S2E25: Tim Pilgrim on gardens, creativity and learning to work with what you can't control

I love all of that.

Also because I know a lot of writers, I'm a writer and I work with a lot of writers and I've had a lot of writers on the podcast and a lot of them talk about, you know, how important the garden is and like going out there and being creative in the, in the space.

And it's like painting.

You're basically painting with plants.

That's it.

Yeah, I don't think everyone comes at it from that lens, but certainly for me it was all about beauty and I wasn't always able to articulate how I put plants together or why I put plants together, but it was always a very creative, artistic outlet and it still is to a certain degree.

Yeah.

I was keen to interview you because I have a deep love of gardening and a deep love of Australian, you know, local plants, because I got into that thinking, well, if they came from here, then they're more likely to survive.

Like that was my foray into gardening.

Um, but also I am curious about the kind of creative aspect of your work and I guess your mind.

Um, do you have a routine for the way you go from you know you've spoken with a client and do you have a routine like how you go about your day do you say I do new design stuff during this part of the day or this part of the week is there any routine to the way you do things

oh meg i wish there was um i feel like i bounce around a bit and uh i think the thing i crave the most and try and work in where we can is uh days of focus design or focus um garden care or you know a day that we're doing focus admin but um It doesn't always work out that way.

Mondays are generally our administration day where we're kind of responding to emails.

We're kind of working out the flow of the week and how that comes together.

But really, you know, between... you know, the book, you know, and everything that takes.

I'm doing a lot more talks and speaking engagement things alongside that.

I'm also doing, you know, when I'm winning work, you know, meeting with clients and, you we've got consultations they're often arranged kind of three months in advance so they're kind of in place you know before I kind of go I need some focus time to you know sink my teeth into this but yeah I it's more about blocks during the day so if we can kind of get the flow of the day started in what we're doing so that my colleague Josie knows what she's up to Emily knows what she's up to and then I can I'm often on the phone talking to people and then I kind of leave that big wedge of the afternoon free after lunch for you know that focused design

what

works best for me I think traditionally my mind was sharper in the morning but I think as I get older it's in the afternoon that two o'clock coffee gets the juices flowing so

yeah when you were doing the Borg what did that look like for you in routine for that because you were still doing your work as well

Yeah, yep.

So before I wrote the book or before I signed with Murdoch, I'd actually just, first time in my life, had freed up a Friday.

It was just, you know, my day to be in my own garden.

So we were kind of working as a studio four days a week, Monday to Thursday.

And I'd finally freed up that Friday and I was asked to write this book, so essentially Friday became my writing day.