'Can we be clear about this? I did not invent decking'
A few years ago, on 15 April 2009, to be precise, I was in the audience at the Garden Museum, in London, for a much-anticipated event. The museum’s first exhibition in its new gallery was a retrospective on the work of the infl uential plantswoman, Beth Chatto, who changed forever the way we garden, introducing the principle of gardening with, rather than despite, nature, and the notion of ‘right plant, right place’.
The culminating event was a conversation between Beth and Alan Titchmarsh, the country’s best-known gardener. Not a celebrity-style interview, I hoped, as I waited for the protagonists to come on stage, but quite a challenge still to get the tone right. It was a triumph. Released from the relentless chirpiness required of television gardening presenters, Alan revealed himself as a sensitive and empathetic interviewer. He was entirely self-eff acing, patient but persistent, coaxing a very private woman to talk fl uently and with warmth about her life and work.
Fast forward to 2014: Alan is the creator of the current Garden Museum exhibition, Alan Titchmarsh: 50 Years Of Gardening. Like the man himself, the exhibition is clever and subtle. It is fascinating as a history of fads, fashions and technological advances in the gardening fi eld, which is what it is ostensibly about, with the subtitle: A Personal History Of The Modern Garden In 101 Objects. Alan has chosen all the exhibits and written the accompanying texts: informed and informative, and great fun.
However, the exhibition is most rewarding as an autobiography told through garden artefacts, and their captions, which bear descriptions and observations on how the objects feature in his life as well as their place in garden history. And what does all this reveal? First, perhaps, how much he loved and was infl uenced by his grandfather. An important exhibit, his ‘most treasured possession’, is his grandfather’s spade, ‘its handle silky smooth after three generations of use’.
He is also devoted to Growmore, ‘granddad’s fertiliser of choice – invariably found spilling from a paper sack whose bottom corner had been degraded by damp in a corner of his rickety allotment shed’.
At the age of 15, Alan left school to work in the nursery at his local Parks Department. His apprenticeship was practically based and typical of its day. It gave him pride in acquiring skills and learning how to deploy them in the right and proper way. He is also good-humoured about some of the meaner aspects of life at the bottom of an entrenched hierarchy.
A knife and a dark-blue denim apron were, he says, the regulation equipment of a nursery apprentice. The budding knife he was given on his fi rst day’s work at the council nursery 50 years ago is the one he still uses today. When it arrived in its small cardboard box, ‘Ron took his old one out of his apron pocket and gave it to me – he kept the new one for himself’.
Alan likes to have professional kit for the job in hand, and refers with aff ection to his first ‘proper’ glass greenhouse, acquired for £5 in 1956 when he was 16. He likes innovation and genuine progress – citing the contribution to gardening of F1 hybrid seeds, Felco secateurs, Flexi-tie for tying in plants, fleece and grow bags. He is more cynical about other forms of ‘progress’, singling out ‘The bane of a summer Sunday afternoon: the whine of the strimmer’.
He also has a nice line in self-deprecation, saying: ‘Can we be clear about this? I did not invent decking. All right, so I used it a lot – quite a lot – in the gardens we made on Ground Force in the 1990s, but that was because it suits modern houses, is less expensive than paving and when you slip on it you get a bruise rather than breaking a hip.’ He notes wryly that sales of decking at B&Q rose from £9,000 to £8m the year after Ground Force was televised. ‘I only wish I’d bought shares…’
Alan Titchmarsh MBE VMH DL has had a spectacularly successful career as a freelance broadcaster and writer. He has written nearly 40 gardening books and six novels. His TV credits include BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World as well as Ground Force, which, at its peak, attracted 12 million viewers. More recently, he made a wonderful documentary about HRH The Prince of Wales’s garden at Highgrove, Alan’s second favourite garden after his own. The secret of his success and his abiding place in our gardening hearts comes from the extent of his knowledge and enthusiasms, but mostly from his love of gardens and gardening. In his own words: ‘Fifty years on from my first gardening job, I can honestly say that there has never been a more exciting time to make a garden. Do I enjoy it as much now as then? If anything, even more. What a life!’ To which we might add: what a thoroughly lovely man – a truly hardy perennial.
I was about nine years old when I started gardening. I built a little polythene greenhouse in the back garden, where I grew geraniums and spider plants. I also kept two pet mice, but a cat got in and frightened them to death.
My mother and my grandfather were keen gardeners and they both had a big in uence on me. My dad hated it. Both his father and his grandfather had been gardeners, and they’d put him o by making him weed for a penny a bucket.
I went to work in a nursery aged 15. The foreman advised me to do my apprenticeship there, go to college for a year, and then go to work at Kew. So that’s exactly what I did. I really just wanted to be outside growing plants. I had no career plan.
When it comes to gardens, I really enjoy making a scene that I can look out on. I do like a nice lawn and I enjoy billowing borders of owers. Line, form and perspective are so very important in a garden. They are more important than colour, in fact.
