Garden view Pam
There are worse addictions than being a plantaholic… Pam Richardson explains how she finally took control
Richardson confesses to her plant addiction
They say addictions run in families, and a passion for plants certainly runs in mine. Both sides of my family have produced dedicated gardeners, so maybe gardening is embedded in our DNA?
Whatever the reason, my passion for flowers started young. We lived with our granddad in the 1950s, and his skill and encouragement meant we kids soon got a taste for gardening. We ‘helped’ him pick fruit and flowers, famously decimating his pea crop by mistaking them for sweet peas. We picked every flower. He must have loved us very much to let us get away with that!
Our compulsive flowerpicking got my sister and me into more hot water at our local nursery school. Unsupervised at nap time we went out and picked every dahlia on the site… Matron was not amused and we weren’t invited back!
The addiction lay dormant during my teenage years, when hormones won hands down over horticulture. I would see Mum in the garden all day and wonder what on earth she did out there. But slowly, over the years, a simple love of plants gradually developed into something bordering on plant-mania.
Given the choice between buying food or a coveted plant, the plant won every time
My first garden was so tiny that my hunger for plants quickly outgrew it. If I were given the choice between buying food or a coveted plant, the plant won every time. Things were bound to come to a head and when I lost my job in the 1990s recession, with a mortgage to pay, at last I realised that unchecked plant shopping was no longer an option. It was just the wake-up call I needed.
My lovely mum came to the rescue. She phoned my local garden centre and set-up £60 of store credit for me to buy container plants to lift my spirits. Even so, it was a hard few years. I offered to do neighbours’ gardens, enrolled part time at horticulture college, took my exams, read every horticulture book and digested every Latin name and plant description.
When at last I found and applied for my first horticulture job, I could see from the interviewer’s face that my CV held no clues as to my suitability. He kept looking at it in desperation. What did graphic designer, greeting card production manager and sales rep have to do with gardening? I sympathised, then in equal desperation suddenly had a brainwave! Why not take him on a virtual walk round my imaginary ‘plant addict’s’ garden?
Informed by all those books I’d pored over and plants I’d coveted, I described every plant, what it looked like, how to care for it, when it flowered. Miraculously I got the job and, joy of joys, I had converted my compulsion into my career!
I’ve now worked in horticulture for 25 years, but I still get the high that comes from visiting a really good nursery or garden centre. And (post Covid-19) I long to rediscover that unique smell that wafts up from a freshly watered plant pavilion. Seed catalogues are still packed with temptation and I relish the rush of anticipation when sowing seed or planting bulbs.
The difference is my addiction is now (more or less) under control. I describe myself as a ‘recovering’ plantaholic. I don’t have to have the largest plant in the shop, or every rose that smells delicious. I take cuttings, buy smaller plants, edit my orders and try to be sensible.
I’ll always be in love with plants but I’m hoping that I’ve now reached the point where
I can continue to look at my garden with pride rather than feeling guilty about how much money I’ve spent! ✿