My gardening world
Social media celebrity Joe Sugg began posting videos on YouTube as something to do with his mates as a teenager in rural Wiltshire. Now his channel, ThatcherJoe, has over seven million subscribers. In 2018, he was runner-up on Strictly Come Dancing, where he met his partner, professional dancer Dianne Buswell. Joe’s new book about his new-found love of gardening, Grow, is out now.
How do you go from being a YouTube star to writing a gardening book? After school I decided to become a roof thatcher – I was apprenticed to my uncle. YouTube came along as a hobby on the side. I started doing that on the weekends and it just took over my life. But growing up in the countryside I was very fortunate in that we had a lovely garden – my mum and dad were both keen gardeners as well as my grandparents, so it has passed down through the generations.
Now you’ve had your own garden for two years. What draws you out there? Every time I go out there there’s something new to see. I’ve gone with the wild approach. I think because we’ve not long moved in, it’s about working out what grows naturally, what does well in certain areas – learning where the light comes across. It takes time to get used to that. For me, it’s a very therapeutic thing – you just focus on the task in hand.
How have you learned about gardening? I asked my mum a lot! There was no one really of my own age – all my friends took the mickey out of me. They still see it as something you do when you’re older. But I was like, you don’t understand how good it is for me – how much I enjoy it. It’s really helped my mental health. I’m hoping to tap into the younger generation as a kind of thank-me-later thing.
Gardening seems to have exploded in a big way on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. What do you think will be the future of gardening?
It’s such a great community I’ve discovered through gardening. With the rise of social media you get ‘plantfluencers’: house plants are quite big for my generation. Rather than committing to a dog or having a child, a lot of people my age are thinking, “Well, I’ll see what I’m like with a house plant first. If I can keep a house plant alive, I might move on to a dog.”
Grow by Joe Sugg (Penguin Books, £20) is out now. Listen to our podcast with Joe discussing gardening for wellness, coming soon at GardenersWorld.com/podcast