You may know the author of Pastoral Gardens, Clare Foster, as the Garden Editor of House & Garden magazine (her monthly column on what to sow and so much more is the gardener’s bible). As well as writing about plants and gardens, Clare has always been a keen gardener herself, first in an allotment in London and now in her beautiful bucolic garden in the Berkshire Downs. It is from here that she has created a colourful cottage garden, in two years from scratch. So naturally, we wanted to quiz Clare not only on her incredibly beautiful new book, but on how to plan and plant our very own garden of dreams…
Favourite garden in your new book, Pastoral Gardens, and why?
It’s so difficult to pick out a favourite garden in Pastoral Gardens as I loved them all for different reasons. But if I have to choose, it would be Rohuna, a garden near Tangier in northern Morocco. I have been there three times now and am completely swept up in the magic of the place - partly to do with its setting on a hillside overlooking the Gibraltar Straits, and partly to do with the fantastic jumble of plants in the garden and all the stories that go with them. Rohuna is owned by Italian novelist and garden designer Umberto Pasti, who went for a walk along the coast there 30 years ago, fell asleep under an olive tree, and woke up knowing that he had to make a garden in that very spot. And that’s exactly what he did. He has spent those 30 years carving a garden from the bare hillside and filling it with an incredible number of plants, many of them endangered species that he is rescuing and preserving.


For anyone wanting to start their own garden, like you did with yours, where would you start?
Work out first where the sun and shade is and think carefully about how you want to use the garden, where you’re going to sit, eat, grow vegetables etc. Sketch out a plan and start pacing the garden to work it out. I do a lot of pacing and arm-waving when I’m trying to work out a layout! Use rope, old bricks or any other helpful paraphernalia to mark areas out on the ground. I create new borders by splitting older plants and using some of the same plant material to give continuity through the whole space, and I also thread annuals through a border to pad it out - this is especially useful for a newly planted border.
What 5 flowers do you recommend for a home cutting garden?
1. Ammi - always my first choice for a cutting garden as I love the look of it in the garden as well as in an arrangement, and it’s so easy to grow from seed.
2. Larkspur - I’m obsessed with a dusky mauve one called ‘Misty Lavender’ which goes with almost every other flower you put with it.
3. Zinnias - I used not to be fan, but I have discovered a fantastic pastel-coloured seed strain from Marlston Farmgirl that has completely converted me, and they are brilliant in a vase.
4. Dahlias - I love dahlias and grow as many as I can. There are so many different varieties that I always think you can express your own tastes so beautifully with them. Or even your moods on different days.
5. Tulips - I’d love to have the luxury of armfuls of tulips to cut into. I grow them only in my borders and feel that I can’t cut many of them as it would detract from the display. If I had a bigger garden I would devote specific beds to tulips and dahlias that I would grow as annuals.
Most failsafe seeds to sow for the less green fingered amongst us?
Marigolds - honestly the easiest flowers you can grow from seed. The seeds germinate super-quickly and you can sow them throughout the spring and early summer to get a succession of flowers.
Cosmos - similarly easy to grow, the seeds are big enough to handle easily and the seedlings grow swiftly. I love ‘Rubenza’ and ‘Purity’ and always try to grow one other variety every year that I haven’t tried before. This year it’s ‘Rosetta’.
Sweet Peas - one of the best flowers to sow with childlren as the seeds are large and tactile. The varieties are endless so you can choose different colours each year. I grow ‘Matucana’ every year in addition to other more decorative varieties. One of the oldest varieties, it has smaller flowers than others but the most fabulous scent.
What should we be doing in the garden in February?
February is a month of preparation in the garden as it’s still too cold to plant anything. I have a greenhouse, so I can start sowing some early seeds indoors this month. You can sow sweet peas now, to be grown on in a cool greenhouse or cold frame, and also perennials like echinacea, lupins and agastache. The other enjoyable task for this month is to order summer-flowering bulbs and corms including dahlias and gladioli. I always order lots of Gladiolus murielae for planting en masse in pots.
How do we prepare for spring in the garden?
I spend most February weekends cutting back my perennial borders and mulching them before the spring bulbs get going. Mulching with organic matter replenishes the nutrients that have been used up over the previous year, and it keeps the soil healthy. You can use your own home made compost for this or mulch with well rotted manure, mushroom compost or green waste compost. This year for the first time, I’m experimenting by chopping up the stems and leaves that I cut back and immediately putting them back on the bed they came from as a mulch. The theory is that you are replicating nature by doing this - in the wild, plants collapse and rot down around the existing plants - and that the material will rot down slowly through the action of worms and other organisms. It doesn’t look as neat and tidy as a mulch of well rotted compost, but before long the tulips and forget-me-nots will be starting to create ground cover and once the perennials have started to grow, the soil surface will be completely covered.
What should every garden have?
I think every garden should have a patch of wilderness, however big or small. My garden is only a third of an acre, but I have an area where I let the grass grow long in the spring and summer around an old willow tree. Cow parsley is taking hold there, I’ve planted camassias to come up in late spring, and I am trying to encourage wildflowers that will host butterfly and moth larvae and provide flowers for pollinators.
And every gardener?
Every gardener should have a Sneeboer weeding fork. I’ve got two (to mitigate against temporary misplacement!) and I couldn’t do without them. They have round, pointy tines, and once you have used one you can’t go back to a hand fork with flat tines.
Favourite garden to visit in England?
I think my favourite garden in England is Great Dixter. I have been so many times over the years, and every time I go there is something new and interesting to see. There is a sense of experimentation there that is rare in gardens, so you’ll always be challenged by new, sometimes zany planting combinations, and come away feeling like you have learned something.
And abroad?
Abroad, Jardin Plume is a really fantastic garden in Normandy that I would like to go back to. It is an interesting mixture of small, concentrated planting areas around the house and a more expansive grass meadow mown in geometric squares. I also loved Ninfa in Italy for its romantic sense of abandonment and its tangles of roses climbing over the ruins.
Favourite season?
Definitely and emphatically spring! I come alive in spring. The routine of sowing and growing and the satisfaction of seeing plants grow and flower has become part of my make up. Spring is all about the hope of new life, and there is nothing more uplifting than seeing the garden come to life. May is possibly the best month when everything is so green and verdant, full of so much promise. Autumn always makes me feel a sense of loss - and I have to work hard to fight this feeling.
When are you happiest in the garden?
I love a bit of gentle weeding with the sun on my back, but I think my happiest moments are in the greenhouse pottering around with my seeds and seedlings. The whole ritual of sowing seeds, pricking them out and potting them on is so meditative and therapeutic. A great addition to my greenhouse recently was a wooden potting tray for putting compost in. It sits on the greenhouse work bench so you can do everything at the right height without making too much mess.
Visit www.budtoseed.co.uk / Follow @clarefostergardens


Pastoral Gardens. Words Clare Foster / Photography Andrew Montgomery
Montgomery Press are offering a 10% discount to Seedling readers who purchase Pastoral Gardens, with discount code WILLOW10 at checkout. Visit www.montgomerypress.co.uk.