Whether you’re a professional horticulturist or a home gardener, understanding how to create a beautiful garden always involves a learning curve — and there are some things you only discover through trial and error, and hands-on experience. Even top gardeners picked up all their valuable knowledge along the way.
We asked a bevy of brilliant gardeners, presenters and writers what they wish someone had told them when they were starting out, including Monty Don’s protégé Jamie Butterworth, Sissinghurst head gardener Troy Scott Smith and TV presenter Frances Tophill.
You may also like:
- Gardening celebrities reveal their worst gardening failures
- November jobs for the garden: don't forget these key things to do right now
- The best gardening podcasts to listen to
Jamie Butterworth: ‘Leave January jobs till February’
Gardener, author and Monty Don’s right-hand-man Jamie Butterworth has learnt there’s no need to be out gardening in the coldest months. “Don't put pressure on yourself to be out in the most horrid of months — there is nothing you do in January that can't wait until February or March. In fact, it’s probably best to avoid the coldest, wettest months of the year.”
Instead, he says, plant in the autumn. “The ground is still warm and it’s the perfect time for plants to root. A tree or plant planted into freezing or saturated ground will take longer to get going, and although it may feel like you're getting ahead, a tree or plant planted in late February will grow just as quick, if not quicker.”
Jamie suggests the chillier months can be better spent planning ahead for warmer times, with the help of his new book, What Grows Together, available now.
SQUIRREL_13437064
Troy Scott Smith: ‘Enjoy the doing’
Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at the iconic Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, reveals: “The one piece of advice I wish I had when starting out in gardening is to enjoy the process, the act, the doing, rather than the end goal.
“In gardens and with gardening, time is the most important factor,” he explains. “You sow sweet peas once a year and in a lifetime of gardening you may only do that task 30 times. Trees take time to grow and will never reach maturity in your lifetime, beds and borders take time to plan, time to grow, assess and edit.
“For me, the joy of gardens is that they are never finished, they constantly evolve. They are not a painting on a wall, you cannot set them in aspic. Change is not only inevitable, but desirable.”
Welcoming change has led Troy to appreciate gardening in a different way. “I try to approach each and every task, no matter how humble, with integrity and genuine joy, and I seek to enjoy the process rather than seeing it as a means to an end.”
Frances Tophill: ‘See plants as your friends’
“I wish somebody had told me to think of plants like people,” Frances Tophill reveals. The gardener, presenter and author previously thought of plants as “magical beings”, while it was her job to “study and experiment with them, learn their names, memorise their habitats and preferences and eventually master”. Now she thinks of them as friends — “or foes in the case of some plants, like horsetail!"
She adds: “They are characters, they have their likes and dislikes and their habits, good and bad. Some like to flower at the wrong times, or flower again. Some like to flop and fall. Some will smile a big hello in the morning while others light up in the evening. Some can be climbed. Some can feed me.”
Frances’s advice? “Watch them and observe them. See how they change, ask them why they might have changed. Has the light changed or the moisture level? Like our friends, when we listen to our plants and read their body language, we can begin to understand them. To know what they need by feel rather than by study. Get to know your plants and make friends with them.”
You can now order Frances’s latest book, A Wildflower Year.
SQUIRREL_13437065
Arthur Parkinson: ‘Invest in your soil’
Gardener and writer Arthur Parkinson has come to realise that “soil love is much neglected”, despite being the foundation of a good garden. “New-build gardens especially have to often start from scratch with soil regeneration, it’s so vital.”
Arthur, whose latest book Hen Party is available to buy now, suggests offering to clean out a neighbour’s hen house for the precious manure, which can do wonders for undernourished soil. Also, “invest in your soil with lots of organic homemade mulch. Leaf mould is wondrous and free to create,” he adds.
Understanding biodiversity in the garden is another area Arthur has found to be important. “What naturally eats what to get a good status quo. Hedges, a little pond and a regularly cleaned bird bath are a magnet for so many helpful garden visitors, especially our precious songbirds.”
SQUIRREL_13437074
Tom Brown: ‘Plant knowledge is a superpower’
“I wish I had been given the advice that the ability to create a community of plants suited to a site will bring far more joy than artificially trying to create an environment where we grow the plants we want, despite the conditions,” reveals Tom Brown, head gardener at West Dean Gardens in Sussex.
“I used to believe creating a healthy and dynamic garden was down to the different horticultural levers I could pull to make plants grow well; incorporating organic matter into the soil, digging, irrigating, spraying or using fertiliser,” Tom explains. “If we picture an iconic, double herbaceous border full of mixed planting with a strip of green grass down the centre, we consider that to be a mark of success, but actually to create that effect requires a great deal of irrigation and pulling those horticultural levers.
“The reality is that these are all a form of life support that we put unhappy plants on to give the impression that they are thriving. The moment you take away those support systems, the plants deteriorate quickly.”
Now, Tom has learnt that plant knowledge is a superpower, and gets far more pleasure from seeing a community of plants that is resilient to both hot and dry summers, and wet winters without the need for interventions. “As an added bonus,” he says, “resilient plants are often incredibly beneficial to pollinating insects.”
Lucy Willcox: ‘Understand succession planting’
Garden designer and presenter Lucy Willcox has admitted she wishes she’d fully understood the importance of succession planting in the early days of her career. “Extending those seasons, having that fantastic wave and succession of plants throughout the year can make for a much more interesting space.”
Lucy wonders whether it’s something you can only truly master after years of practice: “The principles can be taught, but it's only when you apply it practically that you fully understand the complexities of it.”
Ursula Cholmeley: ‘Think outside the box’
Ursula Cholmeley, garden director at Easton Walled Gardens in Lincolnshire, has discovered it pays to think outside the box when it comes to getting the soil right. A decade ago, she took the “highly unusual step” of importing a truckload of clay soil at Easton Walled Gardens. “We’re probably the only garden in the country ever to consider this, but it has solved a whole host of problems,” she says.
“We garden on limestone brash, which means it is alkaline, very free draining and perfect for wildflowers. However, for cultivated flowers like our well-known sweet pea collection, the ground leaches nutrients very fast. The soil is now more moisture retentive and the clay particles hold nutrients much better.”
Kristyna Kay-Clough: ‘Be patient’
“The best advice I ever got was to be patient,” says Kristyna Kay-Clough, senior gardener at Great Comp Garden near Sevenoaks. “When I first started gardening, I was quick to buy and plant tulips in early autumn, but wait until November when the soil is much cooler and there’s less risk of exposure to tulip fire.”
Capable of spoiling an entire tulip display, this fungal disease shows as blemishes on leaves and flower tepals as well as distorted leaves, Kristyna explains. It spreads easily in cool damp soil, so a typical damp and drizzly October day is the perfect environment for the spread of tulip fire. “By exercising self-control and delaying planting until late November, you can ensure your money and efforts aren’t wasted.”
Rosy Hardy: ‘Take things slowly’
Rosy Hardy, who founded the Hampshire-based Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants back in 1988, has picked up plenty of advice for budding nursery owners along the way. For those starting out, she recommends taking things slowly. “Don’t let your enterprise get too large, as it seems a great idea to expand, but as you get older it becomes more difficult to look after everything.”
In such a difficult industry, it also pays to have a safety net, Rosy says. “Have a second occupation that, should you need, you can fall back on.”
