Thank you to so many of you for tuning into my live video last week with the divine Butter Wakefield! I so enjoyed it - nothing better on a rainy morning than chatting flowers and gardening. We also got a sneak peek of Butter’s wonderful garden in London, her divine home and the magical orange Tithonia sitting beside her!
Butter grew up on a farm on the East Coast of America. Her deep appreciation of beautiful surroundings and passion for gardening runs deep in her veins: her mother, aunt and grandfather were all keen and accomplished gardeners.
Once in England (she arrived in 1988 after meeting her English husband while working At Christies in New York), Butter trained at the English Gardening School and The London College of Garden Design. Originally working for Colefax and Fowler in the world of decorative interiors, she then followed her lifelong passion into garden design and founded her own garden studio. Butter is now an award-winning designer for gardens in London and beyond.
Butter is also a mother of four and raised her children while building her garden design career.
5 take aways from my chat with Butter:
The towering orange flower sitting next to her she grew from seed! It’s the magical Tithonia
Butter prefers paperwhites over the ‘fleshy and floppy’ hyacinths
To deter squirrels from wrecking tulips in pots, use the climbing rose cuttings from your autumn pruning and stack them on top of the pot. So first the tulips then some smelly manure, a layer of moss, the rose cuttings and some chicken wire on top of everything
She uses peat free compost but has some recommendations of what to add in in to the soil mix that is also organic but helps replace the peat
Butter’s real name is Elisa but she’s been known as Butter since her father knicknamed her this as a baby
But you must watch the full episode to really get to know the wonderful Butter!
Watch all the My Flowery Life conversations with Kimberly Fleming (aka Marlston Farmgirl, Jo Thompson and Clodagh McKenna here.
Next up we’re chatting to Arthur Parkinson and Jessie Randall. Stay tuned for the details to put in your diary and the link to join.
And let me know who else you’d love to see me with chat with live on My Flowery Life…
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