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Mastering Modern Planting with Andrew Fisher Tomlin
141 Plays29 days ago
World-renowned planting designer Andrew Fisher Tomlin joins Mykal in the Lodge to talk all things planting design and reflect on a remarkable career in horticulture.
Andrew is the founding director of the London College of Garden Design and a respected educator at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His career spans decades at the very highest level of the profession, including judging show gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
In this conversation, Andrew shares the hard-won knowledge and insight gathered throughout his career, much of which now forms the basis of his first book, The Modern Professional Planting Designer — an Amazon No.1 bestseller.
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Transcript
Introduction to Gardener's Lodge Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Step into the gardener's lodge with me, Michael Hoare. Let's explore the fascinating world of gardening, nature and ecology through conversations with experts, thought leaders, passionate enthusiasts, and of course, some real good friends, all from the cozy heart of the lodge.
00:00:25
Speaker
Come on in.
Acknowledgment of Traditional Owners
00:00:28
Speaker
The Gardener's Lodge podcast is created on the traditional lands of the Darug and Gundungara people in the Blue Mountains. We pay respect to all First Nations elders, past and present.
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to the show and of course, happy new year. It is the first episode of 2026, which is super exciting. And no less, we are hitting in with a bang.
Guest Introduction: Andrew Fisher Tomlin
00:00:49
Speaker
We've got an amazing guest. His name is Andrew Fisher Tomlin.
00:00:52
Speaker
His accolades and his CV stretch as far as the eye can see. He is a founding director of the London College of Garden Design. He teaches planting design at Kew Gardens.
00:01:03
Speaker
He has been an adjudicator or a judge for the Royal Horticultural Society, Royal Chelsea Flower Show. He runs his own design firm, Fisher, Tomlin and Bower. And as if this man wasn't busy enough as it is, he has written his very first book, The Modern Professional Planting Designer.
00:01:21
Speaker
My chat with Andrew was amazing. It reached far and wide into his career, into the kind of the theory and the philosophy of planting design. And he was so generous with his time.
Rapid-Fire Q&A with Andrew
00:01:32
Speaker
I absolutely loved my chat with him. And without further ado, let's jump in to our six rapid fire questions.
00:01:40
Speaker
Are you ready? Yes. Favourite plant? This week, Acacia provisima, the oven zwattle. Favourite way to connect with nature? I think just pottering in my own garden. I have a 20 second commute from the house down to my office.
00:01:56
Speaker
There's always always a little bit of gardening gets done on every trip. You've got to. Most beautiful garden or natural landscape you've ever visited? i' say the fjords and I love fjords everywhere. I've still got do the New Zealand fjords. Norwegian fjords amazing. But i actually i actually I actually think Probably the bit I've been most wild by the Swedish Lapland, which is kind of inside the Arctic Circle, really far north, going there in August, but there's still snow on the ground.
00:02:27
Speaker
Absolutely beautiful. Favourite garden tool? Oh, that's easy. i felt My felcos. Yes. A young Aussie gardener described my pair of felcos as vintage.
00:02:40
Speaker
If you could be one, would you be a plant or an animal? a plant, a tree. Nice. And finally, when you're looking for the most sound and reliable research, where do you go?
00:02:53
Speaker
probably go to the classroom. i I have students with experience of things, particularly in gardening. And um I take some of my, you know, i'm looking for stuff, I say, you know, what's your experience of that? And I get a lot from that.
00:03:09
Speaker
um and And a few colleague the colleagues as well.
Andrew's Early Gardening Influences
00:03:12
Speaker
What was your earliest memory of becoming enamored with gardens and with nature? I think I'm like a lot of people who are in horticulture in that it kind of seeps into you at young age because of where you are and even I know people who are kind of in urban settings who are like that but mine was I grew up um just near the Fens in East Anglia. um My father had three allotments, there was a bit avid allotment here. um My mum looked after the garden mostly.
00:03:44
Speaker
um i live i actually grew up on somewhere called Clay Street which says everything. yeah So we had fantastic roses but every year there would be this big seething mass of farmyard manure arrive ah on our on our driveway, which was a tiny driveway. And um the weekend would be spent you know putting that into in around the garden. So yeah, it's kind of that early memory of that. But eventually I kind of decided what I wanted to do and there were horticultural people in my family and that helped. I then went to Askenbrown College in Yorkshire. but um So that's kind of that's kind of where I come from really. And um yeah my mum, who I lost earlier this year, she was an avid gardener. I'm sorry. um But she has finally take comfort in the 93 years she had. um and um and and always loved the gardens shes she introduced me che flash show She used to come down for the shows.
