An exclusive interview with Jo Thompson ahead of her talk at the Festival of Gardens & Nature, Co Laois …
I wasn’t really interested in gardening as a child. I was much more interested in architecture and spaces – growing up between Dorset and Rome, it was the way places made you feel that fascinated me. My father was Italian, so we spent a lot of time there, and I wanted to go and look at buildings rather than play.
Getting into garden design was quite an accidental beginning. I was pregnant, living in a flat in Maida Vale and I crossed the road to Clifton Nurseries to ask about my roof terrace. They transformed my tiny space in just a couple of days and it was a lightbulb moment for me. I just thought, this is what I want to do.
As I spent a lot of my childhood in Rome and Venice with long summers in Italy, Villa d’Este at Tivoli is a garden that has never left me. It’s one of the great examples of what a considered intervention in a landscape can achieve.
Every garden is different, so planting schemes are always different. But roses appear in almost all of them. The cultivars vary enormously depending on location, soil, architecture, aspect and what the client loves, but roses are always there. For creating a sense of arrival, for clothing the bones of a garden’s structure with romance and fragrance, nothing comes close. R. ‘Adélaïde d’Orléans’ and R. ‘Félicité-Perpétue’ are particular favourites – their clusters of blooms drape over pergolas and arches with such generosity. What I love about them is their relaxed, abundant character. They don’t look contrived. They bring a sense of timelessness even to the most newly-planted garden. For scent, Rosa ‘Ispahan’ ‘Blush Noisette’ is best for long flowering and ‘The Generous Gardener’ for shade.
I also can’t do without hardy geraniums. Their low mounds create softness and blur the edges between more structural elements in a way that feels entirely natural. Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’ is wonderful – those gorgeous blue-violet flowers work in shade as well as sun, providing that all-important thread of colour through the whole garden. The flowers are tiny yet produced in such profusion and over such a long season from late spring well into summer. The foliage earns its place too with deeply lobed leaves that come back beautifully after a summer cut-back.
And then Dahlia merckii, which surprises people who assume dahlias are all showstoppers and statement flowers. This one is an airy, branching beauty. Its relatively small blooms, just a couple of centimetres across, hover and dot through the planting at up to a metre and a half in the palest, most ethereal pinky-lilac.
In the UK, I recommend Iford Manor, Great Dixter and Sissinghurst gardens to visit. In Italy, I recommend the Garden of Ninfa. I recently wrote a piece for my Substack The Gardening Mind dedicated to rose gardens in the UK and abroad, including Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, Lowther Castle in Cumbria and Chedigny, Indre-et-Loire in France for its annual two-day Festival des Roses in May.
There’s an energy at RHS Chelsea Flower Show that’s completely unique: thousands of people who genuinely care about gardens, all in one place. You see growers, nurseries, craftspeople you’ve worked with and admired for years. You meet new designers showing for the first time – I remember exactly how that feels.
This year, I’m judging rather than showing which is a completely different kind of responsibility. Designing and installing your own garden at Chelsea is all-consuming – the pressure, sleepless nights, last-minute decisions. Judging carries its own responsibilities though. You’re so aware of what the designers are going through because you’ve been there yourself. You understand the nerves, the investment, everything that has gone into making that small garden.
Need to Know: Jo Thompson is a special guest at The Festival of Gardens and Nature from May 2-3 when she will discuss how to design a romantic garden. @jothompsongarden
New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson, Rizzoli, £38.95stg.
