This year 2023, I was asked by Jennifer Thatcher to host a conversation with Frances Tophill and Alice Vincent as part of the Creative Folkestone Book Festival. The subject was modern gardening - Frances and I have shared thoughts on rewilding and the design of my garden in the past, so I was excited to continue this conversation. 

 

Frances has written a beautiful book on rewilding and has a wonderful new book out called, 'The Modern Gardener', which is a brilliant compendium of ideas about gardening sustainably, scientific facts and wonderful recipes and potions to fully use the produce from the garden. 

 

Alice Vincent has written her story of surviving grief through gardening, her disillusion with the digital tyranny of 'fast and first', and a need for connection with the soil and the natural cycles of growing/ Through her own journey she felt the need to create a community and gathered inspiring and diverse survival stories from women gardeners, resulting in her latest book, 'Why Women Grow'.

 

The conversation the three of us had, ranged across aesthetics, politics, feminism, land use, ecology, activism, collaboration and the most important subject - rewilding of gardens and women. The passionate environmental debate was enthusiastically embraced by our packed audience and in audience questions.

 

Well worth watching...