00:04:48
Speaker
um And the last few years, because she wasn't so mobile and and I couldn't be there all the time, we actually did a bit of an experiment in wilding her garden. so so fabulous So it came like, you know, people talk about wilding and rewilding. We kind of left it see what happened. And it was amazing, actually, that we saw things like there's a local native, which is just ordinary campagna. But it took over the garden at certain times of the year. Most beautiful. And all the people in the village would stop and talk to you about it and things and how wonderful it was. And you just think, yes, why aren't you all doing this? So there's kind of like, you know, it's been
Career Highlights and Achievements
00:05:33
Speaker
all through my life. And my mum had a great hand in that.
00:05:37
Speaker
She would must be so proud of the career that you've created for yourself then. You know, you run Fisher, Tomlin and Bower, your garden design firm. You have judged Royal Chelsea Flower Show. You have taught at Q Gardens. I mean, you're a part of, you're a founding director of the London College of Garden Design, which is, your career is immense. And no less, you have written what is your first book?
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, strangely, everyone's really surprised that. Yeah, the modern professional planting designer is my first book. I've i've kind of contributed to books. I've contributed projects and things. But okay I've always been really, really busy. i I love working in the industry, but I love every aspect of it. So I'm kind of one of those people, I'm a bit of the magpie. I kind of like, I'm going to do
Writing The Modern Professional Planting Designer
00:06:28
Speaker
that next. I'm going to do this. So yeah so i I kind of done lots of things. And the book thing, I've been asked to write books for years.
00:06:37
Speaker
But they were never the books I wanted to write. I couldn didn't know sure what I wanted to write. my um My husband is an academic, writes loads of books. And I kind of saw the pain of writing a book yeah and held back a bit. And a friend, Ian Hodgson, who's editor of um Garden News, ah kind of he's written books. So I took him out for lunch one day and I said, tell me why I should be writing the book and what it is. And he said to me, don't don't write a pot boiler.
00:07:05
Speaker
I said, what do you mean? He said, don't don't write something you get enthusiastic for the first half. And then it just of sits there on the on the top of the yeah the stove, like bubbling, bubbling away at you, going, you need to finish me. You're niggling at you in the background. Yeah. And i so I thought about it for long time. And ah my colleague, Nina Baxter at London College Garden Design said to me, you you really ought write a planting design. And I kind of knew I should, because I've always been first foremost a planting designer.
00:07:35
Speaker
It's only in the last 15 years that I think it's a career that's been really recognised. I like to think, certainly people tell me this, that the planting design diploma that I started at London College of Garden Design has had a big hand in that. But also the support of people like Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield, um you know, as who's supported us all the way on that has helped enormously. The sort of planting design as as a standalone career is, ah I think, a relatively new thing. Yeah, totally. designers, landscape architects, would like to think they kind of invented it but it's actually the gardeners um that have been in gardens and estates for hundreds of years who've always been planting designers, but actually having... I found that increasingly I was getting asked by people to come and redesign large areas of planting where they already had gardeners, but the gardeners didn't have time.
The Evolution of Planting Design
00:08:34
Speaker
um I know we have all this mechanisation and things help gardeners these days, but if you think, know, states are run on quite low numbers these days compared to 200 years ago. absolutely. I was often being asked to give my specialist knowledge in that way. So um the the course we run at LCGD came out of me being frustrated at seeing the same planting design everywhere.
00:09:04
Speaker
This was about 15 years ago and it had been kind of That thought had been sitting with me for about five years. And I talked to my colleague, Andrew Wilson, and said, you know, this is really frustrating with me. I've just been to Chelsea Flower Show. Everyone was doing the same sort of planting and quite often with no b link back to the narrative for the garden. And what kind of planting was that at that time? It was kind of a pseudo naturalistic type of planting. yeah people talking about oh, I'm doing naturalistic planting, and in the middle of it would be a load of box balls. No, that's not natural. and and But the thing I think often with show gardens, people design their gardens, they get accepted, they work on all the structure and things, and then six months later, and maybe six months before the actual show, they suddenly start thinking about the plants, and they forget that they've got a narrative for their gardens.
00:09:59
Speaker
they don't go back to that original merit and say, well, what am I trying to achieve here? What's the story I'm telling? And so quite often the planting didn't fit that. And so I thought, you know, we're going down this route of everyone doing the same thing and because of that designers were using the 300 favourite plants that they had on a list all the time. Nurseries were having less of a range of plants and that's partly to do with designers using a limited palette of plants.
00:10:33
Speaker
And I really felt we could do something about that. 2026 is upon us and I have limited spaces open for my garden coaching and consultation sessions. 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
Garden Coaching and Consultation
00:10:53
Speaker
help.
00:10:53
Speaker
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. 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.
