Talking Gardens

If you could create your dream garden from pieces of all of your favourite places, and if you could grow any plants in the world, what would you choose? Who would you have as your imaginary head gardener, or garden designer?  In Talking Gardens, the new podcast from the team behind Gardens Illustrated, host Stephanie Mahon asks the great and the good of the gardening world to construct their ultimate fantasy growing space. Series one begins on Tuesday 21st March 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, head gardener Fergus Garrett talks about his fantasy garden, from the borders of Great Dixter, where he has worked since 1992, and the spirit of its creator Christopher Lloyd, to the wild landscapes of Turkey. Fergus picks interesting people and places from all over the world to be a part of his dream space, and talks about who might take on running Dixter after him. Find out why he couldn’t live without features such as a hunk of rock, and why he would have to have a magic portal, a meadow and a sneaky cocktail - but would bar the garden gate to snobbery and a no-can-do attitude. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and Gardens Illustrated columnist Alice Vincent, author of new book and podcast Why Women Grow, talks to Stephanie about her dream garden, from her fantasy writing studio inspired by Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage to a mossy path, naturalistic planting and a glasshouse for entertaining friends such as Diana Ross (the garden writer, not the disco diva). As well as this, she explains how she once had dinner with Piet Oudolf without knowing who he was, and why she won’t abide anything with a face in the garden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Stephanie speaks to world-renowned landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith, who has created numerous famous gardens and landscape projects, including RHS Garden Bridgewater near Manchester. They talk about his new Plant Library at the Serge Hill Project, his work abroad in India and Morocco and his dream of eliminating plastic from gardens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, ethnobotanist and self-confessed plant geek James Wong talks us through the immersive, green, tropical garden of his dreams, featuring a James Bond-esque glasshouse/living room with a retractable roof. He discusses watching Gardeners’ World as a plant-obsessed child in the tropics, back when his dream was a temperate garden. Find out why James would now prefer to fill his garden with foliage over flowers, how summer-blockbuster movies inspire his terrarium designs, and how he thinks poison dart frogs would make the perfect pets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices