Nigel Dunnett

There will be some level at which the planting will have some ecological functioning.

And that distinction, I think, is one that my colleague, James Hitchmore, my sadly late colleague, Nigel Dunnett at the University of Sheffield, would agree on.

The intermingling mixed planting thing, I think mixed planting is a terribly boring term, but the Germans are rubbish at marketing.

And intermingling just sounds nice.

But to me, it is interesting that we as gardeners, what we're doing is not natural, that we are essentially playing a role as a species, like symbiotically trying to enhance what we see.

Can you just talk a little bit more about this idea that gardens are not truly natural? And I like how James H.

Mogg and Nigel Dunnett described it as enhanced nature.

Yes, that if you just leave a garden to go wild, it will just get dominated by local spontaneous species and the tougher element of the planting.

I speak to artist and performer Florence Peake, Hospitalfield's director Lucy Biert, and architect Peter St John.

Plus, we remember Nigel Dunnett, garden designer and plantsman and activist who redesigned Hospitalfield's amazing Walled Garden.

I do hope you enjoy our conversation.

[upbeat music] Hello and welcome.

It's amazing how one's body just remembers the way through the back streets of, of, um, of Brixton and Battersea.

I went to see the new planting there by... led by Nigel Dunnett, late great Nigel Dunnett, who has reimagined the square as a place of future horticulture.

He has sadly gone, but left us who remain with a possible map to the future of landscaping in this new garden.

It's a great space.

Maybe, maybe they had.

But no, it is just the heat collapsing things.

All the things had collapsed in the, the, the Nigel Dunnett garden up at Grosvenor Square.

There was a, um, very nice pulmonaria.