Reckless Gardener - An Interview with Chris Beardshaw

Providing opportunities for budding gardeners to get involved is a major passion for Chris Beardshaw who talks to Sandy Felton about the "Growing for Life Campaign", his new book and plans for his 2007 Chelsea Garden.

His BBC Biography describes him as the 'James Bond' of the gardening world, but there is a lot more to Chris Beardshaw than his 'Flying Gardener' image. You don't have to be in his company long to realise that here is a man driven by his passion for plants with an enthusiasm which is infectious and an earnest desire to provide opportunities to bring people and plants together.

When I first met him a few years ago it was this passion to foster the love he has for plants in others, particularly children, that influenced me most. So I was not surprised when he launched the 'Growing for Life' Campaign at RHS Chelsea last year. This imaginative horticultural education initiative has been established to satisfy the need for horticulture to play a formative role in the development and experiences of children and young adults. It is aimed at reconnecting young people with nature while helping schools to realise the potential of their immediate environment.

I asked him what motivated him to launch the Campaign: "I wanted to help provide opportunities to budding gardeners and to people who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to get involved," he explained. "It applies to anyone from any background who wants to share the delights of horticulture."

His stunning RHS Chelsea 2006 garden (pictured below) sponsored by Wormcast, inspired by the 1920s Jekyll and Mawson designed formal and water garden at Boveridge House, acted as a fitting platform to launch the campaign. It earned him a justly deserved Gold Medal as well as being voted the BBC Viewers Garden.

I asked Chris how he became involved in the Boveridge House project: "I first went to Boveridge House with a television series called Hidden Gardens and following my involvement there I was asked to become patron of the school which is a special needs school for children aged between 11-16," he explains. "I wanted to work with them in a meaningful way and they had a fantastic opportunity to restore and develop the gardens there which we could see would provide them with an educational facility too."

After Chelsea the garden was moved back to Boveridge House where restoration has continued as Chris points out: "The stone walling was taken back, cleaned up and restored. The pergola area has been completely rebuilt and sets of stone stairways have been repaired but with a project on this scale there is still plenty to be done."

Boveridge House is the first project under the 'Growing for Life' banner and for Chris the biggest lesson has been seeing the positive effect that horticulture and gardening can have on children: "It gives them a sense of responsibility," he says. "Of nurturing and caring for plants. It’s an outdoor classroom in which every part of the curriculum can be represented - a limitless resource."

He has already been asked to do similar projects at a number of sites but is aware that he wants to raise the funds to get the Boveridge garden significantly underway before committing to another.

I asked him what advice he would give to help encourage children into gardening: "Every child should be given a packet of seed and every parent should encourage by giving their child a patch of land, no matter how small, in which they can start to cultivate not only their first seeds and plants but their love of gardening."

His own love of horticulture stems from his grandmother who he admits approached gardening with a total irreverence (sounds like a true reckless gardener!) "She largely ignored the advice that was farmed out by experts and was a perfect example that doing is better than saying."

For me, the Boveridge House Chelsea garden just about took my breath away. I am a Mawson fan so I could be accused of being prejudiced, but it was no surprise that BBC viewers voted for the garden as their best in show. So how did he feel when he was told that the 'Boveridge House - Growing for Life' garden had won the poll? "We knew from the start that this particular project was going to be quite striking but naturally we were delighted to find that so many people had voted for it and saw it in the same light as we did - we felt it did the project proud." Indeed it did.

He admits that he does not belong exclusively to a design style - preferring to create gardens in which plants thrive and gardeners feel inspired to be themselves - so his answer to my question asking who his favourite designer is came as no surprise: "I tend not to look at the work of other designers too closely - I like to look at art, music, architecture and people like Gaudi, Ansel Adams and Lenkiewicz. Gardens can become a bit incestuous if you only look at other gardens and garden designers."

Television appearances have been numerous and include, 'The Flying Gardener', 'Hidden Gardens' and 'Weekend Gardener'. He has also made regular appearances on 'Gardeners' World'. So which has given him the most satisfaction? "That’s very difficult," he says. "To be honest I just try to remain true to the way I garden no matter which programme I am involved in. I feel very fortunate that it's exposed me to huge numbers of dedicated and enthusiastic people who I wouldn't normally have had the chance to meet."

Apart from his television work, Chris, who trained as a landscape architect and horticulturist, is also an accomplished lecturer. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Gloucester University and regularly lectures there.

Which leads me onto his other talent of writing. Chris now has several successful books under his belt including 'The Natural Gardener' and his new book 'How does your Garden Grow' which is published at the end of April. I asked him how this latest book came about.

"As a result of the lectures and talks I had been doing," he explains. "At those it became clear that a great number of gardeners in Britain lacked the confidence to bring their gardens to life therefore the book is written in such a way as to explain why a plant has a certain action at a given point in time. It’s about looking at the plant's perspective. Ultimately, its aim was for it to be enabling not prescriptive and for it to be transferable information linking up the practical with the science."

The book looks at the 'what and why' as well as unlocking the secret science of gardening, which Chris points out is actually a beautifully straightforward and simple activity.

Already we are building up a picture of someone who is not only an accomplished designer and gardener, broadcaster, writer and lecturer but who is passionate about his love of all things horticultural. So what does he do in his spare time, if indeed he gets any?

"I love to dive," he says. "Whenever I have a spare moment away from work I try and get away to the coast and enjoy some of the sights of the underwater gardens that grace our shores." And his favourite time in the garden? "A summer’s evening with a glass of wine in hand - a chance to breath in the enhanced fragrance of the garden, to listen to the birds, watch carefully for the owls first appearance and to enjoy the sunset."

When I ask what his favourite plant is, I think I get rapped on the knuckles! "As I haven’t grown all 100,000 species that can be grown in the UK I am not able to say - but as soon as I have I will let you know!" Point taken.

So what of the Plans for Chelsea 2007? Chris will be designing - 'Celebrating 100 years of Hidcote Manor' - This year is the centenary of gardening at Hidcote, now a National Trust garden, and former home of its creator Lawrence Johnston.

Chris explained that the plan is to revisit a garden that inspired him to take up professional design: "I first visited Hidcote Manor Garden as a boy and it impressed upon me for the first time that growing plants for your own sake was one skill but growing them to work into a design was entirely different. The Hidcote that most people are familiar with is not the garden of Lawrence Johnston's dreams - it's become diluted over time but the garden I am creating at Chelsea, and what the team at Hidcote are currently working on and restoring back in Gloucestershire, is truer to how Johnston had originally envisaged it."

He is delighted that there is a growing movement towards gardeners becoming more interested in plants and plant design instead of architecture and sculptural gimmicks and one suspects that he will positively rejoice in his Chelsea task.

You can learn more about The Growing for Life campaign by logging onto www.growingforlife.org - Chris has his own website at www.chrisbeardshaw.com