We meet international garden designer David Stevens, There are listeners' questions on apple trees and tips on keeping your seasonal houseplants such as cyclamen and poinsettia looking tip top!

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to Pots and Trowels the podcast with Sean Me and Jill. And today I'm going to be talking about a legend in the world of garden design. It's David Stevens International garden designer who's got a string of RHS Chelsea Gold medals under his belt.

Thank you. Then or later in the show, we got some listeners questions. We're going to be talking about a  nearly deceased Apple tree. Luckily, Martin might have the answer for that one. And also those important seasonal Christmas House plans. But first, let's go over and meet David Stevens.

David, Lovely to see you and thank you for joining us on the pots and Trowels podcast. We've known each other for for a long time. We've just been reminiscing before we started to record and we think it's probably about 30 years ago we met. But before we talk about that, how did you get to be where you are now? You know, you were a world renowned international. Our designer string of RHS gold medals under your belt and everybody knows you in the world of horticulture and garden design. But how did that all start for you going back where? Where was the very beginning?

Well, it's it's it's a long journey up the garden path. But when I was at school, nobody really talked about horticulture or design or whatever, but I always loved drawing. I drew as a kid and I I've I've got quite good at it over the years, but I left school and I went into the police force for three months. I couldn't stand much of that. I got a Commission in Marines. I didn't go in for that because that would have been bad as well and and eventually I joined a firm making gold leaf and stamping falls gold leaf, which is beaten. Hand and a friend at the company made a lot of squash, and so did I, and he became a landscape gardener and he said, well, why don't you do me a couple of drawings? I know you can draw. So I did that and I got paid for it so well, that beach working for a living, didn't it? So it seemed quite straightforward. So I joined him. Yeah, little garden centre. And I drove the. The company Van and went down to Wandsworth plant auctions and bought plants. I hadn't a clue what they were and we brought them back and sold them on the market and we had a lot of fun and then he went bust, which is always a good experience cause you learn a few things out of that. And I started my own little. Well, little landscaping company laying turf and laying crazy paving, which was the popular thing in those days, and turfing all that sort of thing. And I learned, you know, mowing lawns. I had a wonderful old stuff at Punch 10 Blade Mower, which was one of the cracking things in an Anglia van. So I cut my teeth on on landscaping. Spouse, but I've always wanted. To to be a designer, and so I went to Thames Poly

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The Pots & Trowels team:
Martin Fish
Jill Fish
Sean Riley

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