Fast forward a few years and I’m at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, looking at this beautiful curved garden table in one of the displays. It was a fallen tree trunk and turned out to be made from the same species of tree I had planted, and the person who sold it played a role in setting it up. place of Morgan’s Rock. I had to buy it and now it sits in the middle of the garden. I use it all the time. We also have a garden pod from Cuckooland, which is great to sit in when it’s cold or wet.
What do your children find interesting in the garden?
In a corner of the garden, we let the weeds, including nettles, take over completely. We call it our “wild area” and the kids love it, not least because they can hit everything and things come back to life. They also notice the bees and butterflies it attracts. It can keep them busy for ages. I think my son has turned into a mini-Attenborough; he is very in tune with nature and always points out things in the garden. We both have a chestnut tree and a London plane that come out of the communal garden and come out with things like: “Mummy, listen to the sound of the wind in the trees. It’s not great”.
What kind of garden did you have growing up?
I am very lucky because I have two of the most loving parents. They gave me and my sister the ultimate gift, which is love, love, love. Mom is Greek and 5’1; Dad is from the Peak District and over 6′. When I was growing up we lived in a few different places, including Rutland and Sheffield, and some of my earliest memories are of coming home from school and going straight into the garden.
Mom loved it out there and always had lots of plants that needed deadheading and pruning, like her roses and geraniums. She still does. It is also probably wonderful therapy. We had a vegetable patch where dad grew staples like potatoes and carrots, but he also had a thing for more unusual vegetables back then, like artichokes, which he grew and then used to make the most wonderful soups . I do them myself too.
Did your parents influence your interest in the environment in any way?
If mum’s little paradise was the back garden, then dad’s was the wide, open space of the Peak District. From an early age, he took my sister, Gina, and me on endless walks, including many of the places he knew as a child. The landscape was rugged and immense in every direction. In fact, they liked it so much, my parents had their honeymoon next to Mam Tor, which is a spectacular hill on the edge of the Dark and White Peaks. I climbed it many times, and after my mastectomy, I wanted the whole family – me, my partner, our children, my parents and my sister – to climb up there and hold hands. The sky was the most beautiful blue and it happened to be full of paragliders. It is a day I will never forget.
Did the garden play a part in your recovery?
At every step. I remember the first day I came home from the hospital after my mastectomy. It was October 2021, mid-afternoon, the sun was shining and the leaves from the trees were beginning to fall. I sat at my big tree trunk table and felt its grain under my fingers. I was filled with a sense of peace and I made a promise to myself that I would go outside every day, even if it was just five minutes in the garden.
