Waking up
How it all began

Why am I writing a book?

The route of my life has always unfolded as I walked. I wasn’t born with a clear path before me. I had my anagnorisis, my critical discovery about myself, at the age of 36 when I was comfortably ensconced in a career I loved. I use the term deliberately, because if you choose to follow an uncharted path, then the outcome is far from certain.

I was on holiday in northern Spain, in the Picos de Europa. The Picos Mountains are very inaccessible and remote, or at least they were, and are best navigated on foot. Each day I set off up a mountain track alone. Sitting on a rocky outcrop to rest one day I watched two old men on the other side of the steep narrow valley making hay. They scythed the small, near vertical meadow in easy strokes from one side to the other, rolling the resulting neat cylinder of hay downhill before them. I was mesmerized by the process. At the bottom of the meadow a silent donkey stood tethered to a tiny high-sided cart made of ash wands bound together with leather straps. The men finally hoisted their sausage rolls into the cart and off they went. The scythe marks left on the scalped meadow were beautiful, like fish scales in a child’s drawing. I watched the empty meadow a while more and set off. Along the path I encountered beautiful plants scattered here and there. There were exquisite hellebores with tiny flowers, Helleborus viridis subsp. occidentalis to be precise. They had a character all of their own up here in the rocks. A little further on were pinging electric blue eryngiums. I made a note in my pocket book and hunted around for seed. They were so attractive and far surpassed any wild flowers I’d seen in England.

It is very freeing to remove erroneous things and feel the essential character of a place sing out. I strive for the clarity it brings.

I was mulling about the hay meadow almost constantly during my walks and came across one that was uncut. It was absolutely crammed with different species and not very many of them were grass. Finding some suitable sticks, I marked out a square meter or so and started to count what I found in it. It amazed me. There were over a hundred species. I’ve always been captivated by plants and have a fascination for wild plants and their uses, so this was deeply absorbing and many hours flew by. As I walked on I thought about domestic herbivores – if they lived on a diet of this hay, they would be ingesting a banquet of herbs every day. Their milk would be incredible, filled with flavour and health. The term ‘herbivore’ took on a refreshed meaning. In appalling Spanish I’d spoken to an old woman in the local market who explained that until very recently the Picos had been almost entirely cut off from the rest of Spain as it is accessed through a difficult gorge. She said that they hardly used money, had no electricity and lived by bartering food and materials. They had everything they needed.

For days I walked and walked, lost in thought. As I rounded a corner I snapped awake. In front of me, below a hazel, was a clump of Digitalis parviflora , the little brown-flowered foxglove. I was stunned and excited. Unbelievably excited! I’d never seen it in the wild before, only in books.

That night I had a vivid dream. I was in a crowded football stadium filled with screaming fans. Beside me a small child I didn’t know was trying to get my attention. He was insistent and inaudible. Eventually I bellowed out into the stadium: ‘Will you all please be quiet – the child wants to say something.’ Silence. I bent down and he whispered: ‘Please may I be a gardener?’ It might sound daft but that was that.

Returning home I went back to my job but something was stirring that I couldn’t still. Always obsessed with plants I was now on fire with them. The eryngium I’d found, naturally convinced I was the only person to have ever seen it, turned out to be on sale through the Royal Horticultural Society as Eryngium bourgatii ‘Picos Blue’!

Over the next couple of months a great rumble of events took place, supported and provoked by good friends. Specifically, I was spending a lot of time with John Harris OBE and his wife Dr Eileen Harris, architectural scholars, historians and landscape historians, and Eileen a great gardener. With John and Eileen constantly telling me I should be gardening, I felt it rude to gainsay them! Protesting that I couldn’t give up my ‘sensible’ job as a psychologist, I found I couldn’t make an argument for keeping it. Having resigned my post, I began designing gardens two days later. It was a leap of faith, literally, and not just for me but also for my early clients who now laugh with me about my shy earnestness.

This is my London garden the first time I consciously designed it in around 1997. I always loved the infinity view to the woods and hilltops beyond – not a building to be seen. A very fine wispy mix of planting makes it feel diffuse, delicate and soft. I wanted the garden to blend into the natural surroundings and make it feel remote from the centre of a heaving metropolis that is only 40m (44 yards) away. This little garden defined something for me and I’ve been developing it ever since.

I was very conscious of my deficiencies. I did know a prodigious amount of Latin names of plants, but I’d never really tested that knowledge in planting anything other than my own garden. I also had an enthusiasm for architecture and practical building. And from my prior work I could sniff people out quite well, add up with the aid of a calculator and file things neatly. What more could I possibly need? How hard could it be? It was up to me to learn, research my subject, think before I act and not let anyone down. I’d been brought up to ask questions and be honest about what I did and didn’t know. Armed with energy, enthusiasm and blind faith, I got going. I had become an apprentice.

We depend on ourselves for our happiness so following a creative urge is essential to that happiness.

So this book is about how I’ve developed my way of working over the last twenty years in my progression from apprentice to journeyman to master craftsman. I have always felt it necessary to ‘learn the trade’ properly. It takes a long time and I’ve learned at the elbow of countless masters, not in a schoolroom. I have been helped, encouraged and inspired by lots of people along the way. Whatever I’ve absorbed has been freely taught and this book and my working life are underpinned by the generosity of those erudite souls I’ve encountered.

It seems blindingly obvious now, and is certainly on everyone’s lips these days, but probably the most valuable insight from the Picos de Europa was that things that work together in natural harmony are beautiful. I choose plants with compatibility in mind, appropriate materials arise from their locale, and I consider the people who will live in the garden, the wildlife, the weather. I’d like to share some of what I think about when designing, in the hope that it kindles the fires of excitement in others.

I’ve climbed a big mountain to get to this point and hope there’s a view worth sharing.

An early morning in early spring in the foggy gorge where I live in France. I find great inspiration in how effortlessly plants cohabit in nature. The mosses are steadily eating the clay-tiled roof of the timeworn shed and the quince embracing it while, in turn, being woven through with eglantine roses. The layering of the grasses and mints in the ditch makes this a very painterly scene.