00:11:13
Speaker
My goal is to meet you where you are and support your unique garden journey. 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.
00:11:30
Speaker
Head to the link in this episode description or shoot me an email at hello at thegardenerslodge.co.uk.
00:11:40
Speaker
Cue the London College of Garden Design, of which you are a founding director and teacher there. London College Garden Design was set up about
Teaching's Impact on Design Practice
00:11:49
Speaker
20 years ago. um it was set up by myself and two colleagues, and we'd all been teaching at other places, but we were kind of a bit dissatisfied about what was being taught. They weren't teaching enough things nothing things like construction design. um And so we kind of got together and we thought we can we can do our own thing ah do something. and so So we launched the Garden Design Diploma first.
00:12:15
Speaker
Planting Design Diploma came a few years later. And now we have other and CPD courses. You teach the Diploma of Planting Design. How has teaching and mentoring actually influenced your own design practice?
00:12:31
Speaker
Teaching keeps you on you ah on your feet. I mean, it really it really informs you a lot. It makes you keep up to date with things because you've got a classroom with people who want the latest information. And so we've we've always always at the college been very keen to have practising experts, people are out there doing it day to day as well as teaching it, because that's how you get the most up to date knowledge. even if it's down to understanding how the climate has changed, because you're out there doing it all the time. And you can give examples about things like, you know, plants that are doing well, plants that aren't doing well, new materials that are out there.
00:13:14
Speaker
So that's been really, really important to me. I don't i don't just teach at London College Garden Design. in Obviously, we have London and Melbourne, but I also teach the school of at the school of horticulture in Kew Gardens and there I'm teaching people with the most amazing botanic minds they yeah that the plants they know and the plants that they're enthusiastic about are often the plants that aren't very easily available or that you've never heard of i learned so many new plants it feels a bit naughty really that i'm being paid to go and listen to these listen learn yourself a bit yeah yeah yeah and it's like and they're quite often the things that i you know i'm not going to have the opportunity to use but because and i always joke that it takes me two or three times longer to mark their work than anybody else's because
00:14:09
Speaker
yeah half the plants I've never heard of. And I have to remind people that, you know, there's, I can't remember the exact figures, I think it's something like quarter of a billion species in this world.
00:14:20
Speaker
And by all accounts, I cannot identify everyone but as a teacher, you know. um And so I love it because it's they're they're really interesting. They come up with really interesting ideas kind of leading through that, but I learn a
Consultancy with Commonwealth War Graves Commission
00:14:34
Speaker
lot from that. So definitely, ah you know, teaching informs you hugely and and it's changed so much as well. It's much it's very interactive. i'm ah I'm a stickler for reviewing all my lectures every year and and quite often, I would say, on average, my lectures are completely rewritten every two or three years. Yeah, right. And I think that keeps you fresh. And of course, if you're doing that, it's kind of like research, you know, writing a writing a day's teaching is like researching. I love doing it. i'm I'm always surprised I kind of got into it. But now I'm
00:15:14
Speaker
people are taking that expertise that I've got and doing it, looking at it in different ways and how I can help them. So my um latest project, I've been and taken on as consultant to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
00:15:28
Speaker
My remit is to reimagine um and and help them reimagine their planting for the next hundred years in the light of biodiversity crisis and the changing climate. So just a small task then. Yeah. Well, the world that commission, okay they look after 12,000 sites with horticulture around the world. I think 170 countries.
00:15:54
Speaker
And there's no way I can do every one. And that's not the point. But, you know, it's the training background. It's the fact that work in planting design. That's the key thing for them.
00:16:06
Speaker
And we're doing a very specific piece over the next few years, which will roll out. and So to give... power to the people in the organisation, the head gardeners and and team leaders and people like that, who are really interested in plants, who kind of want to take things forward. um And it's just it's just such a delight to work for them because, you know, they they come from a very strong horticultural background.
00:16:33
Speaker
I've always wanted to do something with them. um And it's really, you know, it's really, really exciting. What qualities do you think define a great planting designer in today's
Qualities of a Planting Designer
00:16:45
Speaker
world?
00:16:45
Speaker
So much about what we do is about communication. There's lots of talk about AI these these days, but actually at the moment, AI hasn't got the imagination and creativity that humans have. Thank God. um Yeah, I mean, who knows whether that will come. But I i think that's really, really important. I think an ability to...
00:17:10
Speaker
slow down what I call kind of slow planting um and and really assess what's in front of you and to be innovative, to create new stories. um So all that creative imagination is really important. The other thing, the other part of it is an ability to to advocate for planting.
