WRITING EXCLUSIVELY E FOR HELLO! DAME ESTHER RANTZEN CELEBRATES A VERY SPECIAL REUNION
It was 25 years ago that Esther welcomed TV presenter and gardening expert Charlie Dimmock and award-winning landscape designer Sarah Eberle to the home in the New Forest she shared with her husband, acclaimed documentary maker Desmond Wilcox, to create a wonderful wildflower area. It was long before the trend for rewilding became so fashionable; this year such a garden won Best in Show at the Chelsea Flower Show. Here, in her own words, Esther shares her account of a delightful reunion with Charlie and Sarah, their memories of that time, and how the garden holds such a special place in her heart.
‘There is something special about gardeners. I remember the owner of a garden centre in London telling me that his customers never bounced a cheque on him. “Gardeners are just more trustworthy,” he told me. And the friendships you make creating a garden run deep.
So, it was a joy for me to reunite with Sarah and Charlie 25 years after they created a garden for our cottage in the New Forest, the garden that has become my refuge and my sanity in tough pandemic times. It’s a garden that has always meant so much to me and my family. We held crazy parties there with donkey rides and a local brass band. My daughter Rebecca’s wedding celebration took place there. And when Covid struck London, I moved permanently to the New Forest and now my grandchildren and I spend every minute we can there, watching the seasons come and go.
SEEDS OF AN IDEA
When we bought our cottage, the back garden was a working farm, with pigs, chickens and a milking barn for the cows. Our children were young enough to need space to run in, so we left the stretches of pasture alone, but when the family grew up I suggested to my husband Desi that we should transform it into the garden of my dreams, and that’s when I turned to the talents of Sarah and Charlie.
Charlie lives round the corner, and I first met her before she was famous. She was working in a local water garden centre, and when I bought some water lilies from them she arrived in a truck, slung on some waders and began to pull long strands of algae out of my pond.
I went tearing into the cottage, and hissed at Desi: “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen is standing in our pond, looking just like a Greek goddess.” I have never forgotten her rippling redgold curls, her bright blue eyes, her perfect complexion without a
trace of make-up. She is as nice as she is beautiful; we became friends and a few weeks afterwards she confessed she’d become involved with a quirky new television programme, and had been photographed for Radio Times.
“So embarrassing,” she said: “I’ll have to buy every copy in town so nobody sees it.” The show was Ground Force; they photographed her as Botticelli’s Venus standing on a seashell not wearing much, and she became the pin-up of the nation – whether they were gardeners or not.
TALENTED DUO
So natural, so warm, so strong as she heaves pots and shrubs around, we are still friends. She told me that when she worked in the garden centre, there were so few women in the trade that little old men would try to save her from carrying the heaviest pots, which made her nervous because of course she was much stronger than most of her customers.
Both women have been pioneers. Sarah is just as famous in the gardening world, especially if you are a fan of the Chelsea Flower Show. She holds the record for winning the most hugely prestigious gold medals for design – 20 at the last count. She reminded me that when we first met, I took her to the little stream that runs along the front of our garden, pointed at the lane winding through the forest, and asked her to bring that glorious natural scenery into my garden.
I described to her my wild ideas; I wanted to steal ideas from the gardens I love visiting, to copy the arches of Monet’s garden in Giverny, and to bring ponds and streams to wind alongside them. Instead of laughing at me, somehow she made my vision a reality; a skill that explains why she has become one of the nation’s most successful designers, constantly in demand.
She told me: “Since then, we’ve learnt so much about the impact of gardens on our
‘ These two clever, talented women, who have devoted so much energy to protecting the planet, left me feeling refreshed and delighted’
mental health, especially during lockdown. Now I won’t accept a job if someone wants a garden as an expression of their wealth – it needs to be the expression of their soul.”
AUGUST HEATWAVE
We were ahead of our time. In those days nobody had ever heard of “rewilding”. Twenty-five years ago, the fashion was hardedged and formal gardens, with sculptural steel and stone, but I wanted wildflowers, rough edges, the serendipity of happy plants reseeding, and that’s what Sarah gave me.
Charlie sorted out the ponds, and over the years they filled with purple loosestrife and southern marsh orchids. Desmond loved my eccentric country garden as much as I did, encouraging nettles to feed the butterflies, and marguerites to please the pollinators. Sarah and Charlie laughed at their memories of the way Desmond used to ply them with cider every time they came.
Gradually fashions changed as fashions will, and now my garden is bang on trend. This year, the garden that won the Best in Show at Chelsea was called A Rewilding Britain Landscape, filled with native plants and reclaimed timbers. In a garden, nothing stays the same. Mine, lush and green and embroidered with wildflowers in May, was parched golden by the August heatwave when we met. I poured champagne in my most elegant flutes to thank these two women who are united in singing the praises of our British gardeners who create havens for wildlife of all kinds. The variety of flowers, shrubs and trees gardeners grow in their little gardens gives insects and animals more protection and nutrition than the monoculture of a vast field.
Charlie is still busy rescuing people’s gardens on Garden Rescue. While Sarah is thinking of creating a garden of her own, not just making them for other people. A garden that we can visit and learn from, to show us all how to protect the plants and wildlife we
‘ love from the extremes of climate change. Somehow, these two clever, talented women, who have devoted so much energy to protecting the planet, left me feeling refreshed and delighted. As I said, there is something special about gardeners.
‘ We were ahead of our time. In those days nobody had ever heard of “rewilding”. Now my garden is bang on trend’
‘Desmond loved my eccentric country garden as much as I did’