The other week I sat on a stage with Proper Garden Designer Pollyanna Wilkinson. We were discussing her new book, How to Design a Garden (a rare example of a garden book that debuts in the Sunday Times bestsellers list), and I enjoyed drilling into the mysterious Venn diagram of taste, horticulture and practicality that manifests as garden design.
I’m not a garden designer, and I’ve never professed to be one. I’ve delved into a number of garden-design books and usually grown overwhelmed by the time a site survey is mentioned. I struggle to measure so much as a cake tin, let alone a garden. I have always gardened and cooked imprecisely: with hunch and sense, trial and error, and observation. Bulbs go in late, quantities are played around with, sunlight is measured by eye and the near-daily study of how it moves with the changing seasons. It works for me, but I wouldn’t inflict it on anyone else’s space.
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