The Q&A: Jo Thompson, queen of garden design
The Q&A: Jo Thompson, queen of garden design
Read my interview with the multi-multi-multi-award-winning designer
You’re reading The Earthworm, a brand new newsletter celebrating all things green and pleasant. It’s been a busy old launch week, but it’s not too late to catch up with anything you might have missed. If this your first time here, subscribe now for free and join the community.
Garden designers are the Hollywood A-listers of the horticultural world. It is designers who hobnob with celebs and mingle with royals at events like the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows. It is designers who dazzle and wow us, and who move the metaphorical goalposts (and literal goalposts – you never see any of those at Chelsea) inspiring us to think of our green spaces in creative new ways.
And for me, it’s hard to think of anyone who does this better than Jo Thompson. I first became aware of Jo’s work in 2018, just because that was the first time I took any interest in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (she of course had been racking up Gold medals for years before that). Jo’s show garden that year – The Wedgwood Garden1 – was breathtaking. Soft, naturalistic, just that little bit loose around the edges of the York stone path, it seemed to me, watching via Monty and his mates on the telly, to be a sort of dreamscape. Needless to say, it resulted in another Gold.
Jo has been designing these stylish and idealised distillations of natural landscapes – nothing fussy, formal or contrived – since the early noughties. These days, as well as her work as a designer, she’s also a member of the RHS Gardens Committee, an RHS judge, an author of books and writer of a brilliant new newsletter, The Gardening Mind.2
Today, she has invited me to join her at one of her work-in-progress projects, the characterful Water Lane, an old walled garden in the Kent countryside which is in the process of being restored – with help from Jo and her team – to a kitchen garden-come-vinery-come-restaurant-come-events space.
It is a miserable midwinter’s day, and Jo and I are enjoying the welcome warmth of the glasshouse dining room. Over hot drinks, our chat spans hours and meanders through a broad range of topics, including the risky business of career-switching, Jo’s favourite plants, horticulture’s exclusivity problem and how to defend against the scourge of slugs. Unpretentious, informal and easy-going, a conversation with Jo isn’t unlike spending time in one of her gardens.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are your earliest memories of plants and gardens?
My parents had a really nice garden. This was in Dorset. I loved being out there. But I wasn’t interested in horticulture itself, in getting my hands dirty, at all. For me, the joy of it came from the atmosphere. We used to go on holiday to Cornwall, and I’d make my mother stop the car when we were going through Bodmin Moor. She’d pull into a little side road and we’d just sit there. It was the place, the landscape, and the effect it had.
Your mother was a florist. What sort of impact do you think that had on you?
I think it did have an impact, in terms of the aesthetic. If I was watching her put together a bouquet, whilst I wouldn’t be interested in what a narcissus was, I’d look at how she’d put that with something else and how together they would look really good. And then I’d notice how when you’d get something from Interflora – because I’m really old and that’s what you’d get – it would be really horrible, for some reason I couldn’t work out. But the way my mother put together colour, form, texture, always looked really lovely. So the aesthetic – I think that was the influence. Her taste.
Sounds like she has a keen eye. What does she make of your work?
The big joke is, I’ve just written a book on colour, whereas my mother has always had me down as colourblind. I’m not colourblind. It’s because of how I describe things. So I would refer to my “peachy dress”, and she’d say, “it’s not peachy, it’s brown – how is it peachy?” I realise now that it was that sort of fuzzy 70’s texture, which is why in my mind it was peachy.
Anyway, to begin with, I think the whole family were surprised when I said I was going to be a garden designer – bearing in mind I’d never shown any interest in horticulture, nobody could quite believe it. They all looked at me like, “yeah, of course you are.” And I wonder whether that was part of my doing Chelsea for the first time; my way of saying, “I’m going to show everybody that I can do this.” Then probably about 10 years later, my mother asked me to design her front garden – that was the moment I knew she approved.
You weren’t always a garden designer. You studied Modern Languages and History of Art, followed by stints working first in fashion, then as a primary school teacher. What eventually inspired you to retrain as a designer?
