A few years ago, when I was asked to write a book about creative gardeners, it seemed too good to be true. The gardening world is filled with talented, artistic people, and being the editor of Gardens Illustrated means I have been lucky enough to meet a great number of them. But how on earth could I choose who to interview?
This is an extract from The Creative Gardener, which is available for pre-order now.
They must, I decided, be passionate gardeners – not exactly revolutionary for a garden book, I grant you, but what I mean is that they should actually do the gardening themselves, and not simply own a beautiful garden. I wanted to feature artists and writers, but also to include young working gardeners who are doing innovative things. And so I sought out my 29 ‘hortists’: an awkwardly coined term that I hope encompasses all these different types of horticultural artist and artist-gardener. Many of them arrived at gardening via circuitous routes, through art, food, writing, music, science, social care or even by chance.
These gardeners’ growing spaces range from large country gardens, tended daily, to scrappy weekend allotments, tiny city courtyards and houseplant havens, but what they all share is a sense of curiosity, and a willingness to be bold. None of them waited for the ideal conditions to grow – they improvised and worked with what was already there. In the garden, perfection is not possible or even particularly desirable. Because, as we all learn, gardens are never ‘done’. They are constantly changing, through every day and season, and as our own lives change.
In their own words: what the creative gardeners think about gardening
Nigel Slater, cook and writer
“If I’ve written something a bit rubbish, stepping away from my desk and into the garden helps my brain clear. I’ll spend 20 minutes out there and suddenly I see things differently and everything I’m doing falls into place. The confusion has gone, and I can start again or untangle that sentence. Simply going out into the garden recharges me – it’s as if I’ve plugged into the mains.”
Read Nigel Slater's column for Gardens Illustrated
Rosanna Morris, printmaker
“I’m my own boss, and it means that if I want I can just go to the allotment and draw all day. It’s not a lifestyle that you choose if you want to be wealthy, but we are rich in choice and time.”
Alice Vincent, writer
“Gardening is an outlet for my creativity. I get into this strange flow state, where even though I am a planner, I don’t need a plan. I just like to be out there and see where each decision takes me. I’ve had to learn how to trust myself, and a lot of that is by shutting off the noise of what other people are doing in their gardens or what I should be doing. That’s hard, because the horticultural establishment is quite a lumbering beast. It’s difficult to go against.”
Listen to Alice on the Talking Gardens podcast
Jenny ‘Niff ’ Barnes, rose sculptor
“One of the only things in the whole world that stops me overthinking is rose pruning, because I’m busy thinking about not getting stabbed or falling off my ladder. I get completely in the zone. I don’t listen to music; I’m just by myself, sometimes with the birds, sometimes in the rain, stripping leaves off. I find that really therapeutic. It’s sort of addictive. I don’t want to stop. I will prune until it’s dark.”
Learn to train rose sculptures in Jenny's masterclass
Matthew Rice, artist
“I always draw from real life, not photographs. I want to capture the feeling of the plant, the spirit of it. Flowers are joyous, alive things. Designers spend their lives looking at a screen, and it’s easy not to be open to other influences. You have to get up from your desk and go and see the thing in three dimensions. I’m always seeing things and thinking, oh, I’ll put that into the compost heap that is my mind, and hope that it will turn up at some point.”
Charlotte Molesworth, topiary expert
“When we made the garden, I got so keen on making more and more topiary. Most people don’t see what’s inside a shrub when it’s just a blob. You have to get to know your specimen – your victim. The topiary birds have to have a much more shrubby, bushy character to begin with. You have to be bold and cut out some quite serious bits of wood. And don’t worry about messing up. It’s so forgiving – it grows back.”
Read Charlotte's tips for gardening on a budget
Jimi Blake, gardener
“I am always thinking about the design, the combinations, the flow, the textures, everything. And when I’m in that creative space, I feel a deep alignment with who I am. It’s grounding. If I was just to maintain the garden as it is, that would absolutely bore me to tears. If you keep the status quo, then you’re not dealing with anything or being creative. It’s the same in life. If we don’t deal with stuff, we don’t evolve. I need to keep that excitement about plants going.”
Listen to Jimi on the Talking Gardens podcast
Tom Rapley, horticulturist and Steph Wilson, photographer
“We wanted to create a sanctuary, a place of calm in all of the chaos with an atmosphere of lightness and joy, where you feel transported. It has become a kind of archive of experiences. Fusing all these things together rather unconventionally might jar for some people, but it’s an exciting playground for us.”
Bex Partridge, dried flower artist
“It brings me so much joy to stand in this space. I don’t grow in straight lines. I shove it all in and invariably it ends up looking beautiful. There’s no space left and no cohesive look, but somehow it sort of works. A lot of it comes down to play and experimentation. I try very hard to stay away from the traditional, because I want to change people’s perception of dried flowers as dusty old things your granny had in her house.”
Discover Bex's beautiful dried flower creations
Joshua Sparkes, natural farmer
“The American attitude is one of ‘Let’s try it’. Everything is exciting, and it’s all about trial and error. So it was difficult when I came back to the UK and worked in other gardens, and it was all ‘No, no, no: we’ve never done that before’. It was crushing. When I asked why we were doing something, I was always met with ‘That’s the way it’s always been done’, which I think is the most damaging phrase we have in our society.”
Watch Joshua's masterclass on growing with nature
Sarah Price, garden designer
“My garden is my sketchbook, and it feeds me creatively. Just seeing the different colours or the way the petals fold can trigger ideas. To be constantly observing is a big inspiration. I walk around the garden every day and get immense peace and creative spark back from it.”
This is an extract from The Creative Gardener, which is available for pre-order now.
The Creative Gardener: Inspiring people, Remarkable Gardens is out on 1 October 2026 in the UK and 29 September in the USA.
