Tom Coward is headline speaker at Laois Garden Festival on Sunday 8th June 2025 celebrating the work of legendary Laois native and garden revolutionary William Robinson.
What if the current trend for wild-looking, naturalistic gardens isn't just aesthetic preference, but actually a profound reaction to our technology-saturated lives? Tom Coward, head gardener at the world-renowned Gravetye Manor, draws fascinating parallels between William Robinson's revolutionary "wild garden" concept from the 1870s and today's gardening renaissance.
With 15 years restoring Robinson's only surviving garden, Coward offers rare insights into balancing historic significance with contemporary needs. "It's been a love affair," he reflects, describing the challenge of reviving neglected infrastructure while honoring Robinson's principles. His approach to the garden's famous flower borders reveals thoughtful compromise—while Robinson insisted on never repeating plant groups, Coward occasionally introduces repetition to guide one-time visitors through the 30-acre landscape.
The conversation travels through Gravetye's diverse spaces, from woodland gardens punctuated with 70,000 naturalized daffodils to intensively managed productive areas supplying the hotel's restaurant. Particularly fascinating are Coward's techniques for maximizing seasonal interest, like coppicing flowering cherries after bloom to provide textural contrast, autumn color, and winter structure from a single plant.
Having worked at Great Dixter under Fergus Garrett, Coward brings exceptional knowledge to debates around native versus non-native plantings, emphasizing that diversity often supports more wildlife than purist approaches. His observations on climate extremes—longer droughts, heavier downpours, and increasingly powerful winds—highlight practical challenges facing modern gardeners.
Discover why Robinson's legacy deserves greater recognition and how his revolutionary ideas continue shaping gardens worldwide. Whether you're creating your own wild garden oasis or simply appreciate horticultural innovation, Coward's expertise offers valuable inspiration for balancing beauty, biodiversity, and practicality in any growing space.
Tom's talk at Laois Garden festival is one not to be missed. Other great talks on the day from Colin Jones Salterbridge gardens on growing your own cut flowers and Garden to Fork with your truly John Jones Master My Garden.
You can get your tickets here:
https://laoisgardenfestival.com
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email: info@mastermygarden.com
Master My Garden Courses:
https://mastermygarden.com/courses/
Check out Master My Garden on the following channels
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mastermygarden/
Instagram @Mastermygarden https://www.instagram.com/mastermygarden/
Until next week
Happy gardening
John
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 279 of master my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode isgoing to be a special one.
I'm delighted to be joined bytom coward, who's one of the the
best known head gardeners inthe uk.
He's, you know, currently headgardener of great high gravetide
manor, and you know it's aworld-renowned garden.
(00:32):
He's previously of greatdickster, he's done a stint in
great dickster and, uh,gravetide is.
It's a garden that, uh, williamrobinson, who has Leash
Connections, would have, andhe's the pioneer, I guess, or
one of the first people, tostart introducing sort of
cottage gardens.
(00:53):
You know perennial borders,those type things, and so we're
going to chat about all of thosethings.
This conversation.
There's loads of differentpotential avenues.
We could go down Loads ofinteresting things we can talk
about.
Tom is the main speaker at theLeash Garden Festival in a
couple of weeks' time, on Sunday, the 8th of June.
Colin Jones is also there andI'm also speaking myself that
(01:16):
morning.
So we have two people who aregoing to be at the Leash Garden
Festival, but the main man isTom.
So, tom, you're very, verywelcome to Master my Garden
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah.
So, as I say, you're the mainspeaker on Sunday, the 8th of
June, and I know you'd have alot of followers here.
You were at the Carlo GardenFestival last year.
I believe You've done talks forthe RHSI and, as I say, you're
a kind of well-renowned gardener.
So maybe just tell us a littlebit about your current role,
(01:54):
like a lot of people would befamiliar with Grave Tie, but
maybe just a brief synopsis ofyour gardening journey so far,
and then we'll start talkingabout William Robinson and his
style and influence and so on.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I mean, first of all I have to say how excited I am
about coming over to Irelandagain and uh, how much it's
always so much fun to come over.
I always learn so much.
I think the quality ofgardening in ireland is really
quite outstanding and of coursethe warmth of the hospitality is
something I always look forwardto yeah, what was the?
(02:30):
question my current role.
So, yeah, I'm head gardener atum grave time manor and I've
worked there for 15 years, um,and it's been a real love affair
, I think.
Um, I've known the garden sinceI was 18, when my friend used
to work here and we used tovisit, and of course it's an
important garden in terms ofgarden history, but it's got
(02:52):
such a special character that'salways been there.
When I started, the garden hadbecome somewhat derelict maybe
or neglected, and so it's beenkind of a restoration project
which has made it quite exciting, you know.
And how many years did you say?
15 years?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
yeah, so yeah, you've seen a huge evolution then, or
um yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's a long time in modern careers, but in the life
of a garden it's a blink of aneye.
You know so in many ways.
So it's a long time in moderncareers, but in the life of a
garden it's a blink of an eye.
Yeah, you know so in many ways.
So it's a cliche, but we reallyfeel like we're just starting
in in many respects yeah, andwhat did you have to work with?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
so obviously it.
You said it had got into alittle bit of disrepair or
neglect or whatever.
Um, but I'm sure structurallythere must have been lots of
trees, borders, so on there.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I mean it's the only garden that William
Robinson made.
Well, it's not true, he madeone for his publisher in London,
but they built a block ofapartments on that.
So it's the only surviving one,and it's a shame because the
guy was a genius in gardendesign.
I think it's such a beautifullyput together garden with
(04:09):
diversity and proportion.
So all of the hard featuressurvived, although we've had to
re-establish or tweak bits.
A lot of the veteran trees, ofcourse, and he was known for
wild gardening.
He really established the ideaof the concept of wild gardening
and so a lot of those um ideashave survived.
(04:31):
And the original plantings uh,things like daffodils.
One year alone he planted 70000 daffodils in the turf and
today there's carpets.
They've continued to spread soa a lot of these wild gardening
aspects.
The challenges were theinfrastructure you know the
glass houses had fallen downirrigation, the fencing for deer
(04:56):
, this kind of thing, compostseeds, boring things like that,
and also the deep-seededperennial weed challenges.
And the flower borders arealways changing every year, you
know, throughout robinson's life, and they were all dug up
during the war to growvegetables and they've had many
different incarnations.
(05:17):
But one of the big challengeswas to sort of renovate those
and find the correct plantingstyle.
Uh, which is that was difficult, yeah, you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
He was sort of the pioneer of wild gardening and
it's kind of topical in a way.
So his his style and correct meif I'm wrong his style seemed
to be natural, natural planting,um, the cottage border that we
would be accustomed to sort of,he was the pioneer of that, but
(05:51):
in a very, in a very natural waythat blended into the landscape
.
And I think I don't knowchelsea looking at chelsea over
the last week that seems to bethe style that was coming back
in.
Would it be correct in sayingthat?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
yeah, I'd agree with you.
I think that the wild garden,in modern terms, is something
with growing momentum, um and uh.
Oh, there's a.
That's an interesting thing.
As to why that should be, Idon't want to sound too
convoluted.
(06:30):
The wild garden invention in1870, he first published it and
it's arguable that, firstly,this is kind of a reaction to
the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolutioncreated the wealth and existed
and had spare time anddisposable income and uh, and so
(06:52):
we had, at the same time, allof these wonderful plants coming
back from all over the worldand initially had this idea that
we could naturalize these newplants in the peripheries of the
estate.
And that's gone on to evolveinto many different forms of
wild garden.
Um, you could have a veryformal wild garden if you have a
(07:12):
self-sowing population ofsomething that's wild and uh.
So even in a very formalsituation, you can have elements
of wild garden.
It's a simple thing.
That's incredibly complex, andso much so that in his second
edition of the Wildgarden, hehad to write a big long
explanatory to try and make thetitle clear.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, so, and, as I said, chelsea last week seemed
to be a lot about wilds.
And are we looking at the samething we?
You know the.
The reason now, I guess, ispeople are trying to be more
nature loving, more blend intothe environment, as opposed to
(07:57):
working against it.
Is that the sort of team thatWilliam Robinson would have been
pursuing?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, it's similar.
He still had quite firmformality and his initial idea
of the wild garden was that itshould be for the peripheries of
the estate.
However, then this has evolvedinto many things of wild feeling
, of the way a border is plantedor the seltzer element, and
it's interesting it's havingsuch a resurgence now.
(08:25):
I mean it's possibly becauseour wildlife and nature has
never been under such threat anddanger and that we are actually
very alienated from it as asociety and rather like it's a
little.
The initial idea was a reactionfrom the industrial revolution.
We came away from thecountryside and then we
(08:47):
romanticized the rural past, andmaybe it's a little bit about
the tech revolution and ourreaction to that.
Yeah, who's?
to say beyond getting itthinking, overthinking it a
little bit, um, but it's awonderful thing that we are
celebrating nature and welcomingthat into our garden.
I think that you can tell a lotabout the way it treats its
(09:11):
landscapes and the way we viewour landscapes as well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, and there is, there is the, I suppose, the.
You know there is the debate,the always native non-native.
You know there is the debate,the always native non-native.
There's the.
You know, there's the debatearound whether gardening
industry versus gardening are,you know, helpful for the
environment.
And and there's certainly, Ithink that's coming true and we
(09:37):
have our bloom show here kickingoff this week and I know the
theme for a lot of the gardensthere is this wilder look as
well, but it's there's a, it'ssort of a position now where
we're trying to soften gardening, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
My friend calls it un-gardening.
That's a great word.
We've got to be careful with it.
We don't want to go too far.
We mustn't forget what a gardenis and the wonderful things
that a garden does just by beinga garden.
I don't think that the tailshould wag the dog.
We want to celebrate ourwildlife and welcome them in,
but we don't want to make naturereserves in every garden.
(10:18):
In my opinion, yeah, but Ithink we can do so much for the
wildlife by very good andconscientious gardening.
Um, when robinson initiallywrote the wild garden, he had to
explain that it's not justabout using british natives,
although he did write a wholechapter about the use of British
natives.
It's difficult for us to dothat because we've actually got
(10:40):
so few sorry, british and Irish.
Yeah, I apologise, but it'sdifficult for us to do this
because we have so few nativeplants.
I'd say a place where they'rereally leading in this is in the
USA.
However, do you really want torestrict yourself?
(11:04):
There's evidence in the uk andireland that it's sheer
diversity of plants that reallyhelps wildlife and that we can
actually reduce biodiversity byrestricting ourselves to british
natives alone.
That's, yeah, bulk of diversity, but how you know, rarity
that's another way of measuringit.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So yeah, yeah, that's a brilliant one.
Uh, on gardening, I like thatword, it's a great word.
So, um, in in the, in GravetideManor, so obviously it's, you
know, world renowned as, as, asI said, but there a huge amount
of elements in it.
There's meadows, there's flowerborders, there's kitchen garden
(11:41):
orchards and so on.
Maybe just give us an overviewof the garden.
What size are we looking?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
at.
It's about 30 acres and we'rein the High Weald in Sussex.
It's a beautiful rolling woodedlandscape, although it's very
close to the Ashdown Forestwhere Winnie the Pooh is from,
so he's just down the road andit's a contrasting landscape as
well.
And it was laid out 1885,robinson came here so he had
(12:11):
done a lot of his journalismbefore he got his own garden and
the most interesting archivewe've got is a book he wrote
called 20 Years' Work Around anOld Manor, and you can look into
his mind as he's developingthis landscape over 20 years.
And it contrasts on thesouth-facing slope from wild
garden to formality.
(12:32):
So we have a wildflower meadowand then in the centre, the
manor with the flower garden, awild garden bank full of azaleas
and bulbs, formal croquet lawn,and there's that contrast again
.
And then a woodland garden andat the very top, the vegetable
(12:53):
garden.
So it's quite firm contrastnorth to south, east to west.
There's a woodland garden onthe east side that bleeds out
into the forest that we'resurrounded by, and going west
there's an orchard about twoacres of orchard that bleed out
into the forest.
So it's very cleverly designedyeah, and and vast um.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I presume you have a team of people in and vast.
I presume you have a team ofpeople in Grave Ty.
How many people have you?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Seven including me, so it's a very good team of
gardeners.
I'm lucky to work with reallylovely people and quite talented
, and this time of year we coulddo with a few more, but you
always want more, don't you?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, for sure.
Tell me, um, in relation to thegarden itself, so obviously,
huge, huge flower borders, beds,vegetable garden, kitchen
garden, orchard um, tell usabout the planting in the, in
the flower elements of us, andmaybe what sort of parts of the
garden are your favorite?
Where do you find yourselfgravitating towards the most?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
um well, I can't say I've got a favorite area because
I love diversity, that's what Ireally like, and there's
certain groups of plants that Ibecome infatuated about at
certain times of the year, butreally it's the diversity of the
garden.
Uh, sorry, and you were askingabout the flower borders yeah,
so what?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
what kind of planting are we looking at here?
Is there, is there teams?
Is there something that youknow, kind of combinations that
you can, that you can give thelisteners on on, on the borders
that are there?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
well, first of all I should mention that we're a
hotel and restaurant and thereason I say that is it makes
the planting quite interesting,because we're trying to do two
things.
We've got the heritage sidewhere we want to sort of um,
celebrate robinson's principles,and then we've got the hotel
and restaurant where we need acontinued display.
(14:51):
If you own the garden, it willbe a very different look to if
you just visit it once.
So an example of how we differfrom robinson's plantings what
we do now is that robinson wouldsay you must never repeat a
pocket of plants because there'sso many different plants.
Never repeat it, uh, and inyour own garden definitely, but
if you just visit once, thisrepetition sometimes to lead the
(15:12):
eye is quite important.
So we try and play withrepetition and uh and and shapes
as much as color.
Um, in the spring we do a lot oftulips.
We have this miserable grayenglish winter and then we need
the color.
The tulips are like an antidote.
They now they've just finished.
A few weeks ago we've got ourlupins and our hesperus as key
(15:36):
ingredients, with angelicagiving us a lot of shape and
allium, and we're just in thephase of pulling out a lot of
our forget-me-nots now andplanting salvias and dahlias and
cosmos.
We're lucky that we've gotgreenhouses and nursery space,
that we can grow all of theseparts ourselves, and what I
(15:57):
haven't mentioned, whichprobably, well, you've got the
herbaceous perennial layer,which is so important in there.
Um, hediciums, asters, um, uh,hardy salvias, uh, and then and
then, um, the shrubs are so, soimportant.
The shrubs give you thestructure and the shrubs are so,
so important.
The shrubs give you thestructure and the shrubs we call
(16:17):
anchor plants.
They don't change, they staythere all the time and they
influence the planting off ofthem.
It started as a rose garden,along with other things, and so
the roses are very, veryimportant, some historic
varieties, but also some of themodern ones because he would
have picked the best breeding ofhis day, so there's no reason
(16:40):
why we shouldn't pick the bestbreeding available today.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, and what other shrubs are we looking at?
So shrub roses are in there.
Any other shrubs as part ofthat structure that are notable?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Philadelphus, I'm very fond of at the moment.
I was so happy that they got itwas that pink philadelphia's
plant of the year at chelsea.
I thought that was wonderful,was it?
Yes, yes, yes, they're awonderful, underrated group of
plants, along with deutzia,which is starting to look
wonderful now.
Um, now we've said the roses,uh, foliage, you, you know
(17:16):
things like Phats, hedraAtroplex hallowensis, which is a
lovely silver foliage, and someof the willows, a lovely willow
called Nancy Saunders thatgives us a silver throughout the
summer, and we grow that as acoppice.
And many shrubs, some of theprunus.
I love cherry trees, uh, we'vegot prunus incisor, kojo no mai,
(17:41):
which is a beautiful, beautiful, uh, in flower foliage, autumn
color, but even in the winter,the structure, and so we're
trying to find plants that giveus year-round structure.
Another trick with the prunus isseveral that we do this with.
A good example is one calledglandulosa alboplena nipponica.
(18:03):
Brilliant is another good one.
And we let that flower and assoon as it's finished flowering,
we cut it right down to sixinches and grow it as a coppice
and then throughout the seasonthat will grow back it.
It will give you autumn colour.
We keep those stems through thewinter until they flower again
the next season.
So the way we prune the shrubsis also very important.
(18:25):
Yeah, to get the right heightsand structure.
Yeah, as time goes by, we'llactually be working in more
woody material into the borders.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Nice by, we'll start working in more woody material
into the borders, nice and andin relation to so you mentioned,
it's a hotel, um, and looks afabulous hotel.
By the way, it's, it's a, it'sa place that looks like it.
It would be lovely to visit umyour the kitchen garden, the
orchard, have they to feed?
You know all of the all of therestaurant, it its vegetables,
fruits and so on, or whatcombinations at different times
(19:00):
of the year.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Everything we grow is used in the restaurant.
In the orchard that's largelybased around making apple juice.
Most of the orchard had comedown when we started over the
years.
It was quite decrepit, so wereplanted.
Um well, it was only about 60trees on quite large rootstocks,
(19:26):
and the variety selection therewas really based around
blending the acidity andsweetness to make a very nice
apple juice.
It's strange because we make alittle bit of cider from it and
that tastes like battery acid.