I lived in Maida Vale opposite Clifton Nurseries in a tiny, tiny little apartment that had a flat roof with a metal balustrade around it. I knew it could be something, so I went over to Clifton Nurseries and said, “I’ve got this space on top of my roof, can you make it into a garden?” So anyway this guy started drawing and I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Well, I’m a garden designer.” And then over the next few weeks I saw him transform this space, five floors up, that wasn’t anything at all, and all of a sudden I was in this space – up amongst the chimney pots of Maida Vale – that felt really lovely; that felt a bit magical, I suppose. It was seeing that before and after that made me realise it was for me.
Did it feel like a massive risk at the time?
To everybody else it was a risk, but to me, it absolutely wasn’t. I don’t know whether that’s just because I’m impulsive. I look back now and I think, “How did I not think there was a risk? I knew nothing about plants, yet I was setting myself up as a garden designer!” I don’t know, it was just one of those moments when everything fell into place and I thought, “I can do this.”
So where did you start?
I took myself off to college and did a year’s training, which was two days a week. Then all those other days I was absorbing everything, reading every book I could get my hands on, whether it was about design, whether it was about plants. I read everything. I went to bed with the David Austin Rose Catalogue. I loved the lyrical descriptions.
There’s a nursery called Woottens of Wenhaston, in Suffolk. It used to be run by a guy called Michael Loftus, and his plant catalogues were like works of literature.3 I would actually recommend going to find one secondhand – they’re a few pounds on eBay or whatever – because the plant descriptions are really good. So I knew all about 20 different geraniums that I’d never seen in reality, because I'd just been engaged in this book that wasn’t a dry old, “oh it needs this soil, and this and that,” but actually told you how this plant made the writer feel.
They say that if you want to be a writer, the most important thing you can do is read. Do you think that if you want to be a garden designer, the most important thing you can do is visit gardens?
Yes, I do. You’ve got to see the gardens, and you’ve got to see the plants. And actually, I think you’ve got to garden. I think that’s really important, because that’s how you learn how plants work, how they go together, but also how they can behave strangely. For example, that you don’t always need to plant roses in full sun. I’ve got one rose that loves a bit of shade – it shouldn’t do, according to the books, but it does, and it will scramble up a birch tree even though it’s not a climber. I’ve used that rose in other gardens and it’s done the same thing. And I would never have learnt that from any books.
How then did you go from jobbing garden designer to reaching the great heights of Chelsea?
This I have no idea about. It’s probably irritating to say, but… it just happened. For a start, I really wanted to create a garden at Chelsea, not just to be judged by my peers, but it was also a chance to show the way I was planting. My first Chelsea was 2009. At that time, you’d either have blocks of planting, or naturalistic swathes, whilst I’d been investigating a way of planting that felt natural, that took its cue from nature, but included ornamentals and shrubs within these perennial meadows, with an eye on keeping the maintenance easy and simple. People back then were not planting like that, so I’m glad to see how it’s caught on. In some ways, without sounding too full of myself, the world is catching up with me.
There must be a difference between when you’re designing a show garden, something that only really has to exist for a moment, for a week, and when you’re designing a garden that has to be able to look good year after year.
What I always wanted to do with show gardens was give people ideas for what they can do at home. So, the show gardens need to be realistic. I’m not going to force things on too much and have 20 things that wouldn’t normally be flowering. Obviously they’re all grown in a nursery so they look lovely and everything might be a week earlier than it would normally be, but I'm reluctant to have too much artifice in there. However, without the artifice, it’s not a display – you know, you’d end up with these gaps. So I try to be very clear and transparent about that, but it’s a sort of tussle I have with myself.
And I’m always really clear if a client points to a show garden and says, “we want this garden,” I will say, “we can have this effect, but if you want it to still look good in August, September, we need to be looking at having other stuff coming up. And actually, you can have that show garden, and we will plant 15 plants per square metre, but if you do, then the year after you’re going to be thinning things out, taking things out.”
The bar for entry into horticulture can seem quite high. If you read magazines and watch TV, it’s as if everyone who works in the industry is a walking, talking plant encyclopaedia with decades of experience. Do you think this is a problem? And one that might be putting off many people – especially from already under-represented groups – from considering a career in gardens?