00:17:33
Speaker
So much this is about communication, how we communicate to clients, how we communicate to the wider public. I work in these days it a lot in public space um and I find that I'm being called into projects early, which is great, but I'm still having to advocate for ah for planting areas and and diversity of planting and looking at planting in a sustainable way, but still trying to fight for respect with within teams because quite often architects, engineers, um the person who's doing the costing of the project, they kind of have more weight in a team. Yeah.
International Garden Design Projects
00:18:14
Speaker
and it's kind of That's kind of shocking, but the tide has turned and there are i am getting involved in more things where
00:18:23
Speaker
not like the Commonwealth Woolgraves Commission, where horticulture is a big part of what they do and they understand that, but in places like public parks, um where they understand the value of what we do, and but now also in corporate spaces like headquarters and things like that, where they understand that actually they can attract staff by by having great outdoor space um because people value that much more now.
00:18:52
Speaker
And that's and that's right that's great. That we're kind of, you know, that that we're going that way. But I think that ability of of design is anyway, but planting design in particular to kind of advocate for the value of planting and relate that back to whatever the client is looking for, I think is really is is really important. Absolutely. And I suppose you, as you've mentioned, the college has a campus in Melbourne.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yes, yeah. And beyond that, you've worked in Australia and New Zealand. And how did you end up on the other side of the world in my neck of the Well, the first time was um i hadn't... i did a couple of gardens at Chelsea Flower Show in the 1990s. I never really got the bug for it. And then i the RHS asked me to do things with them. And I did that for a certain amount time. And thought, oh I don't want to do that anymore. And I fancied doing a show garden again. about This was back in 2013.
00:19:50
Speaker
And I thought, oh, shit, that's everyone's going to be looking because I've been chairing, judging things for years. So I thought, where can I do it where, if it all goes really badly, I can kind of,
00:20:03
Speaker
be quiet about it. So I thought, so I contacted my friend Kate Hillier, who was in New Zealand and run the Ellisley Flower Show. And i said, can I come and do a show garden there? And so she said, yeah, of course you can. So we I went over there with a colleague of mine, Tom Halfley, and we did, um So I ah created a garden that I had in the back of my mind for a few years because sometimes you need to look behind you.
00:20:28
Speaker
And the concept of it was, the idea behind it was that people buy tree seats, they have tree seats, and they have tree seats to sit under a tree, but primarily to look at the view.
00:20:39
Speaker
they don't look at the tree. And I thought, so i create with a um amazing joiner up in in the north of the South Island.
00:20:51
Speaker
We designed a 36-seater circular bench. that sat around one of the trees in the park in Christchurch and looked at the tree.
00:21:02
Speaker
So you sat and looked at the tree and the seats... looked back into it. Yeah, and and the the the whole surround of it was was tree ferns and things, so you couldn't really see a long distance view anyway. And during the show, people came in, it had a seat that you could pull in to make a perfect circle. And people came in and paid reverence to that tree. They didn't touch it. They sat there quietly looking up into the tree and just kind of enjoying it.
00:21:29
Speaker
And that was the first garden. um And that that bench is, if you if you're in Christchurch, you can go and sit on that bench in the Botanic Gardens. So it still exists? It still exists, yeah. Oh, amazing. People send me photos and sitting on it from all over the world. It's brilliant. Yeah. um So I did that, I got back to the UK about a month later, Anthony Bastic from AGB events in Sydney, rang me up and said, would you come and be involved in the Australian Garden Show in Sydney? um And of course I did. so you know Somebody says, can you come and create a garden? You can need to be here for a month and we're not going to judge you because it's just going to be a show feature. like, I'm there. And so we did that. That was great fun. Largest garden i did at the time, Michael Bates built it for me. We had absolutely had a ball because I literally got off the plane straight to the nursery and selecting plants. They said the only only condition, a constraint we're going to put onto to you, it has to be Australian natives.
00:22:37
Speaker
Oh. And I'm like... Not hard for an Englishman. Well, but it's also like, you just have the most amazing natives, you know, and you have 25,000, you only have about 3,000 non-natives. And I kind of like, yeah, it's fine. The only thing I asked for was if I had somebody who was a nursery person who would stand next to me and go, no, Andrew, that's not a native. So I didn't have to look it all up, you know, because I going around these noses. Like, yeah, I was like hidden sweet shop in these nurseries. And she was great. She really helped me out. And we created this garden called September Sky.
00:23:20
Speaker
um And it was kind of my idea about what Australia was like and these kind of big wide open skies and and yeah land and country and you know everything they thought about. Because I'd only ever been to Australia twice before. Once through the airport in Sydney on the way to new Zealand and the second time for three nights um to come and launch the show. So it kind of was my idea. And we um worked alongside a number of other Australian designers. They all came when they were looking at my garden. where I kept found them all standing. And I said, is something wrong? And they said, oh, it's just that you can tell that you're not an Australian designer. I say i said, ha how? And they started to tell me about how I set plants out.