It really is disgusting, butthe juice is beautiful, but the
cider is a very stimulatingdrink.
So that's the orchard.
(19:48):
The orchard's fascinating aswell because it's what we call a
productive wild garden.
It's primarily there as anaesthetic, to be a wild garden,
to look beautiful and blossom,with the camassias, uh, the
wildflower meadow underneath andthen the beautiful trees.
But it's really important theintegrity, that it pays for
(20:09):
itself, that everything is usedand it has a product.
Yeah, so, as well as the juiceand the cider, we have apples in
the rooms and a chef is alwaysdoing a different apple dessert
throughout the season, and we'llstart picking in august and
then, with storage, we'll goright through till january, you
know.
So it's quite a long season.
(20:29):
Uh, that's the fruit in theorchard.
In the kitchen garden we'regrowing vegetables, cut flowers
and um and edible flowers andfruit of course, more soft fruit
and and top fruit onrestrictive forms where we can
get really fussy.
Uh, grow them as well aspossible.
We just started the process ofthinning our fruit in there
(20:51):
actually, um, and that's a yearround production of vegetables.
Sometimes there's seasonalthings and we have to give the
chef a big glut, and so there'sa lot of work in the kitchen as
well as the harvesting andprocessing, but ideally we're
giving him just the right amountat the right time steadily
(21:12):
through the season.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that takes a little bit of planning and work.
Is there kind of staplevegetables that you guys use all
the time?
Obviously salad leaves, Ipresume things like that, but is
there we grow baby vegetables.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Every year the chef wants these vegetables smaller
and smaller and smaller.
John, on Monday I'm just goingto give him the seed packet to
save myself here cook these.
I've got a certificate for mygiant onions I grew once, but
every year he wants them smalland that's what the chef wants.
So we've got these beds wherewe do weekly sowings and weekly
(21:50):
harvests, and it's quite carefultimings on that.
We'll start in the polytunneland then under cloches.
Now we're going outside andwe'll go right the way through
into the autumn and then startunder the polytunnel again and
those autumn signs we'll beharvesting in March and April.
That's the hardest time.
So there'll be things likeradish, turnips, beetroots,
(22:12):
carrots, leeks, spring onions,many things, parsnips.
Parsnips are useful as a catchcrop, so we have a lot of
staples that go through the year.
However, it's kind of nice totry and celebrate those seasonal
flavors that you only get at acertain time.
We're just in our peakasparagus production at the
(22:34):
moment and it's just wonderful.
You can't get that flavor atany other time and it is
beautiful asparagus in the shops, but the flavor is so different
to something that's been pickedthat day.
Yeah, and so we can try andsupply flavors that you can only
get from the garden, and that'sthe ambition yeah, yeah, sounds
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's actually my talk on on june the 8th is
around garden to fork, so yeahthat's yeah, um, a major part of
what I talk about is soilhealth.
Um, how do you guys factor thatin?
Do you manage soil health?
Is there a do you practice?
No dig, you know what, what,what, what ways are you doing
(23:15):
your vegetable gardener?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
um, yeah, we sort of phase digging out over the years
and we make a lot of compostfrom horse manure and goat
manure and all of our kitchenwaste and all of our garden
waste like a lot of compost.
And we have a rotation systemin the garden and we try and
(23:38):
compost a certain amount ofthose beds each year, ideally in
the autumn, just lay it on thesurface for the worms to take
down.
There's still an element ofsoil cultivation or disturbance,
let's call it, in the potatoesthat we grow and we grow tulips
to cut flowers.
They need to come out each yearso that turns the soil,
(24:00):
although I'm interested inchanging that.
Perhaps we don't do cover crops.
We've played around with it.
You know green manures, we'veplayed around with it in the
past and we might even do itagain, but at the moment the
production space is so valuableto us that it's difficult to fit
(24:22):
in with what we do.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, um and uh, yeah , well, you probably don't have
a requirement for it anyway,because you are utilizing the
space pretty much all the time.
So you have plant, you haveplant cover anyway, it's just
yeah, yeah, it's very intensiveproduction.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Something that we've started doing is, um, if the
soil is going to sit open, thenwe cover it with compost in the
autumn and also put mypex overit as a cover.
That's really useful to protectthe soil.
The other beauty of that is itkeeps the weeds from growing and
it can just be rolled backthrough the spring, so that's
quite nice yeah, good idea, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So yeah, put your put your mypex on top and then open
up as required in the springyeah, the problem is the mypex
looks quite ugly.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
But yeah that's the trade off for the, for the, the
good it's doing, I think yeah,tell us a little bit about your
time in great dickster.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Um was so.
You're 15 years where you are,so it was in your early
gardening days, I guess, inGreat Dixter, was it.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well, I only actually worked there for three years,
just after Christo died, but Iwas fortunate enough to have
known it for a long time.
I first went there when I was18, on a working volunteer
weekend, and it was alife-changing experience.
(25:46):
It was a wonderful fun.
Christo was full of energy.
Christopher Lloyd, the owner hewas full of energy and fun in
those days and we spent theweekend digging a vegetable
patch and then spent theevenings in the great hall
drinking whiskey with cristo.
It was incredible.
And, uh, we sort of becamefriends and I stayed in touch
(26:08):
and I worked in another gardendown the road and, uh, I was
very, very close friends with a,a mutual friend that cared for
cro when he was quite elderly.
So I sort of ended up spendinga lot of time with Christo at
that phase of his life.
And uh, uh, and then I was, uh,I was working in New Zealand
(26:29):
when Christo died and Ferguscalled me and said you know I'm
a bit short-staffed and you'vealways wanted to work here, tom,
and it's a good chance if youwant to come along.
And, uh, I got difficult toleave new zealand but I was on
the plane fairly quickly.
Yeah, really formative.
(26:50):
And fergus.
I was thinking about it thismorning.
Actually, fergus was veryprecise about everything you did
and you know, previous to thisI've worked at queue and a few
other places.
I've been gardening, and hesaid I'm going to start right
from the beginning.
Um, and it was.
It was a wonderful educationactually to go right back to the
(27:11):
start and really consider whatyou're doing, what you're trying
to achieve.
And, yeah, I'm always indebtedto dexter everything I've
learned, really, really,particularly Fergus.
He's a great teacher, and thefriends I met there as well, the
whole community, yeah, You'recoming over to Ireland, as I
mentioned, and we're going totalk.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
You're going to talk, I think, about William Robinson
, being that the fact that hehas strong leash connections
Maybe just chat a little bitabout that, not give too much
away, but a little bit aboutwhat people could expect or can
expect on the day.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So yeah, I was going to talk about a little bit about
William Robinson's life and theinfluence he's had.
He's a fascinating man thatI've sort of gradually got to
know over the years throughworking in his garden and he's
(28:09):
largely forgotten in a lot ofways for the impact he made.
Little is known about his earlyIrish life.
He was very passionate aboutIreland and wrote a lot with
great fondness about Ireland,but he clearly went out of his
way to cover up things about hisearly life.
He's most likely from LeishCarlow perhaps, although County
(28:34):
Dublin lays claim, as doesCounty Down, as does Donegal.
There's many stories that hemight have grown up down the
road.
So just to talk about Robinsonand then look at the garden he
made at Gravetie, really as away of illustrating his impact
on horticulture and some of hisprinciples, and perhaps, if I
(28:56):
can get the pictures, to showsome of the wonderful irish
gardens that really um were sodeeply influenced by him and and
have continued those, thatstyle of gardening yeah, yeah,
it's funny.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
It's funny you say that because I have always been
aware of him, but not wouldn'thave a deep knowledge of you,
know his works and so on, andand so, obviously, when I heard
that that's what you were goingto be speaking about, I've been
looking at it over the last fewweeks and he definitely is not
(29:29):
remembered the way that heshould be, given the gardens
that he influenced and thegardeners that he has influenced
over the years.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
To illustrate it when Richard Bisgrove published his
biography in 2008, and Richardtravelled around the UK and
Ireland giving talks togardening groups, he would start
every talk by saying can youput your hand up?
If you heard of William Robinsonbefore you heard of this talk,
(30:05):
he reckoned at that point about20 of gardeners.
And then he would say now putyour hand up if you've heard of
gertrude jekyll and the wholeroom, right, and so it's
interesting that they werecontemporaries.
Robinson was possibly a littlebit more well known than jekyll
at her time, but it'sinteresting how she's so
celebrated today and he's beenlargely forgotten.
The other sad thing is he'soften remembered as being quite
(30:25):
cantankerous, and I think thathe was a man who was instigating
change and he wasn't afraid toruffle some feathers and he was
had a very challenging earlylife, which might have made him
want to fight for what he wastrying to achieve.
But after reading particularlya lot of the letters that he
(30:48):
wrote between friends, I justthink he was one of the kindest,
most gentle people, but hewouldn't have suffered fools,
that's for sure.
