Light and bright: the world famous White Garden at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent
Credit: Jonathan Buckley
It all started, for me, as a passion for growing plants successfully. Then came learning how to manage their height and bulk, so that they didn’t all fall over and swamp each other. Next came the need to learn to plant for every season and a love of evergreens.
Last but by no means least came an appreciation of flower and leaf colour and texture, along with other important fancy visual stuff, a process that is ongoing, of course.
A significant light-bulb moment on this gardening adventure came for me, not from studying the famous colour wheel, but after a visit years ago to the (then) well-known flower border of the colourists Nori and Sandra Pope in the walled vegetable garden at Hadspen House, Somerset.