00:24:08
Speaker
and I realized what it was was they were all doing very ornamental planting and I was doing very naturalistic planting. It was kind of, it was kind, of and and one of them said, this is just like my mum's garden in the bush.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I thought, that's crazy indeed. i was like, yeah wow. you um and And people came along and they looked they they you know got involved in it. And it was great to kind of engage people as somebody who's from outside the country with plants that they knew and how I'd put them together. And we kind of had this underlying story about when you scratch the surface of Australia,
00:24:47
Speaker
you find treasure. um And it kind of keyed into stories at the time about the use of resources in Australia and and and and lots of other things that were going on about nature
Storytelling in Garden Design
00:25:01
Speaker
and things. so So we kind of put things in that we didn't tell people about. It was only if you kind of walk through the garden and notice them, you would know. So things like where the quarry had scratched the rocks using the machinery, i put gold leaf on the rock so you kind of went so you could hear people go my god look there's gold in there and they're kind of like no there's not but it's kind of part of the story yeah and and and and just before we the show opened anthony said to me said i i think it's amazing this story that you've got running through this garden i didn't know you could kind of do stories from from gardens like this
00:25:40
Speaker
and i And I think I said to him, but like, what do you mean? He said, well, like, you know, referencing the national flower of Australia, um you know, within that garden and, and and you know, your whole story about gold and things. And I was like, have I? i didn't know this. i have You just nod and agree. Yeah, so I kind of straight off to... You Google like what's the national flower of Australia? And of course it's the golden wattle. Yeah, acacia pigmenta, yeah, golden wattle. And I kind of thought i need to, I need to understand it. I need to know. i I will see, so this young woman who was helping me from the nursery, I rang her and said, can you get me some golden wattles? love to have them in the garden. And she actually managed to find some.
00:26:22
Speaker
in time for the first day. And I thought, i need to find out yeah why it's the the national flower of Australia. And of course it was introduced by the i think, the second Prime Minister Australia.
00:26:35
Speaker
Bizarrely, it's Andrew Fisher. and Oh, there you go. Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. yeah It was kind of like, oh my goodness, we really need this. And of course I then, you know through the press day and everything, was like, course it was all preemptive, pre-thought out.
00:26:54
Speaker
anti-clever yeah yeah but it's kind of it's kind of interesting how you get these stories out to plants and you know how they they can connect with you in different ways and good it amazes me that you kind of do in one thing and there's something comes along that connects something comes out yeah i suppose that's like the interesting thing with planting design and i guess garden design really is it it is an art form you know People would look at a painting and they'll they'll derive a meaning out of it.
00:27:20
Speaker
And that is still so true with gardens, you know, if you're looking at it and thinking deeply about it. I mean, if we if we look at... Well, I think I was one of the first naturalistic planting movements, which was the picturesque in the 1820s to 40s. That was all based on putting plants together and they were non-native plants together in a natural way and based on landscape painting.
00:27:45
Speaker
So, you know, sort of nature imitating art in that way. um You know, what we talk about as naturalistic planting now is in many ways just a repackaged version for the 21st century.
00:27:59
Speaker
So let's jump straight into your new book, The Modern Professional Planting Designer. What was the process for writing this insanely, incredibly thorough book?
Writing Process and Teaching Integration
00:28:11
Speaker
I think I wrote it to get a lot of things for me, to get a lot of things out of my mind. That's actually my next question, to be honest.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think it's kind of, it was a way of saying I've got it of all this stuff that's going in my head that I wanted to say, and it was a good way of putting it down there. And so I i was writing it, but also still teaching And so when um quite a lot of it I teach in another way, and but I do talk about it to students. And so I was taking chapters and kind of saying, using it as a kind of a a day's teaching to say, it's kind of like, does this make sense? how do it and And because writing a book is very different from teaching because you're not in you're not in the room when somebody is reading it to answer people's questions. And so I made sure I kind of talked about these subjects. And when students ask questions, i I quickly wrote them down. So make sure i clari I'd covered in the book. Yeah. And and also to kind of think that there was one particular thing that um one student asked me about. And i was like, I can't believe I've not written about that yet. So kind of that went in. So the audience really is is primarily professional. It's particularly from for, it's an academic book in that way for students. But it's also really relevant, I think, for people who are really keen garden enthusiasts. um
00:29:41
Speaker
But it's, you know, but when I say professionals, it's for people. it's for people who are working in gardening in horticulture and botanic gardens as much it is for somebody who wants to be a designer um and a lot of the work i do teaching now at kew for the commonwealth war graves commissionings is all about giving gardeners and horticulturists the the the design skills or the design language to be able to sell their work because You there are people who say, oh, we don't need designers. But I find that designers are very good at getting the money to the table. It's the it's the gardeners who are going to implement our designs and also look after them and make us look good. And we kind of need to but all be working together in that sense.