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
No, it doesn't sound like it and, again, my research
is not deep, I don't have theknowledge or the background
information that you would.
But there was an interestingone on Wikipedia about and this
is why I didn't say he was fromLeash, and you've mentioned that
there's several other countieshave sort of said he's from down
Donegal or, but it's.
(31:20):
It seems to be a little bitunclear.
There's definitely connectionsto leash, that's for sure, and
there was an interesting storyon wikipedia whether true or not
, and again it is questioned onwikipedia, so it might not be
true of, uh, some argument hehad with the, with the barn who
owned the house, and uh, hestopped lighting or he let the
fires go out on a cold night inthe glass houses.
(31:42):
So so maybe there's truth in it, maybe there's not, but uh,
yeah if it's the scene for whatwas quite a fiery career.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He had a lot of very open rows and arguments and yeah
, um, yeah yeah he would oftencontradict himself as well.
You know, right, someone thatwrote so huge amount of works,
uh, it's almost inevitable tohappen.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, at some point in time.
Um, it's funny, you mentionedsomething about his planting
when, when you were speakingabout the borders, in in grave
tie and you said, um, you knowthat now, you, you, you will
plant some blocks and repeat,plant to draw an eye or to draw
your, your attention, down azone, um, but his, his
philosophy, was to not plant thesame plant twice because
(32:29):
there's so many options outthere.
What's your, aside from thehotel?
What's your, you know, if youwere gardening in your own
garden, what's your thoughts on?
Because a lot of the verymodern planting is blocks and,
you know, creating blocks ofcolor and so on, blocks of shape
(32:49):
, and that brings you down inrepetition, across a border.
What's your own kind of style,philosophy on that?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well, I think proportion and scale is really
important.
Um, and the other question ishow is it going to be cared for?
Um, big blocks, big, boldblocks, are a bit easier to
manage.
You know broad, sweetstatements here.
Um, if it was my own privatepersonal garden, I'll just have
(33:21):
a collection of plants, probably, and I wouldn't care how it
looked to anyone else because itwould be beautiful to me and I
would only need, you know, onegroup of each other than the
stuff that I'm excited about andpropagating.
Um, so, but uh, I don't knowmaybe I'll get bored of that as
well.
I think it needs to beinteresting, and I and my friend
(33:46):
that I get a lot of inspirationfrom he says well, interesting
is the difference between prettyand beautiful.
And you want a beautiful gardenand for that to be beautiful it
has to be interesting.
You know, now that could be theway the plants are selected, or
the type of plants that you'regrowing, or how they're grown or
how they combine, but it needsto sort of, you know, just
(34:08):
engage that interest a littlebit.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I think yeah is that the same friend that came up
with the term on gardening?
I?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
might be um taking all these great phrases off my
mates and regards there's somegood ones there.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Now for sure, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I just plagiarized my mates.
That's all I do, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I should reference these phrases yeah, yeah you
mentioned at the at the verystart of our conversation.
You mentioned, um, great irishgardens and obviously some are
influenced by william robinson,but I'm sure you've been to
others here.
Is there any?
And and it is something thatyou know, I've mentioned on the
podcast this morning.
This is very much an irishpodcast, I guess, but I'm sure
you've been to others here.
Is there any?
And it is something that youknow I've mentioned on the
(34:54):
podcast this morning.
This is very much an Irishpodcast, I guess.
Generally speaking, and Ipersonally always feel that we
have gardens, and particularlygardeners of a really, really
high standard here, and butthey're very much under the
radar by comparison.
To say that you guys, um, and Iand I always feel that we
(35:14):
should shout about it a littlebit more.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So maybe what gardens catch your eye here, what
gardeners maybe you know drawyour attention or you admire or
whatever well, I mean I could, Iwould love to take six months
off and just study Irish gardens, you know, and that would
probably just be scraping thebarrel and it's such a depth of
(35:36):
culture and and and incrediblestandards there.
Now, I've always been very fondof Altamont gardens and it was
Roberts and Hester that HesterFord that really introduced me
to Irish gardens and that reallyis a typically Robinsonian
(35:57):
garden.
I think that in Ireland thewoodland garden is done to
exception, some of the bestwoodland gardens in the world.
You guys have the climate.
You know you don't go onholiday to Ireland for a suntan,
but you will see nice magnolias.
Well, one that really blew meaway was Mount Congreve down in
(36:19):
Waterford.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It is Waterford, isn't it?
When were you there last?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
A couple of three years ago, perhaps Michael was
still working there.
Michael White was the curator,who sadly left.
I went to I think it was 2021,I went to a Galanthus thing that
Robert does at Altamont theGalanthus Gala.
It was wonderful.
And then Hester kindly took medown to see Mount Congreve and
(36:49):
of course nothing was in flowerbut you know what's there and it
blew me away and Michael saidlook, if you like magnolias,
you've got to come back in amonth or two and see it.
And at the time I thought, yeah, yeah, maybe next year,
something like that.
And I was on the plane and Ithought what the hell?
And as soon as I got home Ibooked tickets to go back in
March to see the Magnoliacamberlise flower.
(37:12):
It was out of this world.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
The other ones, to mention that I haven't seen them
all and there's many I'd liketo see, but Kilmacarren is
incredibly exciting.
I would love to have anotherwalk around Glasnevin and that's
been a long old time since I'vebeen there and Mount Usher.
Of course you can't talk aboutIrish gardens and not mention I
think it's considered one of themost Robinsonian gardens and he
(37:40):
quotes it a lot in the EnglishFlower Garden book and in other
texts.
So that was very, very special.
Oh, but there's so many.
There's so many, I think, uh,and the depth of talent as well.
Going to an irish plantconference is always quite
humbling, yeah I'm glad youmentioned that.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's nice.
It's nice to hear that becauseI do think you know, generally
speaking, we have reallytalented gardeners here and
there's a lot of good gardens,and it's nice to hear you know
from from across the water, Iguess yeah, I get very jealous.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Last time we had a drought I said, if it does this
again, I'm moving to cork.
It hasn't rained for a while.
Here's again, so I should becareful what I go around saying
really, yeah, um, that that kindof leads me.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Um, I I thought about it earlier on and then I'd
forgotten about it, but itmentions again in your 15 years
in Gravetie, have you noticedseeing much by change in your
climate, or is it demonstratingin the garden?
We are getting these sort ofperiods, maybe once a year, of
longer, drier weather, and we'vejust come out of that um are
(38:51):
you seeing a trend all I can sayis that there is no trend, and
all it is is things seem to begetting more extreme.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We'll have longer wet periods and longer and hotter
dry periods than before and, uh,of particular concern is the
power of the winds, andparticularly for you guys.
I was heartbroken in Februarytime to hear about the damage.
Wicklow was particularly badlyhit, wasn't it?
And Marks, yeah, it wasFebruary time, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
It was, yeah, I can't remember the exact date, but it
was there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
There's been a few Star.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Morn was the bad one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
There's been a few.
So we worry about the droughtsand the heat, but often we get
blindsided by the power of thewind.
That said, you've got toremember we had a massive
hurricane here in 1987 and wehad that massive drought in 1976
.
I'm not saying that thingsaren't changing at all, but what
I am saying is that there is alot of resilience that we can
(39:49):
cope with with elements of this.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, and it has happened before, but I do think
you're right.
It's very hard to see a trend.
You know, from a vegetablegarden perspective, you know,
and it's very hard to see atrend.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It would be easier if we knew there was a trend or
what would happen, but we'rejust sort of guessing with the
extremes, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, it is different , but something that's
noticeable to me.
The extremes are definitelynoticeable the extreme periods
of of wet and the and thedownpours, then the, the drought
, the drought and long periodsof of no rain and, as you
mentioned, the winds.
They're quite constant here andquite strong, I would.
I would feel they're strongerover the years, um, but the the
(40:31):
big thing that I noticed overthe last couple years was was
lack of sunlight, and that'ssomething that really was stark
last year particularly.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Um seems to be a bit better this year, but generally
seems to be yeah, last year wasgloomy, although I I actually
enjoyed last year here becauseit rained.
It was terrible for the slugsand I take that the lack of
sunlight, um.
But yeah, I, I, just I worryabout the older trees.
(40:59):
I find that very distressing,you know.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, yeah they get yeah, they get under stress for
a couple of years and then somethey just give up.
Then a couple years later.
Yeah, I find that as well.
Yeah, yeah, so I have beenreally interesting chat.
Obviously, buds and blossomscoming up on sunday, june the
8th I'm not sure of your timethat that you're talking at but
(41:24):
it's going to be a reallyinteresting chat.
