{"id":1277,"date":"2024-10-14T09:14:26","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T09:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2024-10-14T09:15:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T09:15:50","slug":"in-the-garden-with-bunny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/highlights\/in-the-garden-with-bunny\/10-2024","title":{"rendered":"In the Garden with Bunny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Far from being a time to put your feet up, for keen gardeners autumn presents a good opportunity to put the garden to bed, plan for next year and complete all of those pesky jobs you\u2019ve been putting off. An especially well-known gardener is looking forward to getting out in the crisp autumn air, although RHS-winner Bunny Guinness will be taking one evening off, as she invites fellow gardeners to join her for dinner at Rutland\u2019s Hambleton Hall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Andrew Crowley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\ufeffFar from being a time to put your feet up, for keen gardeners autumn presents a good opportunity to put the garden to bed, plan for next year and complete all of those pesky jobs you\u2019ve been putting off. An especially well-known gardener is looking forward to getting out in the crisp autumn air, although RHS-winner Bunny Guinness will be taking one evening off, as she invites fellow gardeners to join her for dinner at Rutland\u2019s Hambleton Hall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeffBunny Guinness\u2019s garden isn\u2019t the only thing that\u2019s growing. Her online presence has also enjoyed a steady increase and today Bunny is as much a broadcaster and journalist on the subject of gardening as she is one of the country\u2019s most sought-after and knowledgeable horticultural experts and landscape architects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond her regular presence as one of the experts on BBC Radio 4\u2019s venerable Gardener\u2019s Question Time programme and her presence as the Telegraph\u2019s gardening columnist, Bunny established her own YouTube channel during lockdown, which now has around 50,000 subscribers. And, at the start of 2024, she also began podcasting, and now has nearly 40 episodes of her show Bunny in the Garden, available to those keen to hear her in conversation with guests such as Jim Carter of Downton Abbey fame, Mary Berry, John Humphries, Emma Bridgewater and Rutland hotelier Tim Hart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all that going on, plus healthy demand for her own landscape design work, it\u2019s little wonder that Bunny rarely has the opportunity to host live events. Happily, that\u2019s not the case this month when she will host a dinner at Hambleton Hall followed by a new talk, entitled \u2018Tripping Over Molehills.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea is that the evening is a light-hearted tour through a career in gardening, that sort of thing. Things that have gone wrong, things that have gone right and most of all things that are fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, Bunny\u2019s idea of fun is to be out in the garden whenever possible, throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe secret to enjoying gardening is to always start with a really nice job\u2026 don\u2019t start with the worst,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd always wear a hat. A decent hat is good for keeping direct sun off you \u2013 UV levels and all that \u2013 but also for preventing the wind blowing your hair everywhere, and for keeping the odd spot of rain off you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as you discover a love of gardening you\u2019re never overly concerned with the weather. Regardless of whether it\u2019s hammering down outside or there\u2019s full sun, I\u2019ll always be keen to get out there on a Saturday morning. That said, a decent pair of waterproof trousers and knee pads are a good investment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The garden designer\u2019s own plot celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Raised in Wiltshire, the late horticulturalist and rose breeder David Austen was Bunny\u2019s uncle, and though he planned to name one of his roses in honour of his niece, there were, apparently, issues with using the name Guinness because of the association with the brewing dynasty into which she married when she and husband Kevin wed in 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunny initially left Wiltshire to pursue a degree in food science at the University of Reading, anticipating life in a lab\u2026 until fate \u2013 and some fancy footwear \u2013 intervened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI met someone doing a horticulture course at the place, I can\u2019t even remember who it was, but he had these gold-coloured wellington boots, and it just sparked a conversation, then curiosity, then commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought horticulture sounded much nicer so I switched courses. Ironically I think he actually dropped out of studying horticulture. I, on the other hand, did not!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI realised in the third year of the course that there was such a thing as a landscape architect and that the role offered so much scope for design and for meeting people. I pursued that as a career and went on to work for some very lovely firms before setting up on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So sought-after is Bunny\u2019s expertise, that today she works on all sorts of gardens from tiny to huge including the gardens of modern British restaurant, kitchen garden and cookery venue Thyme, in Gloucestershire for instance, and its chef Charlie Hibbert\u2019s kitchen garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other work has included gardens for everyone from HRH Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia to Sir Bob Geldof, plus work on hotels such as the walled gardens of Stapleford Park during Bob Payton\u2019s 1988 restoration of the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunny also enjoyed unprecedented access to Highgrove and to HRH The Prince of Wales as part of her 2014 book celebrating the country estate to document the future King\u2019s garden throughout the seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prince purchased Highgrove in 1980, completing a remodelling of the property and its grounds by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ensuring his privacy from increasing press intrusion during his first marriage, the Prince was keen to plant leylandii cypress hedges, but thankfully, as he was new to gardening, Lady Salisbury persuaded Charles to plant yew hedging instead, which were later topiarised and are now world-class examples of such hedging. Bunny\u2019s 2014 book Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated is a beautifully illustrated guide to the gardens as the change throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Bunny\u2019s approach to garden is much more egalitarian than those projects \u2013 or her lovely clipped tones on Radio 4 \u2013 would suggest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early work included renovating the outdoor spaces around the London borough of Greenwich & Lewisham, providing green spaces and play areas for communities living in high-rise flats, creating areas that would otherwise remain a dearth of brutalist concrete structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe setting, the size of the plot and the budget that a particular project has are all, for the most part, less important than a cohesive masterplan and the implementation of the design itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like working with tiny suburban gardens and shoestring budgets just as much as larger projects. I like to spend a day with a client so they can tell me how they live, how much maintenance they\u2019re seeking to commit to the space, so much other information too all guiding the design process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a methodical approach to design and landscaping undoubtedly, but one Bunny was less willing to employ when she moved to the area in 1984, around the time that she stated a family and a couple of years before establishing her own landscaping design practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy husband had been a farmer and retrained after 10 years to become an accountant. We were both London-based and we wanted somewhere within commuting distance, so we looked at a two-hour radius from the city and we were attracted to a property in the village of Sibberton because it had plenty of land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunny and her family aim for self-sufficiency with a productive vegetable garden and fresh eggs as well as Dexter cattle, Soay sheep and Oxford Sandy & Black pigs with low stocking density. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sometimes difficult because nothing is 100% predictable, you do have your off years, but it\u2019s a mindset that we need to value more, because kitchen gardening feeds into values like provenance, nutrition, food security and ultimately our health and overall wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The property is an old stone farmhouse, on the site of a 13th century Manor House but extended over successive owners, notably in the 17th century when it became a farmhouse and a series of outbuildings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never did draw a formal plan for it, which is something I always tell my clients they need! I sort of saw it in my head, but it has evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we moved in, I took a week off work and I think my husband thought I was unpacking the suitcases and boxes but all the while I was planting 1,000 or so trees as it\u2019s located on a hill and it was very exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe creation of that cover has changed the microclimate and I\u2019m lucky to be friends with a very good local tree surgeon who will bring me all of his shredded and chipped material which is all really good organic matter to improve the soil. All through the winter I find it really satisfying to trot around the garden with a wheelbarrow, working some really good nutrition into the soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 1994 I entered three competitions to design a garden for Chelsea Flower Show; one for the Sunday Times and one for Gardens Illustrated. I was highly commended for each of those but it was the third one, Wind in the Willows, that won, and the prize was to have the garden built at the flower show.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that first award, Bunny has won five other golds, she was named one of the top 50 garden designers in the UK by House & Garden magazine and she received an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University \u2013 her alma mater following graduation with a post-graduate certificate in Landscape Architecture \u2013 in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA decade or so after we established the practice, the children were growing up. And around 1996 I wrote Family Gardens: How to Create Magical Spaces for All Ages. It was basically about designing gardens that families can enjoy. I didn\u2019t want to create a garden that was littered with plastic slides and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a party at home at the time and I remember we hired a clown but the children were too busy in the natural pool that we had and they were hanging off tree branches instead of watching the entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs I was watching a mother reprimanding her boy for ruining his new shoes it was a moment of realisation that children really can engage with gardens given the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still true that young people engage with their environment and if anything, it\u2019s even more of a novelty to get away from a video game to enjoy getting messy whilst discovering the magic of watching something grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book counted among its fans BBC Radio 4 producer Trevor Taylor, who asked Bunny to contribute to Gardener\u2019s Question Time. It was about the time Geoffrey Smith was stepping back from his role as a panellist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen Trevor called and asked me to become a regular member of the panel it was quite a shock. The shows are recorded as-live, but it\u2019s authentic in the sense that you don\u2019t get the questions beforehand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything that you\u2019re asked potentially puts you on the spot, but that\u2019s the fun as a member of the panel and that\u2019s the appeal as a listener; it keeps you grounded in the subject, and you have to have a strong understanding of horticulture, you can\u2019t use production values to gloss over that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s one reason the programme is so very well-loved and so trusted. There\u2019s an authenticity to it, but also radio is an intimate, really engaging media. Whether you\u2019re listening in the car or in the potting shed, you can have it on in the background as you work and it\u2019s good company, but in the case of Gardener\u2019s Question Time, a really good source of knowledge too. It\u2019s also much quicker than producing television, and radio allows you to explore a subject in more depth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The omnipresent nature of digital media has, of course, managed to permeate the centuries-old pleasure of gardening, and the two make good bedfellows. Accordingly, since February 2020 when Bunny founded her own lockdown YouTube channel, there are now more than 200 videos for her 50,000 viewers to enjoy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A particular recommendation is Bunny\u2019s guide to baseless plant pots: the seven minute and 39 second video has achieved 996,636 views since it was first broadcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2024 Bunny also established her own podcast Bunny In the Garden with\u2026, each about an hour long, available to enjoy whilst you work in the garden (or put your feet up and refuse to do so), with each episode featuring a well known guest, known for something other than gardening keen to impart their gardening experiences. \u2018It\u2019s a hybrid between Desert Island Discs and Gardeners\u2019 Question Time\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunny\u2019s podcasts and YouTube content are ideal ways to reaffirm the joy of gardening, as is accepting an opportunity to enjoy the landscaper for dinner at Hambleton Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to it,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause things are pretty hectic,  I don\u2019t take on many speaking engagements. But I\u2019ve absolutely committed to appearing at Hambleton Hall as it\u2019s such a warm and welcoming place, with such a lovely garden, too!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m 40 years into looking after my place but one of the lovely aspects of gardening is that you\u2019re never \u2018finished,\u2019 there\u2019s always something to do, it\u2019s a slow but steady and incredibly happy, healthy way to spend time\u2026 that\u2019s why I\u2019m always keen to share the joy with as many people as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunny Guinness is the special guest at Hambleton Hall\u2019s Tripping Over Molehills dinner, Wednesday, 20th November 2024. Dinner \u00a3175\/person, ap\u00e9ritifs from 7.30pm, call 01572 756 991 or see www.hambletonhall.com. For Bunny\u2019s podcasts and YouTube content, see www.bunnyguinness.com. Bunny will feature on R4\u2019s Gardeners\u2019 Question Time on 29th Nov\/1st Dec.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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