Yes! I think by its very nature horticulture is very exclusive. Just in terms of wealth – if you’re in London, you’re lucky if you’ve got any patch of land. If you don’t have a garden; if you don’t have support, family, who at least introduce you to the concept of gardening; if you can’t travel and visit gardens; if you don’t have an inspirational teacher who fired your imagination about art from an early age, how on earth is a gardening mag or TV programme going to “catch” you? Garden TV can’t be quick. They’ve tried and continue to try with makeover shows and they’re not great – they can't be. And it’s actually the slowness of the whole thing that I think resonates with those who are looking for something else. It has always come as an “after” option; after other jobs, after burn out.
Let’s talk trends. Because I’ve come into gardening relatively recently, I don’t have any of the historical context, but I remember seeing someone on Gardeners’ World saying, “15 years ago I never would have dreamed of planting a rhododendron.” And I thought, why not? It seems so weird that it could have felt uncool to plant a rhododendron.
Yeah! There are real fashions, and snobberies. Piet Oudolf brought the concept of grasses over 20 years ago, and because of that, everybody threw out shrubs, saying, “oh no we don’t want shrubs, they’re old fashioned – we want grasses.” And so yes, things like rhododendrons, hydrangeas, all fell out of fashion. But things are cyclical. People now are writing about the wonders and glories of hydrangeas. Well yes, of course they’re great, because they come when the roses are finished and they’re lovely. I look at it and think, you’ve just got to calm down.
Variegated foliage is another one. I know if I put a post on social media tomorrow and write “variegated”, you’ll have all these comments saying, “oh no, never like variegated.” Why don’t you like variegated? Sometimes people just hear things and think that that is what they should think, because the gardening police said so.
When it comes to design, then, do you have a little rolodex of ideas – different plant combinations and shapes – that you then pull out when you get a new brief?
No. That’s how I first started. I had my scrapbook full of tear sheets. But my approach now is the opposite: nothing goes into the garden just for the sake of it. When I teach, the first thing that a lot of students stick in a design is a pleached tree, because they’ll have seen it in a photo in a garden magazine, and yes they can look amazing. But what are you doing with this pleached tree here? Don’t just use it for the sake of it. I’ll look at where we are, at the wider landscape, at what’s beyond, so what goes in a space doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. It’s what we call a gentle intervention.
People will go to Marrakech, come back and say, we want La Majorelle, it was amazing. Yeah, but look… We’re in Kent, so I’m not going to be painting the walls Majorelle Blue. I want a garden to be a positive addition to the landscape, and I don’t want things to date. So you’re not going to get any of those painted walls, you’re not going to get any of those design statements like a tiled wall or something you’ve seen on Dezeen or whatever. I’m not that designer.
I get it. I see those pictures of Mexican gardens with the walls painted orange and hot pink, or some Californian garden where it’s all inside-outside living, but I’m not going to do that in Walthamstow.
But some people want to! And the inside-outside thing… My guilty pleasure at the moment is [real estate reality TV show] Selling Sunset, which I’ve only just discovered, and they talk all the time about “inside-outside”. Well of course, because it’s LA! And I will say that to clients: we’re not in LA. We’ve got to think about it in a different way. For a start: drainage. You know, it rains here. And those painted Mexican walls, they look amazing in Mexico, but also you might go off it.
The garden equivalent of getting a tattoo on holiday…
Yes! You’re stuck with it.
I know you said you don’t design-by-scrapbook, but are there certain plants or combinations you find yourself returning to time after time?
There are nearly always roses. Why do I love a rose? Because of their great big fat heads, whether they’re single flowers or double, and they create these big splooshes of colour, and they’re romantic, and they create an atmosphere in summer. I’m planting an area for a client at the moment full of wild roses that we’re just going to let grow to six, eight feet and sprawl their arms all over the place, and it’ll feel very different to somewhere else which has got more of a cottage garden feel. So in terms of a plant I keep coming back to, it’s that.