You've mentioned, you knowyou'll be talking about the
influence of william robinsonand you know, listening to our
conversation today, hisinfluence is is huge and
recognition of that influencemaybe not, but that's what talks
like yours, you know, will help, will help to bring to light, I
(41:45):
guess.
Um, it's been a reallyinteresting chat, really looking
forward to hearing you on onjune the 8th and thank you very,
very much for coming on toMaster my Garden podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Thank you, John, Thanks for taking the time and
very much looking forward tomeeting you when I'm out there
and and to have a lot of fun onthe trip.
So yeah, thanks for the time.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
So that's been this week's episode.
A huge thanks to Tom for comingon.
Really interesting chat chat.
So, as I said, the conversationwent in many different
directions.
Looking forward to hearing themspeaking on june, the 8th, so
that day I'm speaking I thinkI'm first speaker, then colin
jones from salter bridge gardensis talking about creating a cut
flower garden and then tom isthe main speaker of the day and
(42:27):
along the lines of what we'retalking about today and that's.
You know, that's going to be afascinating chat and, again,
could go in lots of directions,but it'll be interesting to hear
a bit more about WilliamRobinson and, as I said, bring
his expertise and his influenceto, you know, a greater audience
.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time.
(42:49):
Happy gardening you.
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 279 of master my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode isgoing to be a special one.
I'm delighted to be joined bytom coward, who's one of the the
best known head gardeners inthe uk.
He's, you know, currently headgardener of great high gravetide
manor, and you know it's aworld-renowned garden.
(00:32):
He's previously of greatdickster, he's done a stint in
great dickster and, uh,gravetide is.
It's a garden that, uh, williamrobinson, who has Leash
Connections, would have, andhe's the pioneer, I guess, or
one of the first people, tostart introducing sort of
cottage gardens.
(00:53):
You know perennial borders,those type things, and so we're
going to chat about all of thosethings.
This conversation.
There's loads of differentpotential avenues.
We could go down Loads ofinteresting things we can talk
about.
Tom is the main speaker at theLeash Garden Festival in a
couple of weeks' time, on Sunday, the 8th of June.
Colin Jones is also there andI'm also speaking myself that
(01:16):
morning.
So we have two people who aregoing to be at the Leash Garden
Festival, but the main man isTom.
So, tom, you're very, verywelcome to Master my Garden
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah.
So, as I say, you're the mainspeaker on Sunday, the 8th of
June, and I know you'd have alot of followers here.
You were at the Carlo GardenFestival last year.
I believe You've done talks forthe RHSI and, as I say, you're
a kind of well-renowned gardener.
So maybe just tell us a littlebit about your current role,
(01:54):
like a lot of people would befamiliar with Grave Tie, but
maybe just a brief synopsis ofyour gardening journey so far,
and then we'll start talkingabout William Robinson and his
style and influence and so on.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I mean, first of all I have to say how excited I am
about coming over to Irelandagain and uh, how much it's
always so much fun to come over.
I always learn so much.
I think the quality ofgardening in ireland is really
quite outstanding and of coursethe warmth of the hospitality is
something I always look forwardto yeah, what was the?
(02:30):
question my current role.
So, yeah, I'm head gardener atum grave time manor and I've
worked there for 15 years, um,and it's been a real love affair
, I think.
Um, I've known the garden sinceI was 18, when my friend used
to work here and we used tovisit, and of course it's an
important garden in terms ofgarden history, but it's got
(02:52):
such a special character that'salways been there.
When I started, the garden hadbecome somewhat derelict maybe
or neglected, and so it's beenkind of a restoration project
which has made it quite exciting, you know.
And how many years did you say?
15 years?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
yeah, so yeah, you've seen a huge evolution then, or
um yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's a long time in modern careers, but in the life
of a garden it's a blink of aneye.
You know so in many ways.
So it's a long time in moderncareers, but in the life of a
garden it's a blink of an eye.
Yeah, you know so in many ways.
So it's a cliche, but we reallyfeel like we're just starting
in in many respects yeah, andwhat did you have to work with?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
so obviously it.
You said it had got into alittle bit of disrepair or
neglect or whatever.
Um, but I'm sure structurallythere must have been lots of
trees, borders, so on there.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I mean it's the only garden that William
Robinson made.
Well, it's not true, he madeone for his publisher in London,
but they built a block ofapartments on that.
So it's the only surviving one,and it's a shame because the
guy was a genius in gardendesign.
I think it's such a beautifullyput together garden with
(04:09):
diversity and proportion.
So all of the hard featuressurvived, although we've had to
re-establish or tweak bits.
A lot of the veteran trees, ofcourse, and he was known for
wild gardening.
He really established the ideaof the concept of wild gardening
and so a lot of those um ideashave survived.
(04:31):
And the original plantings uh,things like daffodils.
One year alone he planted 70000 daffodils in the turf and
today there's carpets.
They've continued to spread soa a lot of these wild gardening
aspects.
The challenges were theinfrastructure you know the
glass houses had fallen downirrigation, the fencing for deer
(04:56):
, this kind of thing, compostseeds, boring things like that,
and also the deep-seededperennial weed challenges.
And the flower borders arealways changing every year, you
know, throughout robinson's life, and they were all dug up
during the war to growvegetables and they've had many
different incarnations.
(05:17):
But one of the big challengeswas to sort of renovate those
and find the correct plantingstyle.
Uh, which is that was difficult, yeah, you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
He was sort of the pioneer of wild gardening and
it's kind of topical in a way.
So his his style and correct meif I'm wrong his style seemed
to be natural, natural planting,um, the cottage border that we
would be accustomed to sort of,he was the pioneer of that, but
(05:51):
in a very, in a very natural waythat blended into the landscape
.
And I think I don't knowchelsea looking at chelsea over
the last week that seems to bethe style that was coming back
in.
Would it be correct in sayingthat?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
yeah, I'd agree with you.
I think that the wild garden,in modern terms, is something
with growing momentum, um and uh.
Oh, there's a.
That's an interesting thing.
As to why that should be, Idon't want to sound too
convoluted.
(06:30):
The wild garden invention in1870, he first published it and
it's arguable that, firstly,this is kind of a reaction to
the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolutioncreated the wealth and existed
and had spare time anddisposable income and uh, and so
(06:52):
we had, at the same time, allof these wonderful plants coming
back from all over the worldand initially had this idea that
we could naturalize these newplants in the peripheries of the
estate.
And that's gone on to evolveinto many different forms of
wild garden.
Um, you could have a veryformal wild garden if you have a
(07:12):
self-sowing population ofsomething that's wild and uh.
So even in a very formalsituation, you can have elements
of wild garden.
It's a simple thing.
That's incredibly complex, andso much so that in his second
edition of the Wildgarden, hehad to write a big long
explanatory to try and make thetitle clear.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, so, and, as I said, chelsea last week seemed
to be a lot about wilds.
And are we looking at the samething we?
You know the.
The reason now, I guess, ispeople are trying to be more
nature loving, more blend intothe environment, as opposed to
(07:57):
working against it.
Is that the sort of team thatWilliam Robinson would have been
pursuing?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, it's similar.
He still had quite firmformality and his initial idea
of the wild garden was that itshould be for the peripheries of
the estate.
However, then this has evolvedinto many things of wild feeling
, of the way a border is plantedor the seltzer element, and
it's interesting it's havingsuch a resurgence now.
(08:25):
I mean it's possibly becauseour wildlife and nature has
never been under such threat anddanger and that we are actually
very alienated from it as asociety and rather like it's a
little.
The initial idea was a reactionfrom the industrial revolution.
We came away from thecountryside and then we
(08:47):
romanticized the rural past, andmaybe it's a little bit about
the tech revolution and ourreaction to that.
Yeah, who's?
to say beyond getting itthinking, overthinking it a
little bit, um, but it's awonderful thing that we are
celebrating nature and welcomingthat into our garden.
I think that you can tell a lotabout the way it treats its
(09:11):
landscapes and the way we viewour landscapes as well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, and there is, there is the, I suppose, the.
You know there is the debate,the always native non-native.
You know there is the debate,the always native non-native.
There's the.
You know, there's the debatearound whether gardening
industry versus gardening are,you know, helpful for the
environment.
And and there's certainly, Ithink that's coming true and we
(09:37):
have our bloom show here kickingoff this week and I know the
theme for a lot of the gardensthere is this wilder look as
well, but it's there's a, it'ssort of a position now where
we're trying to soften gardening, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
My friend calls it un-gardening.
That's a great word.
We've got to be careful with it.
We don't want to go too far.
We mustn't forget what a gardenis and the wonderful things
that a garden does just by beinga garden.
I don't think that the tailshould wag the dog.
We want to celebrate ourwildlife and welcome them in,
but we don't want to make naturereserves in every garden.