00:30:31
Speaker
So this book is for kind of all those people, really. And I've been really encouraged by messages I've had from all over the world. um from people i've never met before saying how much it's kind of changed how they look at things or given given a structure to what they were doing. I completely agree. like When I picked it up, I picked it up in a bookshop probably a month and a half ago and I started reading it you know A lot of the kind of intellectual things, that yeah as you say, you're in your brain.
00:31:01
Speaker
but you may not have actually kind of really fleshed out. You've got in here and there's so many points in here that I go, of course, yes. What I love about it too is it's a beautiful book. So it's not just a boring textbook. I studied journalism. Those textbooks were hell.
00:31:16
Speaker
um And ah this is beautiful to look at as it should be, but there's so many, such dense information and you've provided such beautiful illustrations and infographs. And of course, just like beautiful images of gardens and whatnot. What was the process of putting together those images and those and and those infographs?
00:31:37
Speaker
The publishers have got a reputation for really high quality imagery in their books. um That's Rizzoli, New York. Rizzoli, yeah. And they are kind of known for books on it interiors and art and and things like that. and And they've only very recently really expanded into what I would say was the green world. So I kind of wrote that i wrote the book, so kind of the you know the copy of it, and I would come across images and things, but the the imagery was a whole set It needed illustration as well.
00:32:12
Speaker
um And so this hand illustration, which was completed for me by and Duncan Cargill, who was originally one of of my students. and He comes from the advertising world and great on graphics. And so I had some very clear ideas about what I wanted to show. But we also had conversations about how the best work.
00:32:32
Speaker
way to show these things and so there's ah there's all those hand illustrations and I didn't really think at the time but you know I think I think hand illustration is really really important as a skill for planting designers the ability to create 2D drawings in elevation and then maybe in perspectives but also to kind of do quick sketching to think to work through ideas and explore your design is really really important it's much more important than being able to use CAD CAD computer-aided design. It's software used by designers of all types, you know, engineers, go architects, garden designers, probably furniture designers, anyone that's doing design will use CAD at some point to formalize their designs. It's not really until the end that you get a bit of CAD. And I know there's quite a lot of people who are quite relieved because there's a lot of people who just want to concentrate on plants and planting and gardening. And they don't want to go through thousands of dollars to to to learn CAD. And you don't need to for planting to design. And so nice so that those illustrations really important. But but interestingly, unlike and most publishers, what Rizzoli do is um they they set all the images first and then they drop the copy in.
00:33:48
Speaker
around it which is a little bit of a challenge for me to make sure the kind of the photo the photos are are matching up with the the copy um but it was relatively painless you i guess it almost gives you a bit of a guideline as well Yeah, I mean, they said to me, or you know, don't worry about the captions, just do get the photo the images together. and And it took me about, it probably took me a full month's working to do that. But actually, I i had to write, and for me, I had to write the captions as I went along, because if I went back to them later, I'd think, well why did I choose that?
00:34:22
Speaker
The picture of a bioswale in Singapore. You know, what was that about? so So, you know, so so i i those are all written at the same time. um So, and as I said earlier, you know, I love a spreadsheet. um and And so, you know, this book was meticulously planned out on spreadsheets, as were all the imagery and things like that. So I think my editor, Stacey, was quite happy about that.
00:34:49
Speaker
What is the one kind of big core idea from this book that you want to distill to the reader? Blimey, one big core idea. i actually think it probably is about...
00:35:03
Speaker
the importance of um storytelling in planting and that that idea of either ah very functional narrative which might be about
Organizing Planting Styles in the Book
00:35:17
Speaker
colour palettes. I mean, um yeah someone like James Hitzner or Nigel Dunnett in Sheffield, they're very much they much concentrate on a kind of people first way of designing with plants. And often that comes from colour, which is a very sort of functional narrative. Or you might talk about conceptual narratives, so it might be to do with story you heritage and story. And that's something I see really well done in Australia, funnily enough.
00:35:43
Speaker
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. A free perennial garden design that you can download right now.
00:35:54
Speaker
It's full of colour and year-round interest, and the best part is that it's pollinator and wildlife attracting. It's been designed with the yeah UK climate in mind, but I know I've got listeners across the globe. So if you're in the southern states of Australia or the northern part of the US, this is the design for you.
