my garden, my life

In which I chat with Fiona Duncan, who travels the length and breadth of the UK, visiting and writing about hotels and B & Bs for her regular column in the Telegraph.  

Although she's always enjoyed visiting gardens, and felt inspired by them, the garden attached to the thatched cottage where her husband grew up, and in which she now lives after a recent move from London, was a source of dismay and disapppointment.  

As is the case for many garden owners it felt intimidating and she just didn’t know how to start.   Enter a wonderful intuitive gardener called Ruth Farley who agreed to work on her garden if Fiona did so too.  

This has turned into a wonderful collaboration and Fiona credits Ruth with supporting her to turn her relationship to the garden around and enhance her day to day wellbeing.  

Towards the end of our conversation Fiona Kindly shares some of her favourite places to stay with gorgeous gardens attached, in varying price brackets, and I can’t wait to visit the ones I haven’t already visited. 

A lovely conversation which I hope you really enjoy…

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

Growthfully Podcast: Fiona Duncan

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Jane Perrone, is the host of the popular ‘On the Ledge’ podcast about houseplants. She is also a journalist, a member of the RHS Advisory Board for House Plants and Cut Flowers and grower of weird, mainly perennial veg.

Our conversation ranged from compost, the fleeting nature of life, through houseplants and perennial veg to asking her family to compost her at the end. Well worth a listen!

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

https://www.growthfully.co.uk/podcast/2021/11/2/jane-perrone-queen-of-houseplants

You can follow Sarah Layton on Instagram @growthfully and sign up to her newsletter on her website.

Today my guest is Emily Wheeler who is passionate about harnessing the power of Biophilia, the innate human instinct to connect with nature and natural processes, for enhancing wellbeing in our homes and workplaces by designing beautiful comfortable spaces. 

She is a Social Worker and Interiors Stylist and Founder of Furnishing Futures, a social enterprise through which she creates homes for women and children in social housing that is otherwise provided completely empty of homely comfort.

We began by discussing the philsophy of Biophilia, what it is, how to use it and it can support us, before moving on to exploring how Emily became inspired to do the work she does, how Furnishing Futures came about and what she needs next to help her move forwards.

It is a heartwarming and inspiring conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

https://www.growthfully.co.uk/podcast/2021/10/19/emily-wheeler-and-biophilia

To donate to Furnishing Futures please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/furnishing-futures

Simon Lycett is known for his sensational floral designs having spent his career designing floral installations ranging from the flowers for the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, to displays at royal weddings and other high-profile events.  

Simon joined me soon after the worst of Lockdown was over, for what became a very moving conversation, from Lycett Towers, his headquarters underneath the arches in South London.

We discussed the challenges of the past eighteen months as the events industry, how Simon’s business had disintegrated during that time, and how he found solace and sanctuary in his garden, beginning what he called his ‘Lycett Llves’ of which he said:

“meant that I had to go brush my hair, wax my moustache, put on some proper clothes, go out into the garden and do what I do, do a bit of presenting and It gave me a discipline and a purpose.

A sense of having created something each day, and it was absolutely live saving for me'.

We also discussed Full Bloom, the US hit series he hosted and judged that is currently airing on More 4, how it came about via a DM on Instagram, and the challenge of filming it whilst also managing the fall out of Lockdown for his business from LA.

One of Simon’s pet topics is the importance of community gardening and the life changing role nature can play in helping shape young people of all backgrounds, supporting them to build a future and a career and we spoke about this too. 

All in all a very rich conversation which I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

https://www.growthfully.co.uk/podcast/2021/10/05/simon-lycett-florist-extraordinaire

I chatted with Sue earlier in the year just after the opening of the new RHS Bridgewater garden in Salford which she was, understandably, very excited about - especially the impact it is having on the local community.

Our conversation covered so much - everything from Sue’s relationship with her own garden and the ways it has supported her at the most difficult times in her life, to her role at the RHS and how she has developed her ability to run such a large organisation.

We explored her passion for increasing diversity and inclusion in gardening, and at the RHS itself, and much much more - we also discuss fake turf and, our northern or hybrid accents and what seems to be a bit of a hobby horse, her wish to see more outside growing space in new developments.

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

https://www.growthfully.co.uk/podcast/2021/09/22/sue-biggs-obe-director-general-of-the-rhs

In which I chat with Laetitia Maklouf, writer, journalist, mother and gardener who writes about managing her garden in 5 minute chunks whilst being a Mum. I find her writing moving, funny and very inspiring, full of useful gardening tips and ideas and I love the way she tells it as it is.

Our conversation, which took place, in early September, was wide-ranging across the subjects of Lockdown parenting, finding time for yourself (she was getting up at 5.30am to get things done before the family woke up - I wonder if she still is, ) gardening in 5 minutes a day. Oh, and mental health.

For full show notes with links to everything mentioned please visit:

https://www.growthfully.co.uk/podcast/2020/11/18/laetitia-maklouf-gardener-author-mother

A fascinating, rich and reflective conversation with Grace Alexander, a seed merchant and Consultant Clinical Psychologist working in Child Protection who lives, and grows, in Somerset. Grace and I met through Instagram and its been a joy getting to know her a little through our conversations.

In this one we talk about effort-ing, perfectionism and high achievement (Grace wrote two psychology books during Lockdown 1) and about the difficulty of being consistently authentic on Instagram given the nature of her work and how she is finding her way to doing just that through Gather, her new Membership among other things.

I really hope you enjoyed what I experienced as a deep and nourishing conversation.

I first encountered Marchelle through Instagram (her handle is @afroliage) where I was struck by her poetic and expressive use of the garden/life metaphor and her Bio which read ‘Gardening as a subversive act. These are the things my garden told me.’

We connected over a post in which she said she was ‘her ancestor’s wildest dream’ which particularly touched something in me as I imagine I am too, as the descendent of 2 young jewish men who made their way to England from Eastern Europe in the mid 19th Century looking for a new, safer life.

I was interested to discover that, as well as being a gardener, she is both a psychotherapist and psychiatrist and,, currently, stay-at-home Mum who is enjoying getting to know her new garden in Somerset.

We had a thought provoking and moving conversation in which we gently explored what it means to her as a black woman of mixed heritage to be gardening in Somerset in the UK, and how she comes to terms with her heritage - that she has both ancestors who were slaves and ancestors who were, mostly likely, slave owners - and how she makes sense of this.

Our conversation flowed through her delightful sounding garden on a hill with a stream all the way to ancestry and slavery with many interesting stops along the way.

In this episode, recorded during Lockdown, Sue reads a chapter from her book, we discuss the concept of Garden Time, the extraordinary Arnap Rehabilitation Garden in Sweden and the amazing Microglial Cells, known as gardeners of the mind for the way in which they are able to prune and tidy debris in the mind whilst we sleep.

In this epiosde, recorded in May, during Lockdown, i have a lovely conversation with Bex that journeyed through gardening, postatal depression and mothering, the importance of creating structure in our gardens, and how to use pressed flowers in a way that your granny wouldn’t recognise! If was a delight and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.