Why did you write your new book? I have been a garden designer for more than 40 years and a gardener for even longer, but I’ve always known that in the making of a garden, it’s what the gardener, rather than the designer, does that really counts.
Design gets too much coverage, so I wanted to shift the emphasis to the everyday watchfulness that keeps a garden growing. The fact that gardening is a very skilled and creative craft is not recognised enough.
What did you learn from writing it? How much there is still to learn. Horticulture is in the melting pot now and young gardeners are pioneering new ways of growing to cope with climate change.
I find it hard to give up growing more traditional plants, but writing the book made me think harder about the importance of sustainability. I also realised that plants can trigger memories and connect you with the past.
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What one idea would you like to share from the book? That being outside, working with plants as many days as you can is the best and healthiest way to spend time. Cheaper than a gym, easier than meditation, it is the most grounding thing – literally – that anyone can do.
The fact that gardening is a very skilled and creative craft is not recognised enough.
I’ll read anything by... For old ways of gardening and a bit of bombast, Christopher Lloyd. For adding an extra dimension to gardening, John Dixon Hunt and Sue Stuart-Smith. For gardening in the Mediterranean, where I sometimes work, Olivier Filippi. For groundbreaking schemes, Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough, and I thought Ben Dark’s book The Grove was brilliant.
DIARY OF A KEEN GARDENER
by Mary Keen
John Murray, £20
ISBN 978-1399829137
The books on my night stand right now John Clare, for dipping into, and A Year with Gilbert White by Jenny Uglow.
Not labelling the plants I grow. The silver pens that I use tend to stick or blot, or if I can’t find a label I think, “I’ll remember that.” But I don’t.
What first sparked your interest in gardening? My Slade-trained, artist mother-in-law, who showed me how gardening could be combined with looking after small children at a time when I felt isolated, living in the Midlands, while friends were sharing childcare in London. We moved house a lot and each time we moved I made a different garden. I had a Vita Sackville-West old roses phase, followed by a Margery Fish craze, then it was Beth Chatto, Christopher Lloyd and Russell Page. Working with Pip Morrison for more than 20 years was always inspiring.
Do you have plans for your own garden? I want to refine the planting to cope with weather extremes and to grow better forms of plants recently seen in other gardens. Designing for clients it’s hard to source particular varieties, but at home there is time to be fussy and to start small.
I need to prune like John Massey to allow for more planting below shrubs and trees. I must get rid of false oat grass in the little meadow. Yellow rattle can’t seem to extinguish it, so it has to be pulled before it seeds.
Can you share your biggest gardening mistake or failure? Not labelling the plants I grow. The silver pens that I use tend to stick or blot, or if I can’t find a label I think, “I’ll remember that.” But I don’t.
What’s your guilty gardening secret? I’ve failed twice with generous gifts of Pelargonium papilionaceum, a beautiful rare, tall geranium. I’m going to try once more and hope it will be third time lucky.
What’s your favourite garden or landscape to visit? Great Dixter is always exciting and I love visiting Franklin Farm, where Pip Morrison and Kim Wilkie live, because everything is so beautifully grown there and it is my favourite kind of flowery garden. I’m lucky to be living near Dan Pearson and I enjoy seeing his Mediterranean sand garden develop.
Anything exciting in the pipeline? BBC Gardeners’ World came here in late July. I was dreading it, but Joe Swift made it too much fun for me to be nervous, and the film crew were kind and patient. They arrived at eight in the morning and left at seven in the evening for ten minutes of screen time.