I don’t like gladioli. They’re so stiff and starchy and unyielding. They’re quite useful for ower arranging in churches but since I don’t do that, I have no reason for growing them.
I became a gardening-books editor in 1974. I’d always enjoyed reading and writing at school. That was the start of a literary career I suppose, although I didn’t realise it at the time.
I work very hard but then so do a lot of people. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities, and I have grasped them with both hands. Sometimes it’s easy to play it safe, but a lot of the time I have just held my nose and jumped.
I like being stimulated. I enjoy challenging myself. I would never say I was ambitious in terms of being competitive, but I am avid in terms of stimulation. Not so much physically, mind you, but certainly mentally.
You’ve got to do the things that you enjoy. My yardstick is always ‘Will this embarrass my children, and will it embarrass the audience?’ I don’t mind challenging people, and not everybody is going to love you, but I’d rather it didn’t make people curl their toes.
I have turned lots of things down. I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! for example. That’s not my bag at all. People don’t want to see me pick fluff out of my navel.
The secret to my success is being passionate and being myself. You’re going to irritate the pants off some people but I’ve always tried to be true to myself. It’s important to display generosity of spirit.
I am a great family man. I’ve got grandchildren now and they are divine.
I’ve been lucky to meet very impressive people and learn from them. When I started writing fiction in 1998, Jilly Cooper marked up my first few chapters, which was incredibly generous of her. I met Nelson Mandela and actually made a garden for him. He possessed the quietest, most graceful charisma of anybody I have ever met.
The Prince of Wales is inspiring. He is a very dedicated man. I admire people who show tenacity in the face of opposition. I think you’ve got to stick up for what you believe in, even if it makes you rather unpopular or unfashionable.
I have a positive mindset. I’m a great believer in that old Yorkshire saying: ‘A trouble shared is a trouble dragged out till bedtime.’ I grew up with parents who just said, ‘Get on with it’.
When I’m not gardening, I have an old car I drive and a little boat on the river – toys that I indulge myself with. I also collect books. At the last count, about 5,000 – I shouldn’t be allowed to keep putting up shelves.
One thing a lot of people don’t know about me is that I’m a bell ringer. About once a month I potter to the church opposite. I’ve been doing it since I was around 10 years old. I used to love singing in the choir too – I was a good treble when I was a boy.
I’d like to be remembered for the trees and the plants I leave behind. That will be my legacy – a better bit of landscape.
The culminating event was a conversation between Beth and Alan Titchmarsh, the country’s best-known gardener. Not a celebrity-style interview, I hoped, as I waited for the protagonists to come on stage, but quite a challenge still to get the tone right. It was a triumph. Released from the relentless chirpiness required of television gardening presenters, Alan revealed himself as a sensitive and empathetic interviewer. He was entirely self-eff acing, patient but persistent, coaxing a very private woman to talk fl uently and with warmth about her life and work.
Fast forward to 2014: Alan is the creator of the current Garden Museum exhibition, Alan Titchmarsh: 50 Years Of Gardening. Like the man himself, the exhibition is clever and subtle. It is fascinating as a history of fads, fashions and technological advances in the gardening fi eld, which is what it is ostensibly about, with the subtitle: A Personal History Of The Modern Garden In 101 Objects. Alan has chosen all the exhibits and written the accompanying texts: informed and informative, and great fun.
However, the exhibition is most rewarding as an autobiography told through garden artefacts, and their captions, which bear descriptions and observations on how the objects feature in his life as well as their place in garden history. And what does all this reveal? First, perhaps, how much he loved and was infl uenced by his grandfather. An important exhibit, his ‘most treasured possession’, is his grandfather’s spade, ‘its handle silky smooth after three generations of use’.
He is also devoted to Growmore, ‘granddad’s fertiliser of choice – invariably found spilling from a paper sack whose bottom corner had been degraded by damp in a corner of his rickety allotment shed’.
At the age of 15, Alan left school to work in the nursery at his local Parks Department. His apprenticeship was practically based and typical of its day. It gave him pride in acquiring skills and learning how to deploy them in the right and proper way. He is also good-humoured about some of the meaner aspects of life at the bottom of an entrenched hierarchy.
A knife and a dark-blue denim apron were, he says, the regulation equipment of a nursery apprentice. The budding knife he was given on his fi rst day’s work at the council nursery 50 years ago is the one he still uses today. When it arrived in its small cardboard box, ‘Ron took his old one out of his apron pocket and gave it to me – he kept the new one for himself’.
Alan likes to have professional kit for the job in hand, and refers with aff ection to his first ‘proper’ glass greenhouse, acquired for £5 in 1956 when he was 16. He likes innovation and genuine progress – citing the contribution to gardening of F1 hybrid seeds, Felco secateurs, Flexi-tie for tying in plants, fleece and grow bags. He is more cynical about other forms of ‘progress’, singling out ‘The bane of a summer Sunday afternoon: the whine of the strimmer’.