00:36:14
Speaker
You can download your free perennial garden design as well as my free Australian native garden design at the link in the description. I think the other thing is, and part of the thing that people kept saying to me, students kept saying to me is, I've got all these different planting books by different people talking about what they do, but I don't know how it all fits together.
00:36:38
Speaker
So think overall, the important thing I've done is kind of contextualised all these different things that are happening in the world of planting at the moment, particularly around structure, you know, whether things are ornamental or naturalistic or they're wild. And and how do i if I want to create something that's naturalistic, what are my options? How can I approach it? And so I've concentrated on there it really in on kind of the really well-known ah modern approaches, kind of 21st century approaches to them, because they're still being experimented with, and particularly wilding and rewilding is kind of a big experiment for people at the moment. yeah um um And I will say to people, if they want to do that, you kind of need to define what you mean by that. um
00:37:29
Speaker
But I kind of contextualize all those different different um ways of planting because most of us can't be a Nigel Dunnett or James Hitchwell. you know we have him We can't concentrate on one area. For most of us, we kind of need to have a big toolbox if we're working things. yeah well just and And also, it's that thing like you can you can only dismiss one way of doing things if you understand what that way is. You can't just dismiss it with hand because aesthetically it doesn't work for you.
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, it works for other people. um And so i think I think that's quite important. I've been i've been asked to talk to um a group in Sheffield called Talking Plants, this amazing group that's been put together by some designers. um And I kind of decided because Sheffield is kind of the focus of naturalistic planting in a way in this country and things I kind of thought I'm going to actually go up there and make a case for ornamental planting so that we don't forget that there are other tools available
00:38:34
Speaker
That's actually a really interesting point, I suppose. Garden design and i get really really design generally, often just follows trends um and often can you know dump out a lot of stuff behind it that they don't want anymore, i don't see value in any anymore. One thing I think that the UK is really good at is looking back and and holding on to heritage and um making sure that this like that our story through garden is maintained. at But at the moment, the Gardens Trust is under threat of being taken off sort of mandatory planning applications for heritage sites, which is really sad. They're kind of take all almost downsizing the role of landscapes with heritage sites. And you're right. I mean, we have so much heritage in the yeah UK and their gardens are often a really important part of that. um So there's kind of threats.
00:39:26
Speaker
threat Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that would be such a big shame, really,
Designers' Role in Climate Challenges
00:39:31
Speaker
wouldn't it? You know, in that vein, what do you see the role is for garden designers and planting designers, you know, moving into the uncertain future of, you know, the climate crisis and biodiversity loss and all of those fun topics?
00:39:49
Speaker
it It's a growing role. i think the importance is that we, i I always teach students now is that you need to understand ecology and how we sit within nature because, you know, it's absolutely valid that, you know, as humans, we're not separate from nature. We are part of nature. And you need to be able to talk about gardens in that way. that There's been some recent research, although this has been stuff that's been out for many years. I remember hearing this 20 years ago, but the total area of ah gardens in the UK is equivalent to about four and a half percent of the land mass.
00:40:30
Speaker
that's bigger than that's that's bigger than our national parks and if you think about how the concentration of those can be in urban and suburban areas this is kind of massive wildlife park you have yeah places you know they're they're linked up my you know where my garden is um 50 square meters it has um i'm looking out at it now It has a lot of non-natives, um being in the yeah UK anyway, is but I kind of like unusual plants. But it's got, you know, there's there's birds of being sitting in the garden and going around. On one the other side of my garden,
00:41:09
Speaker
um is a garden with absolutely no plants in, it's got artificial turf, it's got brickwork, that's it. no The other side, my next door neighbor has just planted up like with my help and and I kind of got her lots of plants and then I suddenly found she'd set them all out and planted them and it was because she was using chap GBT. she but No, but it's fine because she really got into it. she knew that One side was shady and one side was sunny and she got rid of into it. and It's the first time in three years she's been there that I've seen her kind of engage in nature in that way and that's brilliant. and then you know but and Over the back of me, there's two really wild gardens. There's elderly people who don't do a lot of gardening but
00:41:50
Speaker
you know That's where the foxes have family every year and things like that. and It's brilliant. it's you know it's kind of like so so Then I you know look out into the street and there's trees being planted.
00:42:01
Speaker
and We have to pay for them now. The local authority doesn't have the budgets for that. but we put them in, there's somebody in the street who's responsible for a campaign in our local borough where those spaces underneath trees, which are usually kind of barren soil and things, are now being planted up by people.
00:42:21
Speaker
And people taking responsibility for the space outside. her I mean, in Melbourne, you have, you know, you have trees with email addresses so that if there's anything wrong with that tree, you can write to them and the local authority picks it up.
