I am often asked how I ended up in rural South Lincolnshire surrounded by 1000s of plants. Admittedly, horticulture wasn’t my first career - and not something I did in a professional capacity until my early 40’s - but I have always had a passion for plants.
This passion was ignited by my late father, as I used to spend hours following him around the garden, and it was certainly there that we bonded. I have always been at my happiest nurturing plants and watching them grow, so it was no surprise to my closest friends when I started my own business in horticulture.
Before starting the business there were some very influential people who helped to guide and encourage me to become the professional grower that I am now. Again, this won’t come as a shock to anyone that these influencers were all female, as I grew up surrounded by women. In fact, all apart from two of my cousins and siblings (17 in total) were female, which is probably why I have always picked up things more quickly when taught by women. Once I had started the business, again it was from women that I learnt the most. In this blog I have endeavoured to shortlist these female horticultural heroes, but I could only get the list down to seven, so here they all are…
Vita Sackville-West – an amazing poet, writer and garden designer, it was her books I initially fell in love with; ‘In your garden’ was probably the first book I read that had a horticultural theme to it and from that moment I was hooked. She created the incredible gardens at Sissinghurst, one of the first I visited when I moved from Edinburgh down to the south of England in my 20’s. She was quite a character and Virginia Woolf’s lover to boot, which caused quite the stir at the time. One of her many famous quotes is “a flowerless room is a soulless room” and I have always believed this to be so true. You will certainly not find a room here at Eagle Lodge without a flower or leaf in one form or another.
Juliette Sargeant – when studying garden design at college before I started the business, I was so lucky to have Juliette as my tutor. Inspirational is simply an understatement. We had a meeting of minds and many of the practices that we now follow are attributable to Juliette. The most important one was to ask clients how they want their garden to feel rather than how they want it to look, which is something that I felt always set me apart from other designers when I pitched for jobs. This was all the way back in 2009, but I am still in contact with Juliette to this day and I was super honoured when she recently purchased plants from us for one of her garden designs. Juliette has many arches to her crown but the latest was her wonderful display at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show for the celebration of 25 years of the Lion King musical.
Kate Gould – often referred to as “Concrete Kate”, she is another phenomenal garden designer. After we moved the business from London to Lincolnshire, Kate became our mentor; this was an initiative provided by the RHS in an effort to get growers that displayed in the floral marquees to come up with bolder and more imaginative displays, as sadly many of the exhibits that you see each year have the same format and look, with just the odd plant changed around. Kate gave us the confidence to step outside the box and be creative. If one could ever really look inside a brain, Kate’s would be a kaleidoscope of ideas, colours and the experience would probably be a bit like falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. I adore the different style of plants that Kate combines as well as the many creative ways she lights up her designs.
Jekka McVicar – prior to starting the business I always made a beeline for Jekka’s display at the Chelsea Flower Show. I have always had a passion for herbs so this again for me was a great meeting of minds; Jekka’s knowledge of herbs has always floored me, as she is a walking encyclopaedia. She would always have time for me when I spotted a herb I didn’t know and would explain where it came from, how to look after it and where to place it in the garden. When we started exhibiting at the flower shows, Jekka was an RHS judge. Again, she would always take the time to explain to me in depth - and with kindness - any elements of the display that had not worked, for which I was always very grateful.
Carol Klein – it’s a bit hard to condense this into one paragraph. Carol really was my favourite presenter on Gardeners World (I loved both her planting style and eclectic ways) and so, when exhibiting at flower shows, I would always try to catch her eye. However, it was neither me nor my plants that drew Carol in but Bailey, our first dog, a Bichon x Jack Russell. She adored him and through him we forged a relationship, with her going on to film many of our displays for Gardeners World. One such display was at Tatton Park when she did a piece called ‘Under the Microscope’ to show the detail on the Achillea flowers, which were being shown for the first time as a National Collection. During the piece she also mentioned the Daucus Carota (Wild Carrot) that had been woven through our display. I really should have grown more than the 50 that we had for sale at the show, as they were all gone on the second day and for the rest of show it was the most asked-for plant!
Rachel de Thame – the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and that magnificent barge, The Spirit of Chartwell, was just mind-blowing. The way that Rachel used the flowers from the Queen’s gardens was so impressive. Eight years later I was interviewed by Rachel for the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show for the ’50 shades of Achillea’ that we exhibited. She immediately put me at ease and - thanks to her - the VT was watched by 1000s and we had messages from so many people after it aired on TV. Every show we did after that we had a queue of people wanting Achillea Pomegranate and I even sold three to Rachel herself.
Margaret Cullen – Naturally I couldn’t complete this list without including my mother. She taught me so much about plants. My first lesson at the age of five was not to pull out all the flowers of her two prized peony bushes and create a “fluffy rabbit” on the lawn (I had a very vivid imagination). Apparently one of the bushes never flowered again and it was never forgotten. My mother taught me patience when working with plants and how gentle you must be, especially with seeds. She taught me how to arrange a vase and how to select the best flowers. My mum and dad had lots of parties at home, and I remember fondly being in Mum’s cutting garden and choosing which of the beauties would make it into the vase. I also have my mother to thank (or possibly blame) for my obsession with vases. My mum would often write a little note and put in one of my pockets. After starting the business, she came to visit the first display at Hampton Court and I found one of her notes that night that said, “He who plants a garden plants happiness”. I still have that note but sadly no longer have my mother, who I miss every day.