Treasured

Landscape designer Sarah Price’s prized piece is an everyday object that was important to her father

My father was an amazing vegetable gardener and, growing up, all our windowsills were covered in seedlings. He insisted on using a red teapot that my mother had bought from Habitat to water them, because the very gentle dribble from its spout meant he wouldn’t swamp the fragile young plants. I have vivid memories of watching him watering and being quite fascinated.

Sometimes he’d let me do it for him and I’d feel honoured, particularly as I’m one of five children. He was quiet and charismatic, and quite mysterious to me, but being interested in this growing alchemy allowed me into his world. We’d work on the allotment together and I’d learn from him directly, which was magical. They tend to be tidy plots now, but his was wild – almost subsumed by nature. At its centre was this incredibly productive vegetable patch.

He’d always loved wild places. He spent his childhood in the Black Mountains in Wales, which is where I live now. I grew up near London, but on our holidays here his love of the landscape would seep into my subconscious. Later in life he had Parkinson’s and dementia, and handling seed packets would reignite his memory. You’d see a little bit of this old life rekindle in him, which was beautiful.

He was always incredibly unmaterialistic, and the teapot is the only object that I have of his. It’s something that’s always been in my life, just quietly there on the windowsill. sarahpricelandscapes.com