:31
Speaker
where we have these little dwarf walls where people might say, oh, aren't they sweet? But they're actually important. They were put there by Carl the Wolsey, later Henry VIII. And they were initially for fish ponds, based on Roman fish ponds, or vivaria, that go back to antiquity.
00:48:46
Speaker
And these were later reappropriated and made into um ah special places where you would conceal your plants and shelter them from winds and other things and make these nice gardens. So they became a series of little decorative gardens.
00:49:01
Speaker
And we have hedges that were still planted as windbreaks around there from the 17th century. Then we've got trees that date back, you know, that are quite ancient. So I think if we can we can convey quite a lot of our history through these rather...
00:49:15
Speaker
more um informal and ah less structured kind of things, we can still she'll still show that we're a site of great antiquity, but maybe in a different way. So this might be, rather than these bold expressions of you know one big garden laid out as a know formal parterre or something like that, it might be that we can try and do things in a more subtle way.
00:49:39
Speaker
This is a possibility, but I think, as I said, um this is still we're still in a state of flux, and know we now have this less money available for garden maintenance, and we have huge demands. We have many, many visitors. A lot of our, the money that we put into the gardens goes into just maintaining them without yeah considering how we improve them because we're just tidying up a million visitors cause a lot of wear
Design Constraints and Creativity
00:50:09
Speaker
and tear.
00:50:09
Speaker
So it's balancing these things and then trying to get everyone to sign up to these long term views. And as I said, everything moves, reasonably slowly in this context. And my favorite analogy is that in, I think it was about 2002, we put a fountain at the end of the long water and he was to mark one of the anniversaries of Her Majesty the Queen.
00:50:34
Speaker
And having done some research, I discerned that we had been discussing the same problem or same opportunities since 1851. And we'd only only finally decided to do something about 150 years later. so So things move occasionally very slowly, which isn't a bad thing because um conservatism allows things to remain. you know where Whereas if things are made to hasten said way too Things can be destroyed, just as I feel sometimes too much money is a very bad thing because it can, um you know, need to wanton disruption of things that maybe should be spared. Well, I think in any design, constraints, whether it be physical or financial, are ultimately create a better landscape in the long run.
00:51:21
Speaker
i think constraints are brilliant. I really enjoy having them because it's, you say these are puzzles and it's true. And I think that having the limits, it makes one much more creative, I think, because you have to work within these constraints. So I find the most vexing of all prospects is when you have a client and they don't really know what they want to do And it's it's incredibly difficult because you just don't know how to respond. i'd Much sooner have someone who had strong views and who wants who wants to collaborate
00:51:52
Speaker
Because it's easier to know where you stand. It's also much easier to make to make something that everyone's going to be happy with. Yeah, I agree. I mean, ah my hardest clients are the ones who have a lawn and say, I want a garden and I don't know what I want it. And you go, oh, okay. true.
00:52:13
Speaker
Because I lived abroad in so many different climates, I have worked and still am working in a number of faraway places. And that's fun. And people always say, how can you work in Barbados? and Well, you know, I grew in those places. so And I regard as a great challenge going to new places. And the first place I always hit is the Paternick Garden because I want to see what's growing locally.
00:52:37
Speaker
And they're not... always the native plants, but you get ah you get a picture of what is what is capable of growing in those places and what has been used as an experiment an experimental way. And I find that really an interesting part of my work because I enjoy, it's it's also made me feel that I really enjoy gardening in England because there is not only you have a climate that allows you to have four seasons generally and to have a great diversity of plants that will, you know, very there are very few places on earth where you have you have um the ability to grow so many, such a great range of things and new things. But there's also the skill that's developed in gardening over the centuries in this country, which,
00:53:28
Speaker
allows you to do things and and have proper stewardship afterwards because um it's so important that when you make a landscape or garden that it's able to be looked after and unconscious always. I don't want to make things that just degrade instantly, like disappear. And I'm happy for them to evolve, but you hope they'll evolve in a positive manner, at least with some kind of stewardship or some sort of plan rather than just people just don't know what quite to do with it. So I think from the very beginning there's always an negotiation with the proprietor or the custodian, whoever it is, just to agree what they can, ah what they expect to look after, how much they want to spend in the future, and whether they're actually committed to carrying out the degree of maintenance that might be required for a certain things they may wish they want, but
00:54:27
Speaker
may not want it when they realize how much work it is. Say working internationally, will you choose not to take on certain projects because of, you know, maybe a lack of education or a lack of garden knowledge within a site that maybe, you know, if it was here in the yeah UK, you could go, yeah, let's do it easy. Whereas over there or wherever, potentially there isn't maybe the skillset to be able to kind of have that care taken into the future.