He also has a nice line in self-deprecation, saying: ‘Can we be clear about this? I did not invent decking. All right, so I used it a lot – quite a lot – in the gardens we made on Ground Force in the 1990s, but that was because it suits modern houses, is less expensive than paving and when you slip on it you get a bruise rather than breaking a hip.’ He notes wryly that sales of decking at B&Q rose from £9,000 to £8m the year after Ground Force was televised. ‘I only wish I’d bought shares…’
Alan Titchmarsh MBE VMH DL has had a spectacularly successful career as a freelance broadcaster and writer. He has written nearly 40 gardening books and six novels. His TV credits include BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World as well as Ground Force, which, at its peak, attracted 12 million viewers. More recently, he made a wonderful documentary about HRH The Prince of Wales’s garden at Highgrove, Alan’s second favourite garden after his own. The secret of his success and his abiding place in our gardening hearts comes from the extent of his knowledge and enthusiasms, but mostly from his love of gardens and gardening. In his own words: ‘Fifty years on from my first gardening job, I can honestly say that there has never been a more exciting time to make a garden. Do I enjoy it as much now as then? If anything, even more. What a life!’ To which we might add: what a thoroughly lovely man – a truly hardy perennial.
Alan Titchmarsh: 50 Years Of Gardening is at the Garden Museum, London SE1 until 31 August: 020-7401 8865, www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
'...and I'm a bell ringer - not many people know that'
Alan Titchmarsh shares a few secrets with The Lady...and offers an intriguing insight into his 50-year careerI was about nine years old when I started gardening. I built a little polythene greenhouse in the back garden, where I grew geraniums and spider plants. I also kept two pet mice, but a cat got in and frightened them to death.
My mother and my grandfather were keen gardeners and they both had a big in uence on me. My dad hated it. Both his father and his grandfather had been gardeners, and they’d put him o by making him weed for a penny a bucket.
I went to work in a nursery aged 15. The foreman advised me to do my apprenticeship there, go to college for a year, and then go to work at Kew. So that’s exactly what I did. I really just wanted to be outside growing plants. I had no career plan.
When it comes to gardens, I really enjoy making a scene that I can look out on. I do like a nice lawn and I enjoy billowing borders of owers. Line, form and perspective are so very important in a garden. They are more important than colour, in fact.
I don’t like gladioli. They’re so stiff and starchy and unyielding. They’re quite useful for ower arranging in churches but since I don’t do that, I have no reason for growing them.
I became a gardening-books editor in 1974. I’d always enjoyed reading and writing at school. That was the start of a literary career I suppose, although I didn’t realise it at the time.
I work very hard but then so do a lot of people. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities, and I have grasped them with both hands. Sometimes it’s easy to play it safe, but a lot of the time I have just held my nose and jumped.
I like being stimulated. I enjoy challenging myself. I would never say I was ambitious in terms of being competitive, but I am avid in terms of stimulation. Not so much physically, mind you, but certainly mentally.
You’ve got to do the things that you enjoy. My yardstick is always ‘Will this embarrass my children, and will it embarrass the audience?’ I don’t mind challenging people, and not everybody is going to love you, but I’d rather it didn’t make people curl their toes.
I have turned lots of things down. I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! for example. That’s not my bag at all. People don’t want to see me pick fluff out of my navel.
The secret to my success is being passionate and being myself. You’re going to irritate the pants off some people but I’ve always tried to be true to myself. It’s important to display generosity of spirit.
I am a great family man. I’ve got grandchildren now and they are divine.
I’ve been lucky to meet very impressive people and learn from them. When I started writing fiction in 1998, Jilly Cooper marked up my first few chapters, which was incredibly generous of her. I met Nelson Mandela and actually made a garden for him. He possessed the quietest, most graceful charisma of anybody I have ever met.
The Prince of Wales is inspiring. He is a very dedicated man. I admire people who show tenacity in the face of opposition. I think you’ve got to stick up for what you believe in, even if it makes you rather unpopular or unfashionable.
I have a positive mindset. I’m a great believer in that old Yorkshire saying: ‘A trouble shared is a trouble dragged out till bedtime.’ I grew up with parents who just said, ‘Get on with it’.
When I’m not gardening, I have an old car I drive and a little boat on the river – toys that I indulge myself with. I also collect books. At the last count, about 5,000 – I shouldn’t be allowed to keep putting up shelves.
One thing a lot of people don’t know about me is that I’m a bell ringer. About once a month I potter to the church opposite. I’ve been doing it since I was around 10 years old. I used to love singing in the choir too – I was a good treble when I was a boy.
I’d like to be remembered for the trees and the plants I leave behind. That will be my legacy – a better bit of landscape.