(10:18):
In my opinion, yeah, but Ithink we can do so much for the
wildlife by very good andconscientious gardening.
Um, when robinson initiallywrote the wild garden, he had to
explain that it's not justabout using british natives,
although he did write a wholechapter about the use of British
natives.
It's difficult for us to dothat because we've actually got
(10:40):
so few sorry, british and Irish.
Yeah, I apologise, but it'sdifficult for us to do this
because we have so few nativeplants.
I'd say a place where they'rereally leading in this is in the
USA.
However, do you really want torestrict yourself?
(11:04):
There's evidence in the uk andireland that it's sheer
diversity of plants that reallyhelps wildlife and that we can
actually reduce biodiversity byrestricting ourselves to british
natives alone.
That's, yeah, bulk of diversity, but how you know, rarity
that's another way of measuringit.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So yeah, yeah, that's a brilliant one.
Uh, on gardening, I like thatword, it's a great word.
So, um, in in the, in GravetideManor, so obviously it's, you
know, world renowned as, as, asI said, but there a huge amount
of elements in it.
There's meadows, there's flowerborders, there's kitchen garden
(11:41):
orchards and so on.
Maybe just give us an overviewof the garden.
What size are we looking?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
at.
It's about 30 acres and we'rein the High Weald in Sussex.
It's a beautiful rolling woodedlandscape, although it's very
close to the Ashdown Forestwhere Winnie the Pooh is from,
so he's just down the road andit's a contrasting landscape as
well.
And it was laid out 1885,robinson came here so he had
(12:11):
done a lot of his journalismbefore he got his own garden and
the most interesting archivewe've got is a book he wrote
called 20 Years' Work Around anOld Manor, and you can look into
his mind as he's developingthis landscape over 20 years.
And it contrasts on thesouth-facing slope from wild
garden to formality.
(12:32):
So we have a wildflower meadowand then in the centre, the
manor with the flower garden, awild garden bank full of azaleas
and bulbs, formal croquet lawn,and there's that contrast again
.
And then a woodland garden andat the very top, the vegetable
(12:53):
garden.
So it's quite firm contrastnorth to south, east to west.
There's a woodland garden onthe east side that bleeds out
into the forest that we'resurrounded by, and going west
there's an orchard about twoacres of orchard that bleed out
into the forest.
So it's very cleverly designedyeah, and and vast um.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I presume you have a team of people in and vast.
I presume you have a team ofpeople in Grave Ty.
How many people have you?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Seven including me, so it's a very good team of
gardeners.
I'm lucky to work with reallylovely people and quite talented
, and this time of year we coulddo with a few more, but you
always want more, don't you?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, for sure.
Tell me, um, in relation to thegarden itself, so obviously,
huge, huge flower borders, beds,vegetable garden, kitchen
garden, orchard um, tell usabout the planting in the, in
the flower elements of us, andmaybe what sort of parts of the
garden are your favorite?
Where do you find yourselfgravitating towards the most?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
um well, I can't say I've got a favorite area because
I love diversity, that's what Ireally like, and there's
certain groups of plants that Ibecome infatuated about at
certain times of the year, butreally it's the diversity of the
garden.
Uh, sorry, and you were askingabout the flower borders yeah,
so what?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
what kind of planting are we looking at here?
Is there, is there teams?
Is there something that youknow, kind of combinations that
you can, that you can give thelisteners on on, on the borders
that are there?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
well, first of all I should mention that we're a
hotel and restaurant and thereason I say that is it makes
the planting quite interesting,because we're trying to do two
things.
We've got the heritage sidewhere we want to sort of um,
celebrate robinson's principles,and then we've got the hotel
and restaurant where we need acontinued display.
(14:51):
If you own the garden, it willbe a very different look to if
you just visit it once.
So an example of how we differfrom robinson's plantings what
we do now is that robinson wouldsay you must never repeat a
pocket of plants because there'sso many different plants.
Never repeat it, uh, and inyour own garden definitely, but
if you just visit once, thisrepetition sometimes to lead the
(15:12):
eye is quite important.
So we try and play withrepetition and uh and and shapes
as much as color.
Um, in the spring we do a lot oftulips.
We have this miserable grayenglish winter and then we need
the color.
The tulips are like an antidote.
They now they've just finished.
A few weeks ago we've got ourlupins and our hesperus as key
(15:36):
ingredients, with angelicagiving us a lot of shape and
allium, and we're just in thephase of pulling out a lot of
our forget-me-nots now andplanting salvias and dahlias and
cosmos.
We're lucky that we've gotgreenhouses and nursery space,
that we can grow all of theseparts ourselves, and what I
(15:57):
haven't mentioned, whichprobably, well, you've got the
herbaceous perennial layer,which is so important in there.
Um, hediciums, asters, um, uh,hardy salvias, uh, and then and
then, um, the shrubs are so, soimportant.
The shrubs give you thestructure and the shrubs are so,
so important.
The shrubs give you thestructure and the shrubs we call
(16:17):
anchor plants.
They don't change, they staythere all the time and they
influence the planting off ofthem.
It started as a rose garden,along with other things, and so
the roses are very, veryimportant, some historic
varieties, but also some of themodern ones because he would
have picked the best breeding ofhis day, so there's no reason
(16:40):
why we shouldn't pick the bestbreeding available today.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, and what other shrubs are we looking at?
So shrub roses are in there.
Any other shrubs as part ofthat structure that are notable?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Philadelphus, I'm very fond of at the moment.
I was so happy that they got itwas that pink philadelphia's
plant of the year at chelsea.
I thought that was wonderful,was it?
Yes, yes, yes, they're awonderful, underrated group of
plants, along with deutzia,which is starting to look
wonderful now.
Um, now we've said the roses,uh, foliage, you, you know
(17:16):
things like Phats, hedraAtroplex hallowensis, which is a
lovely silver foliage, and someof the willows, a lovely willow
called Nancy Saunders thatgives us a silver throughout the
summer, and we grow that as acoppice.
And many shrubs, some of theprunus.
I love cherry trees, uh, we'vegot prunus incisor, kojo no mai,
(17:41):
which is a beautiful, beautiful, uh, in flower foliage, autumn
color, but even in the winter,the structure, and so we're
trying to find plants that giveus year-round structure.
Another trick with the prunus isseveral that we do this with.
A good example is one calledglandulosa alboplena nipponica.
(18:03):
Brilliant is another good one.
And we let that flower and assoon as it's finished flowering,
we cut it right down to sixinches and grow it as a coppice
and then throughout the seasonthat will grow back it.
It will give you autumn colour.
We keep those stems through thewinter until they flower again
the next season.
So the way we prune the shrubsis also very important.
(18:25):
Yeah, to get the right heightsand structure.
Yeah, as time goes by, we'llactually be working in more
woody material into the borders.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Nice by, we'll start working in more woody material
into the borders, nice and andin relation to so you mentioned,
it's a hotel, um, and looks afabulous hotel.
By the way, it's, it's a, it'sa place that looks like it.
It would be lovely to visit umyour the kitchen garden, the
orchard, have they to feed?
You know all of the all of therestaurant, it its vegetables,
fruits and so on, or whatcombinations at different times
(19:00):
of the year.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Everything we grow is used in the restaurant.
In the orchard that's largelybased around making apple juice.
Most of the orchard had comedown when we started over the
years.
It was quite decrepit, so wereplanted.
Um well, it was only about 60trees on quite large rootstocks,
(19:26):
and the variety selection therewas really based around
blending the acidity andsweetness to make a very nice
apple juice.
It's strange because we make alittle bit of cider from it and
that tastes like battery acid.
It really is disgusting, butthe juice is beautiful, but the
cider is a very stimulatingdrink.
So that's the orchard.
(19:48):
The orchard's fascinating aswell because it's what we call a
productive wild garden.
It's primarily there as anaesthetic, to be a wild garden,
to look beautiful and blossom,with the camassias, uh, the
wildflower meadow underneath andthen the beautiful trees.
But it's really important theintegrity, that it pays for
(20:09):
itself, that everything is usedand it has a product.
Yeah, so, as well as the juiceand the cider, we have apples in
the rooms and a chef is alwaysdoing a different apple dessert
throughout the season, and we'llstart picking in august and
then, with storage, we'll goright through till january, you
know.
So it's quite a long season.
(20:29):
Uh, that's the fruit in theorchard.
In the kitchen garden we'regrowing vegetables, cut flowers
and um and edible flowers andfruit of course, more soft fruit
and and top fruit onrestrictive forms where we can
get really fussy.
Uh, grow them as well aspossible.
We just started the process ofthinning our fruit in there
(20:51):
actually, um, and that's a yearround production of vegetables.