00:54:56
Speaker
Fortunately, I haven't had haven't had to deal with that too much. But I'd say that, in for instance, when working a few years ago in Trinidad, I had been proposing this garden, which wasn't overly complex and was using plants that were mostly available on the island.
00:55:11
Speaker
But um I wanted to cultivate someone locally who could actually look after it. when I left. And so what we did was we contracted a garden fellow who was keen to learn because he thought this was a great opportunity for him as well to learn from someone from abroad and to collaborate. And um so over the course of creating garden, which was three years, he developed a lot of new skills and we also just agreed on how the would be maintained and So that actually works quite well, you know, if there is that kind of continuity. It doesn't always happen.
00:55:45
Speaker
But one always likes to take on gardeners from an early stage, because I think it's important when you're doing these kind of works, that the person who's going to maintain them is part of that process.
00:56:00
Speaker
i think it must be kind of dispiriting sometimes, just constantly moving to places that have already been done. Then you're nothing more than someone who's just keeping something alive. It's like being a life support system.
00:56:12
Speaker
mean, totally I think that gardeners want an increasingly and I can understand why, gardeners want to be more creative. And you have to offer them opportunities to do that. So I almost always... feel a sense ownership, suppose. Exactly. think that's right. And I think what I like to create in gardens, I feel anyway as I try to do this, is I'm not obsessed with every detail of what I would call the embroidery, as it were, of the scheme. But I like setting out the bones. And that's why, in way, landscape works well for me because...
00:56:45
Speaker
I have a big vision, and i think that this vision is kind of adjustable in a way where if you have strong bones, you can actually do quite a lot to it without changing entirely the essence of the garden.
00:56:59
Speaker
And I want people to feel free to actually make changes in the garden without feeling that they're changing in everything, or even if they were unselfconsciously changing things, it wouldn't.
00:57:14
Speaker
it still retains what I think are in the important aspects of it of a garden or a landscape. And that might be views, it might be the relationship with the building to the larger landscape, or any number of variables. But i always feel that where I've worked best and where I'm happiest with the results is where I've established a framework. And I just think, okay, I've done my bit. Now, this is your time. And I want the gardeners to feel a degree of freedom. So There are many gardeners who whose work is reliant entirely on the plants, as it were. you know And I'd say maybe herbaceous displays or these very beautiful things. And I think that's wonderful. But you know these plants are very short-lived. And unless you've got a gardener who really knows what he's doing and you're committed to retaining that, these things can evolve in a very quickly to' something that's not what it was intended to be. yeah and and and it's not the sole reason i want to do that it's just that i feel strongly that i kind of like the bigger picture and it's you know i'm i i like the the other things that go with it but ultimately i suppose i'm kind of like they said in in the 18th century about london as they said you know if you lived in london if you had a view then you didn't need a garden i mean the view was much more important than a garden
00:58:37
Speaker
And I'm sort of inclined to think, you know, when it comes to things also, I'd rather have a view to natural landscape than, as it were, if I if i had that opportunity and feel that I'd have to create a big great garden around it. I might want to frame the views and things, but I'm ultimately, I'm drawn to these landscapes that have a kind of freedom about them and not not saying anything,
00:59:01
Speaker
they don't have management. I think that's a silly thing. you know, this whole country is, the landscape is artificial, um has been for a thousand years. But um I think there's a degree for some kind of relaxation. And and my own garden um is very, is very much that way. You know, it's, it was probably maintained quite fastidiously for a long time, but I've sort of,
00:59:25
Speaker
I've let bits go because I'm just letting the grass grow longer. I'm growing paths and I've reduced the areas of intense planting. And it's big enough that I just want to feel kind of park-like. And i find that for me just um a more...
00:59:42
Speaker
a agreeable sort of solution. i Still, I'm like every garden, obsessed and I can't relax my garden. I go out every time thinking, oh, I'll just go and sit somewhere and read a book, but God, it's just impossible. like I can't do it. I always find something I have to do. no matter how simple I make my landscape, I'm still or pottering.