And I’ll use the same trees a lot. And actually, a new snobbery amongst garden designers is that people will say, “oh you can’t use an amelanchier, they’re in every garden.” My response is, “but this client, this is their only garden – they haven’t got another garden with another amelanchier, so to them it’s new. And it’s not just that it’s new, it’s a bloody good tree, because it’s got blossom, it’s got berries, it’s got nice autumn colour, it’s a no-brainer. Why deprive a client of that just because it’s a common choice? It’s like mass planting of Verbena bonariensis – people say it looks hackneyed, and it might do, but it’ll give that client a lot of pleasure, especially when they see all the bees and butterflies on it.
When it comes to buying plants though, as an amateur, you’re at the mercy of what’s in stock when you visit the garden centre, aren’t you?
Yes. Going and buying one of everything – the scattergun approach to planting – is an absolute classic mistake.
So what’s the right approach?
Have a master plan, and then implement it phase by phase. You can’t buy or plant it up all at once. That’s why I’m a big fan of small, independent nurseries, because they will have that expert who’s there, who has grown the plants. Allow yourself time when you go plant shopping, and be brave and ask if there is anyone who can help you. I remember this happening to me, someone saying, “there’s this one today, or you could wait, because I’ve just propagated such and such and next season that’ll be ready.” So you’re really getting the knowledge from those people, and they’re always delighted to share that knowledge.
It occurs to me that your friends must be very nervous about inviting you over for a cup of tea – do you find them apologising for the state of their gardens?
All the time. If I’m off to a friend’s, they’ll often say, “don’t look at my garden!” But honestly, I can switch off. I do not go into people’s gardens and judge.
What about your own garden then? Do you enjoy the actual act of gardening?
I’m a fair weather gardener. If it’s a cold, grey day like today, I will do anything to avoid it. But once I’m out there, and I’ve got my music going, or I’m listening to a podcast,4 or whatever it is, I find it really meditative. It’s like weeding: the thought of it is really boring, but once you get out there it’s mindful. I’m never going to meditate – I’ve tried all sorts, can’t do it – but I can go out and lose four hours without even realising it. And it makes you feel good. So I do enjoy it.
What don’t you enjoy about it?
I take things like slugs personally. That’s the heartbreak of gardens. I can cope with something dying if I haven’t looked after it. I can cope with something dying because it just wasn’t happy there. But if slugs have murdered it…
Have you found an anti-slug approach that works?
I have four lines of defence. The first one is wool pellets – I think they’re called Slug Gone. You buy them in a big bucket and they smell like old sheep. Basically slugs don’t like the feel of wool. At Sissinghurst they just use sheep’s wool that they find on the fences, and they’ll put it around the bottoms of the dahlias or the zinnias.
Then there are the slug traps. There are horrible plastic ones, or you can use grapefruits or whatever. Something that will catch them. And then I got this thing – I sound like a mad woman – called a slug fence. It’s like a little copper mesh fence with little battens that you put up around your plants. And lastly, going out at night…
So I can get quite obsessed. But coming out in the morning and seeing all your annuals that you’ve tended to have all been mullered… that I really object to.
Did you enjoy this interview with Jo? I’ve got a bunch more interviews lined up for the coming weeks with people from every corner of the horticultural world. Subscribe now so you don’t miss out.
Got any ideas for people who you’d like me to speak with in future? Let me know in the comments!
You can actually go on a little 60-second video tour of The Wedgwood Garden, guided by Frances Tophill for BBC Gardener’s World, here.
Jo’s newsletter, The Gardening Mind, is a fascinating insight into her relationship with colour, plants, and design in general. I suggest that you go subscribe immediately!
Needless to say, I’ve already ordered my copy of the Woottens of Wenhaston plantsman’s handbook, by Michael Loftus. Jo’s right, there are a few of them out there. Prices vary wildly, but £3 or £4 seems about right. Here’s one I just found on eBay.
Jo says her absolute favourite podcast is Waldy & Bendy’s Adventures in Art. Or for gardening, Roots and All.
As a subscriber to the gardening mind, it was really interesting to read this interview and find out more about how Jo started her career and her design ethos. Thanks.