Sometimes there's seasonalthings and we have to give the
chef a big glut, and so there'sa lot of work in the kitchen as
well as the harvesting andprocessing, but ideally we're
giving him just the right amountat the right time steadily
(21:12):
through the season.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that takes a little bit of planning and work.
Is there kind of staplevegetables that you guys use all
the time?
Obviously salad leaves, Ipresume things like that, but is
there we grow baby vegetables.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Every year the chef wants these vegetables smaller
and smaller and smaller.
John, on Monday I'm just goingto give him the seed packet to
save myself here cook these.
I've got a certificate for mygiant onions I grew once, but
every year he wants them smalland that's what the chef wants.
So we've got these beds wherewe do weekly sowings and weekly
(21:50):
harvests, and it's quite carefultimings on that.
We'll start in the polytunneland then under cloches.
Now we're going outside andwe'll go right the way through
into the autumn and then startunder the polytunnel again and
those autumn signs we'll beharvesting in March and April.
That's the hardest time.
So there'll be things likeradish, turnips, beetroots,
(22:12):
carrots, leeks, spring onions,many things, parsnips.
Parsnips are useful as a catchcrop, so we have a lot of
staples that go through the year.
However, it's kind of nice totry and celebrate those seasonal
flavors that you only get at acertain time.
We're just in our peakasparagus production at the
(22:34):
moment and it's just wonderful.
You can't get that flavor atany other time and it is
beautiful asparagus in the shops, but the flavor is so different
to something that's been pickedthat day.
Yeah, and so we can try andsupply flavors that you can only
get from the garden, and that'sthe ambition yeah, yeah, sounds
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's actually my talk on on june the 8th is
around garden to fork, so yeahthat's yeah, um, a major part of
what I talk about is soilhealth.
Um, how do you guys factor thatin?
Do you manage soil health?
Is there a do you practice?
No dig, you know what, what,what, what ways are you doing
(23:15):
your vegetable gardener?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
um, yeah, we sort of phase digging out over the years
and we make a lot of compostfrom horse manure and goat
manure and all of our kitchenwaste and all of our garden
waste like a lot of compost.
And we have a rotation systemin the garden and we try and
(23:38):
compost a certain amount ofthose beds each year, ideally in
the autumn, just lay it on thesurface for the worms to take
down.
There's still an element ofsoil cultivation or disturbance,
let's call it, in the potatoesthat we grow and we grow tulips
to cut flowers.
They need to come out each yearso that turns the soil,
(24:00):
although I'm interested inchanging that.
Perhaps we don't do cover crops.
We've played around with it.
You know green manures, we'veplayed around with it in the
past and we might even do itagain, but at the moment the
production space is so valuableto us that it's difficult to fit
(24:22):
in with what we do.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, um and uh, yeah , well, you probably don't have
a requirement for it anyway,because you are utilizing the
space pretty much all the time.
So you have plant, you haveplant cover anyway, it's just
yeah, yeah, it's very intensiveproduction.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Something that we've started doing is, um, if the
soil is going to sit open, thenwe cover it with compost in the
autumn and also put mypex overit as a cover.
That's really useful to protectthe soil.
The other beauty of that is itkeeps the weeds from growing and
it can just be rolled backthrough the spring, so that's
quite nice yeah, good idea, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So yeah, put your put your mypex on top and then open
up as required in the springyeah, the problem is the mypex
looks quite ugly.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
But yeah that's the trade off for the, for the, the
good it's doing, I think yeah,tell us a little bit about your
time in great dickster.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Um was so.
You're 15 years where you are,so it was in your early
gardening days, I guess, inGreat Dixter, was it.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well, I only actually worked there for three years,
just after Christo died, but Iwas fortunate enough to have
known it for a long time.
I first went there when I was18, on a working volunteer
weekend, and it was alife-changing experience.
(25:46):
It was a wonderful fun.
Christo was full of energy.
Christopher Lloyd, the owner hewas full of energy and fun in
those days and we spent theweekend digging a vegetable
patch and then spent theevenings in the great hall
drinking whiskey with cristo.
It was incredible.
And, uh, we sort of becamefriends and I stayed in touch
(26:08):
and I worked in another gardendown the road and, uh, I was
very, very close friends with a,a mutual friend that cared for
cro when he was quite elderly.
So I sort of ended up spendinga lot of time with Christo at
that phase of his life.
And uh, uh, and then I was, uh,I was working in New Zealand
(26:29):
when Christo died and Ferguscalled me and said you know I'm
a bit short-staffed and you'vealways wanted to work here, tom,
and it's a good chance if youwant to come along.
And, uh, I got difficult toleave new zealand but I was on
the plane fairly quickly.
Yeah, really formative.
(26:50):
And fergus.
I was thinking about it thismorning.
Actually, fergus was veryprecise about everything you did
and you know, previous to thisI've worked at queue and a few
other places.
I've been gardening, and hesaid I'm going to start right
from the beginning.
Um, and it was.
It was a wonderful educationactually to go right back to the
(27:11):
start and really consider whatyou're doing, what you're trying
to achieve.
And, yeah, I'm always indebtedto dexter everything I've
learned, really, really,particularly Fergus.
He's a great teacher, and thefriends I met there as well, the
whole community, yeah, You'recoming over to Ireland, as I
mentioned, and we're going totalk.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
You're going to talk, I think, about William Robinson
, being that the fact that hehas strong leash connections
Maybe just chat a little bitabout that, not give too much
away, but a little bit aboutwhat people could expect or can
expect on the day.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So yeah, I was going to talk about a little bit about
William Robinson's life and theinfluence he's had.
He's a fascinating man thatI've sort of gradually got to
know over the years throughworking in his garden and he's
(28:09):
largely forgotten in a lot ofways for the impact he made.
Little is known about his earlyIrish life.
He was very passionate aboutIreland and wrote a lot with
great fondness about Ireland,but he clearly went out of his
way to cover up things about hisearly life.
He's most likely from LeishCarlow perhaps, although County
(28:34):
Dublin lays claim, as doesCounty Down, as does Donegal.
There's many stories that hemight have grown up down the
road.
So just to talk about Robinsonand then look at the garden he
made at Gravetie, really as away of illustrating his impact
on horticulture and some of hisprinciples, and perhaps, if I
(28:56):
can get the pictures, to showsome of the wonderful irish
gardens that really um were sodeeply influenced by him and and
have continued those, thatstyle of gardening yeah, yeah,
it's funny.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
It's funny you say that because I have always been
aware of him, but not wouldn'thave a deep knowledge of you,
know his works and so on, andand so, obviously, when I heard
that that's what you were goingto be speaking about, I've been
looking at it over the last fewweeks and he definitely is not
(29:29):
remembered the way that heshould be, given the gardens
that he influenced and thegardeners that he has influenced
over the years.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
To illustrate it when Richard Bisgrove published his
biography in 2008, and Richardtravelled around the UK and
Ireland giving talks togardening groups, he would start
every talk by saying can youput your hand up?
If you heard of William Robinsonbefore you heard of this talk,
(30:05):
he reckoned at that point about20 of gardeners.
And then he would say now putyour hand up if you've heard of
gertrude jekyll and the wholeroom, right, and so it's
interesting that they werecontemporaries.
Robinson was possibly a littlebit more well known than jekyll
at her time, but it'sinteresting how she's so
celebrated today and he's beenlargely forgotten.
The other sad thing is he'soften remembered as being quite
(30:25):
cantankerous, and I think thathe was a man who was instigating
change and he wasn't afraid toruffle some feathers and he was
had a very challenging earlylife, which might have made him
want to fight for what he wastrying to achieve.
But after reading particularlya lot of the letters that he
(30:48):
wrote between friends, I justthink he was one of the kindest,
most gentle people, but hewouldn't have suffered fools,
that's for sure.
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
No, it doesn't sound like it and, again, my research
is not deep, I don't have theknowledge or the background
information that you would.
But there was an interestingone on Wikipedia about and this
is why I didn't say he was fromLeash, and you've mentioned that
there's several other countieshave sort of said he's from down
Donegal or, but it's.
(31:20):
It seems to be a little bitunclear.
There's definitely connectionsto leash, that's for sure, and
there was an interesting storyon wikipedia whether true or not
, and again it is questioned onwikipedia, so it might not be
true of, uh, some argument hehad with the, with the barn who
owned the house, and uh, hestopped lighting or he let the
fires go out on a cold night inthe glass houses.
(31:42):
So so maybe there's truth in it, maybe there's not, but uh,
yeah if it's the scene for whatwas quite a fiery career.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He had a lot of very open rows and arguments and yeah
, um, yeah yeah he would oftencontradict himself as well.
You know, right, someone thatwrote so huge amount of works,
uh, it's almost inevitable tohappen.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, at some point in time.