01:00:04
Speaker
But that's the pleasure of gardens and um it's undeniable that these things will always be odds. so But it's it's um it's nice to experiment in one's own garden. But I think that I've decided that for me,
01:00:19
Speaker
I want this kind of bur and a relaxed sort of approach to gardening. So would you say that you're – so you have six acres Bedfordshire. Would you say that your then personal design aesthetic is is more park-like and more yeah naturalistic, not in the sense of the planting style, but in terms of like just a more natural landscape?
01:00:43
Speaker
Yes, because I think that I'm more inclined to – I'm more of an English landscape person than a formal landscape person. And by necessity, I've been involved with lots of very immense formal gardens. And I find that pleasurable. But I suppose if I were doing my own thing, which I am here,
01:01:03
Speaker
i For me, and it's not strictly maintenance, it's just also what I like to look at. I prefer a faro a simpler palette, a much more relaxed sort view, much much more romantic in way.
01:01:19
Speaker
i'm I'm inclined to like that. I'm colorblind. So not awfully colorblind, but I'm sufficiently colorblind that I can't always perceive every color.
01:01:30
Speaker
And as a consequence, My landscapes, I suppose, are very ah very sculptural because I rely lot on light and I'm very keen that when i eat garden, I'm always keen on creating a sense of atmosphere and character. And to this end, for almost all our work, I produce hand-drawn sketches and For me, it's not conveying with a degree always of immense accuracy what I'm projecting, but it's more about saying this is a kind of character I'm trying to illustrate. This is what I'm trying to evoke in my drawings.
01:02:09
Speaker
When you go there, you'll feel this kind of feeling. And i think that's what it's about for me, is that yeah I want to create places where i want to be or where someone wants to be. I try and place them in these settings and say,
01:02:23
Speaker
This is the kind of light you'll see. This is the kind of experience you'll get. And try to give them a an emotional attachment to the landscape rather than strictly just, you know, here's the plants you told me to put in here.
01:02:37
Speaker
you know That's fine. But i'm I'm selling a bigger picture. i really want them to yeah an essence of what um what it means to be in the place.
'Lost Gardens of London' Book Discussion
01:02:48
Speaker
You're an academic, you're a writer. You've written a book titled Lost Gardens of London and that uncovers forgotten landscapes. What's your favourite lost landscape that you came across in researching the book?
01:03:01
Speaker
I suppose it might be the Surrey Zoological Gardens, which were rather amazing because they were created in the early 19th century by this great entrepreneur who decided that he had a kind of a, it wasn't a zoo, but it was like kind of a Emporium where he had animals caged up and speaking to elephants other things in Piccadilly.
01:03:23
Speaker
And he decided that he would marry this up with this new concept, which was to put them integrate them into landscape or natural settings so that people see animals in landscapes.
01:03:35
Speaker
So he takes these new concepts, it's before the Royal Zoological Gardens had been formed in London and Regent's Park, but he creates this sort of um subscription garden, South Thames, in Woolworth. And what he does is he ah exploits the commercial potential for inviting people in to see this combination of landscape and animals. So it's a really new it's a new concept in the 19th century, this notion of this. And he also puts labels on the plants so people can read about when they're looking exotic plants, where they come from, where they are, both in English and in Latin.
01:04:09
Speaker
So it's it's got this improving quality too, but it was a place where people went for diversion just to see when a time when people didn't travel very much, um people from all costs go and just really find immense entertainment. And what was ah that was the more permanent part of the garden, but what was great was the ephemeral lair, people on top.
01:04:30
Speaker
There was a central lake in this old estate that he bought, and he fenced off part of it. And he um he made these great shows. He made huge um temporary exhibitions of things like he would make awesome almost equivalent now of papier-mâché, but sort lashed up with string and wood and paper.
01:04:52
Speaker
whole mountain ranges and Indian villages and temples. and um he He would evoke things like Napoleon crossing the Alps or the eruption Mount Etna in 79 AD. And he would do sort of what we now call Sona Lumiere presentations. And there would be regular evening events to draw people into the garden. So um you had these ephemeral things and people show up and then as as it got darker, then you'd have cannon fire, you could have sea battles on the lake, and all reflected on this huge pool.