00:42:36
Speaker
How brilliant is that? You know, so I think, but but I think we can, as designers, we can talk about all these things. We can we can engage people in that way. um and And yes, things like wild natural gardens are beautiful. Some people don't think they're gardens. I do. um They're just a different aesthetic. And can...
00:43:00
Speaker
we can We, you know, we don't have to have that over 100 percent of our garden. We can do things like allow for the space behind the shed to just go wild. We don't have to be tidy all the time. um We can explain to our customers, you know, mike yeah that the the holy grail of of garden design from clients is they they want.
00:43:23
Speaker
ah no or low maintenance, they want some screening you know from from people and and they want all year round colour and interest. ah That last one is kind of the hardest one. But of course I always say with the maintenance thing that if you don't want the maintenance, we could you can still have these amazing borders and they're going to peak at various times through the year. you know we can you could In a small garden, and you might just have a big summer peak and everything and you can just let them die down naturally.
00:43:53
Speaker
do a bit of a clear up in the spring. um We're providing shelter and food, hopefully water, certainly places to bring out young for wildlife. That's kind of all what it needs. and And that's what we do. and It's low maintenance. And by doing so, you you were helping you're helping you know pollinators over winter. You're also protecting the soil over the cooler months. Exactly. Kind of. It makes a lot more sense, really. But of course, not everyone wants that, and nor nor should they. But yeah I think it's an interesting point that you said it was 4.5% of the UK is Yeah.
00:44:29
Speaker
garden yes yeah i mean i they where whereas we're We're a very small island with a lot of people on, you know, that you know um and that's that that's what we always have to remember.
00:44:42
Speaker
But yeah, um I actually don't think we're a nation of gardeners. they the You know, the people say, oh, you know, the British are a nation of gardeners. We're a nation of bird watchers because there's more members of the Royal Society of profession of Protection of Birds than there are from the Royal Society of Horticulture. yeah i think but but you can But also with clients who are perhaps not so engaged with a garden. and you know Let's face it, people are coming, if they come to me for a garden, and they don't know what to do. they're not They kind of just want a nice space out there. um they might not they might but yeah They might not be interested in sustainability. They might not be interested in wildlife. They just want a nice garden to go out and entertain things.
00:45:25
Speaker
So I do what I call sustainability by stealth. I just don't really talk about it. I do all these things which are right, um you know, maximizing the planting and the permanent vegetative biomass and things like this and and'm making sure they have composting so it's a no waste garden.
Sustainability in Garden Design
00:45:42
Speaker
It's kind of, you know, I know that. But I don't talk about it in terms of sustainability.
00:45:46
Speaker
I talk about it in terms of, well, this is going to be much cheaper for you. This is going to be much lower maintenance for you. Yeah. um And do it that way. um So that kind of you're doing the sustainability um that I think is really, really important for the future.
00:46:02
Speaker
um But you're kind of doing it under the rate to radar, really. Yeah, that's right. And I think that like, you know, with that 4.5% of hanging on to it, you know, of the mass being gardens, um I think we as gay gardeners, but as designers and planting designers have a responsibility to make sure that that space is cared for in a way and encouraged to be better than it has been in the past, you know?
Biodiversity and Climate Adaptation
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I think from that point of view, we need really need to be concentrated the biodiversity. ands And it's you can do it in really simple ways. Local authorities have lists of the trees that they've planted in your street. As a designer, choose plants which are more diverse, different. I have colleagues who are really c pro using in native plants, and I agree native plants can be important. But...
00:46:57
Speaker
In the yeah UK, there are native plants that are struggling with climate change. And so we need to be thinking about what else we can be growing um that's still going to have kind of the benefits to people and wildlife, you know, and biodiversity within a changing climate. What is next for you? you more writing? What projects? Obviously, you continue teaching. i was worried that everyone says, well, are you going to write next? And i' I'm i' actually at the moment more of a thing is like one is enough.
00:47:29
Speaker
That's it. I mean, you have written the ultimate book here. That's good then. i Hopefully though'll it'll keep in print. It'll help me in my old age. and they um I've got this big project with Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Upcoming Public and Therapeutic Projects
00:47:45
Speaker
I'm getting asked to do some interesting stuff in um public spaces. Recently we opened quiet garden in Holland Park and I'm very interested in social therapeutic horticulture and we worked with hospices and people like blind veterans and you know things like that so there'll be more there'll be more of that um a bit more teaching um a bit more traveling i'm trying to do less now um and kind of because i can see retirement but kind of when we're in horticulture kind of retirement is usually just about doing a bit less of what you've already been doing because you love it that's right thank you so so so much for your time andrew i really appreciate it it's been pleasure thank you're very welcome
00:48:29
Speaker
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00:48:40
Speaker
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