Um, it's funny, you mentionedsomething about his planting
when, when you were speakingabout the borders, in in grave
tie and you said, um, you knowthat now, you, you, you will
plant some blocks and repeat,plant to draw an eye or to draw
your, your attention, down azone, um, but his, his
philosophy, was to not plant thesame plant twice because
(32:29):
there's so many options outthere.
What's your, aside from thehotel?
What's your, you know, if youwere gardening in your own
garden, what's your thoughts on?
Because a lot of the verymodern planting is blocks and,
you know, creating blocks ofcolor and so on, blocks of shape
(32:49):
, and that brings you down inrepetition, across a border.
What's your own kind of style,philosophy on that?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well, I think proportion and scale is really
important.
Um, and the other question ishow is it going to be cared for?
Um, big blocks, big, boldblocks, are a bit easier to
manage.
You know broad, sweetstatements here.
Um, if it was my own privatepersonal garden, I'll just have
(33:21):
a collection of plants, probably, and I wouldn't care how it
looked to anyone else because itwould be beautiful to me and I
would only need, you know, onegroup of each other than the
stuff that I'm excited about andpropagating.
Um, so, but uh, I don't knowmaybe I'll get bored of that as
well.
I think it needs to beinteresting, and I and my friend
(33:46):
that I get a lot of inspirationfrom he says well, interesting
is the difference between prettyand beautiful.
And you want a beautiful gardenand for that to be beautiful it
has to be interesting.
You know, now that could be theway the plants are selected, or
the type of plants that you'regrowing, or how they're grown or
how they combine, but it needsto sort of, you know, just
(34:08):
engage that interest a littlebit.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I think yeah is that the same friend that came up
with the term on gardening?
I?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
might be um taking all these great phrases off my
mates and regards there's somegood ones there.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Now for sure, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I just plagiarized my mates.
That's all I do, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I should reference these phrases yeah, yeah you
mentioned at the at the verystart of our conversation.
You mentioned, um, great irishgardens and obviously some are
influenced by william robinson,but I'm sure you've been to
others here.
Is there any?
And and it is something thatyou know, I've mentioned on the
podcast this morning.
This is very much an irishpodcast, I guess, but I'm sure
you've been to others here.
Is there any?
And it is something that youknow I've mentioned on the
(34:54):
podcast this morning.
This is very much an Irishpodcast, I guess.
Generally speaking, and Ipersonally always feel that we
have gardens, and particularlygardeners of a really, really
high standard here, and butthey're very much under the
radar by comparison.
To say that you guys, um, and Iand I always feel that we
(35:14):
should shout about it a littlebit more.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So maybe what gardens catch your eye here, what
gardeners maybe you know drawyour attention or you admire or
whatever well, I mean I could, Iwould love to take six months
off and just study Irish gardens, you know, and that would
probably just be scraping thebarrel and it's such a depth of
(35:36):
culture and and and incrediblestandards there.
Now, I've always been very fondof Altamont gardens and it was
Roberts and Hester that HesterFord that really introduced me
to Irish gardens and that reallyis a typically Robinsonian
(35:57):
garden.
I think that in Ireland thewoodland garden is done to
exception, some of the bestwoodland gardens in the world.
You guys have the climate.
You know you don't go onholiday to Ireland for a suntan,
but you will see nice magnolias.
Well, one that really blew meaway was Mount Congreve down in
(36:19):
Waterford.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It is Waterford, isn't it?
When were you there last?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
A couple of three years ago, perhaps Michael was
still working there.
Michael White was the curator,who sadly left.
I went to I think it was 2021,I went to a Galanthus thing that
Robert does at Altamont theGalanthus Gala.
It was wonderful.
And then Hester kindly took medown to see Mount Congreve and
(36:49):
of course nothing was in flowerbut you know what's there and it
blew me away and Michael saidlook, if you like magnolias,
you've got to come back in amonth or two and see it.
And at the time I thought, yeah, yeah, maybe next year,
something like that.
And I was on the plane and Ithought what the hell?
And as soon as I got home Ibooked tickets to go back in
March to see the Magnoliacamberlise flower.
(37:12):
It was out of this world.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
The other ones, to mention that I haven't seen them
all and there's many I'd liketo see, but Kilmacarren is
incredibly exciting.
I would love to have anotherwalk around Glasnevin and that's
been a long old time since I'vebeen there and Mount Usher.
Of course you can't talk aboutIrish gardens and not mention I
think it's considered one of themost Robinsonian gardens and he
(37:40):
quotes it a lot in the EnglishFlower Garden book and in other
texts.
So that was very, very special.
Oh, but there's so many.
There's so many, I think, uh,and the depth of talent as well.
Going to an irish plantconference is always quite
humbling, yeah I'm glad youmentioned that.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's nice.
It's nice to hear that becauseI do think you know, generally
speaking, we have reallytalented gardeners here and
there's a lot of good gardens,and it's nice to hear you know
from from across the water, Iguess yeah, I get very jealous.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Last time we had a drought I said, if it does this
again, I'm moving to cork.
It hasn't rained for a while.
Here's again, so I should becareful what I go around saying
really, yeah, um, that that kindof leads me.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Um, I I thought about it earlier on and then I'd
forgotten about it, but itmentions again in your 15 years
in Gravetie, have you noticedseeing much by change in your
climate, or is it demonstratingin the garden?
We are getting these sort ofperiods, maybe once a year, of
longer, drier weather, and we'vejust come out of that um are
(38:51):
you seeing a trend all I can sayis that there is no trend, and
all it is is things seem to begetting more extreme.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We'll have longer wet periods and longer and hotter
dry periods than before and, uh,of particular concern is the
power of the winds, andparticularly for you guys.
I was heartbroken in Februarytime to hear about the damage.
Wicklow was particularly badlyhit, wasn't it?
And Marks, yeah, it wasFebruary time, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
It was, yeah, I can't remember the exact date, but it
was there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
There's been a few Star.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Morn was the bad one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
There's been a few.
So we worry about the droughtsand the heat, but often we get
blindsided by the power of thewind.
That said, you've got toremember we had a massive
hurricane here in 1987 and wehad that massive drought in 1976
.
I'm not saying that thingsaren't changing at all, but what
I am saying is that there is alot of resilience that we can
(39:49):
cope with with elements of this.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, and it has happened before, but I do think
you're right.
It's very hard to see a trend.
You know, from a vegetablegarden perspective, you know,
and it's very hard to see atrend.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It would be easier if we knew there was a trend or
what would happen, but we'rejust sort of guessing with the
extremes, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, it is different , but something that's
noticeable to me.
The extremes are definitelynoticeable the extreme periods
of of wet and the and thedownpours, then the, the drought
, the drought and long periodsof of no rain and, as you
mentioned, the winds.
They're quite constant here andquite strong, I would.
I would feel they're strongerover the years, um, but the the
(40:31):
big thing that I noticed overthe last couple years was was
lack of sunlight, and that'ssomething that really was stark
last year particularly.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Um seems to be a bit better this year, but generally
seems to be yeah, last year wasgloomy, although I I actually
enjoyed last year here becauseit rained.
It was terrible for the slugsand I take that the lack of
sunlight, um.
But yeah, I, I, just I worryabout the older trees.
(40:59):
I find that very distressing,you know.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, yeah they get yeah, they get under stress for
a couple of years and then somethey just give up.
Then a couple years later.
Yeah, I find that as well.
Yeah, yeah, so I have beenreally interesting chat.
Obviously, buds and blossomscoming up on sunday, june the
8th I'm not sure of your timethat that you're talking at but
(41:24):
it's going to be a reallyinteresting chat.
You've mentioned, you knowyou'll be talking about the
influence of william robinsonand you know, listening to our
conversation today, hisinfluence is is huge and
recognition of that influencemaybe not, but that's what talks
like yours, you know, will help, will help to bring to light, I
(41:45):
guess.
Um, it's been a reallyinteresting chat, really looking
forward to hearing you on onjune the 8th and thank you very,
very much for coming on toMaster my Garden podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Thank you, John, Thanks for taking the time and
very much looking forward tomeeting you when I'm out there
and and to have a lot of fun onthe trip.
So yeah, thanks for the time.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
So that's been this week's episode.
A huge thanks to Tom for comingon.
Really interesting chat chat.
So, as I said, the conversationwent in many different
directions.
Looking forward to hearing themspeaking on june, the 8th, so
that day I'm speaking I thinkI'm first speaker, then colin
jones from salter bridge gardensis talking about creating a cut
flower garden and then tom isthe main speaker of the day and
(42:27):
along the lines of what we'retalking about today and that's.
You know, that's going to be afascinating chat and, again,
could go in lots of directions,but it'll be interesting to hear
a bit more about WilliamRobinson and, as I said, bring
his expertise and his influenceto, you know, a greater audience
.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time.
(42:49):
Happy gardening you.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.