01:05:25
Speaker
And it was a most extraordinary experience, I think, for people. That's crazy. It was crazy. And it was so delightful. And reading these accounts, it must have been transfixing. being being transported within these landscapes. And so this place lingered for a little while. I mean, it got away from, it was a change because everyone else had things like tightrope walking and balloon rising and things like that. But they they changed the program. Like so many things, people taste rapidly tired, but and it went out of business and um collapsed. but
01:05:59
Speaker
um And home me sadly, the only thing survives now is a small patch of grass. The of the site's been built over. But that's the essence of of lots of these landscapes. Landscapes are ephemeral, and um they come and go.
01:06:12
Speaker
and one doesn't expect them to survive all the time. And I'm very keen just to see even the tiniest evocation. I love seeing a tree from You know, you go around housing estates in West London, you see an old tree, and you think, God, that's been... the probably hundreds and hundreds of years. And it's still, it's out of context, but it's now in a new context. And isn't it wonderful? And um I think that that kind of, I like that romantic view. And also I like conjuring in my mind what these places were like. I didn't always need to see them
01:06:44
Speaker
you know, this thing in place and I don't hanker to see it place, but I'm happy in my mind's eye to recreate what these places were. Do you think these gardens should still exist or you're happy for them to ah be lost to time?
01:06:59
Speaker
I think these gardens disappeared for a good reason and, know, taste changes. And yes, it'd be interesting to put oneself in that garden temporarily, but I think that there's some, you know, probably unsustainable But I think there's something wonderful about the passage of time, and I'm very keen that gardens should evolve over time as well because they need to reflect contemporary interests, changes in taste, um know changes in climate, all sorts of things. And that response is the it's the dynamism that makes gardens, for me, so immensely rich and so interesting. I love the fact that what I create won't necessarily be what I always want,
01:07:40
Speaker
because i have i only have so much control and it's that kind of it in in in first you have to actually just say okay i've done so much this point where i just have to divorce myself from things say it's got a it's got a real life you know it is a growing thing and it will change and sometimes it will improve you know through some kind of cataclysm too so it's you know it's not always a matter of degradation it's sometimes it's improvement And I find that really a very, very fascinating part of one's work. It's um because it's that lack of control in a strange way. And not letting nature take its course, and I think it's that...
01:08:26
Speaker
It's a happy compromise because it's some it's just, it's like so many things, I suppose, about, we talked about my childhood earlier, this idea of not knowing where next I was going to school, or what language I was going be speaking, where my friends would be.
01:08:41
Speaker
I really like that kind of um indeterminate quality of landscape. Your next book, which you've got coming out this summer, is a quite kind of different right-hand turn, isn't it? So it's European Gardens. What has inspired you to take a leap away from academic writing and into something a little bit more pretty?
Upcoming Book on European Gardens
01:09:05
Speaker
I suppose was like everything else in my life. I fell into it. yeah um A friend asked me if I'd like to write this book for Tashin, and it's strange. It's not a book that I would ordinarily seek to write, but it's been pleasurable in every regard. But it's you know it's a very smart picture book.
01:09:24
Speaker
My essays are short, and I've taken great pleasure and pains in making sure that at least they try to supply it. more original information and new interpretations and views and things of of some of these gardens. It's not, they're not, it's European gardens. It's not just of the best gardens because they were chosen largely by the photographer who's very celebrating called Massimo Lissre and they're very beautiful I'm i'm sort of the I'm sort of his interlocutor and I just try and flesh out the garden so I can so people get a greater understanding of what they mean it's yes it's a strange thing where I feel slightly embarrassed and it's not more profound work of scholarship but uh
01:10:08
Speaker
My clients think that I really, some of them feel this is the greatest possible achievement that one can have, writing a Tashin book, because they are so immense that having, I suppose, having a book like this written by your gardener must be a great pleasure because can just drop the thing on the table and the earth shudders as it falls on the ground.
01:10:27
Speaker
and um And they are and you know they are very made majestic, wonderful books. So I shouldn't be anything other than very, very pleased. and I'm sure it'd be a lovely book and probably sell much more respectively ah respectfully than anything I've written in the past with more serious intentions. ah I love that. Todd, thank you so much for your time. I've enjoyed this immensely. It's been such a fascinating chat.
01:10:53
Speaker
Thank you very much. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you like the show, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button. Tell a friend or two, or maybe even give the show five-star rating and a review.
01:11:07
Speaker
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