From Bake Off to gardening guru

WILDFLOWER mishaps, vegetable gluts and disappointing fruit trees have all proved a great learning curve for baking ace Dame Prue Leith, who is also a keen gardener. But her wealth of growing experience makes her the perfect choice as new judge in this year’s B&Q Gardener of the Year competition, alongside returning judges Matt Childs, Humaira Ikram and Steve Guy, with a prize of £10,000 up for grabs.

Around a year-and-a-half ago, Leith, 82, downsized from her Cotswold country manor with the beautiful garden she had created, to a nearby modern house she designed with husband John Playfair on a two-acre plot. The new garden is a work in progress, she says. Here, she reflects on how she was a latecomer to gardening and shares the triumphs and disasters of her horticultural life...

HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN GARDENING?

“I grew up in South Africa, we had a lovely garden. I spent a lot of time outside because the weather was lovely and we didn’t have a television,” says Leith.

“Until I was about 40, I didn’t have a lot of interest in gardening because I was busy with the children. When they went to school, I started to learn the difference between an oak and an ash. I was a latecomer but then I became really obsessed.”

YOU LOVE COLOUR – HOW DO YOU USE THAT OUTDOORS?

“I like the South African look. We had a lot of oak garden furniture in the old house, which we brought here – and we painted some of it bright red, while the terrace upstairs has Kingfisher blue furniture, like California, and we sunbathe up there.

“The colours of the plants are strong, not muted. If I’m looking for eryngium, I like the most beautiful deep electric blues. We also have tubs of agapanthus on the terrace.”

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THE COMPETITION GARDENS?

“We’ve four categories: the classic gardener, where we are expecting maybe hedges and herbaceous borders; the year-round gardener, where we are hoping to see winter interest from someone who’s thought about colour and shape the whole year round.

“Then we’ve got the productive gardener, which appeals to me because it’s about feeding people. We’re not just expecting a veg garden. It will be interesting to see if people put some vegetables into herbaceous borders or whether they grow herbs in pots and troughs. The other category is the eccentric gardener, which will be a surprise.”

WHAT’S YOUR GARDEN LIKE?

“My present garden is very new because we’ve just taken over an old farmyard, which was used for contracting to store enormous machinery so was mostly concrete. We had half an acre of concrete to get rid of before we began.

“We had no mature trees except on the very edges, which used to be the hedgerow. The oldest thing in our new garden is the orchard, which we planted three years ago before we even had planning permission for the house. We just took a chance.”

HAVE YOU HAD MANY GARDENING DISASTERS?

“Plenty. Who hasn’t? When I first moved into my old house, it had a very mature garden when we bought it. I didn’t like conifers, so I chopped down a huge fir tree and only realised afterwards that it was really strategic to have been put in that place because it acted as a focal point, a column. You often make mistakes because you rush into things.”