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Alan Titchmarsh, Chelsea Physic Garden, English Garden School, Laetitia Maklouf, Sweet peas for Summer book
When I first started gardening in my mid 20s about 10 years ago there was a perception that gardening was for older people, something you did when you hit 40 and this is still to some degree the image that is reflected by the gardening media. But with more young people being bitten by the gardening bug and taking on allotments, it’s good to see some younger gardeners writing and appearing on TV.
Laetitia Maklouf is one of these younger faces. Her first book The Virgin Gardener was the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph Gardening Book of the Year. You might have also seen her on Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Garden programme.
This book Sweet peas for Summer sees her move from her flat where she gardened on her balcony for 10 years to a house with a proper garden. Laetitia, determined that her garden will be beautiful in it’s first summer shows the reader that even in a short space of time it’s possible to have a blooming oasis.
The book begins with useful advice for making plans of the garden and how to create planting designs. It’s then divided into monthly sections focussing on how to make a new garden look it’s best quickly and thinking about how your garden will evolve in the future. All the gardening books I’ve ever read have said don’t do anything in the first year of having a new garden. It may be the proper way of doing things but it’s boring, boring, boring. The last thing I wanted to do after waiting 8 years for our first garden was to do more waiting, so I loved Laetitia’s ‘get stuck in’ approach. I also thought it was refreshing to see an average sized back garden featured, this is after all what most of us, especially first timers, have.
I loved the idea of using non permanent planting such as Sweet peas or Verbena bonariensis as a screen in the garden where she later planned to plant a hedge and the combination of growing plants with craft ideas such as growing Santolina and then making moth sachets. Laetitia’s previous gardening had been confined to containers and her love of growing in pots is still in evidence with lots of ideas for seasonal window boxes and pot cascades.
It is very much a girly book but she has studied at both the English Gardening School and the Chelsea Physic Garden and clearly knows her stuff. The book isn’t short on horticultural advice ,for instance, there is a section on root cuttings using Japanese anemones as an example.
Sweet peas for Summer is fun and fresh and Laetitia has inspired me to try some of her projects. I’ve never really been one for hanging baskets but she’s convinced me to give one a go this year and she’s given me plenty of ideas for an empty zinc bath I have lying around.
To mark the launch of her new book Laetitia kindly agreed to answer a few questions.
What was your first gardening memory? Planting strawberries with my mother in our London garden.
What tool couldn’t you be without? I have a Sophie Conran hand fork that I use constantly.
What has been your greatest gardening success? Creating my own, first garden from scratch – I’ve loved every moment.
and your biggest gardening disaster? Ha! Too many to mention. Things die on me all the time . . . and mostly because I do something stupid like forgetting to water.
Who inspires you most from the gardening world past or present? I have devoured all of Vita’s books many times over. I love Anna Pavord, too and I am inspired, impressed and amused on a daily basis by all my brilliant gardening Twitter friends.
Which garden would you most like to visit in the world? I’d love to go to Japan, I’m very partial to moss and blossom.
What would be your dream garden project? I’d love my own meadow (a big one please).
And finally, wellies or boots? Wellies.
Bloomsbury have kindly offered a copy of Laetitia’s book to one of my blog readers. So if you’d like a chance of having your own copy of Sweet peas for Summer just leave comment with this post by midnight on Friday 13th April to say you’d like to be included. I’ll then put all the names in a hat and draw a lucky winner. It’s open to anyone so if you’re outside the UK feel free to enter. Good Luck!
Sweet peas for Summer is available now from Amazon and all good bookshops.
Thanks to Jude at Bloomsbury and Laetitia for taking the time to answer the questions.
Count me in please! Laetitia’s gardening life sounds similar to my own – I moved out of a flat last year, and into a house with quite a big town garden. I’m just starting to prise my plants out of their pots and into the ground, and keep being amazed at just how much we wedged onto our second floor balcony!
As you say nice to have a new young face on the scene and an interesting subject if handled as well as you suggest. Making a garden look good quickly but still thinking and planning for the longer term isn’t easy. Pleas enter me in the draw. Christina
If her 2nd book is as addictive as her first I for sure would like to be included in the draw. Her 1st was (and is) much loved in this household and I am thrilled to see not just a new (younger) face in horticulture but delight in her enthusiasm which is both uplifting and encouraging and we all need that now and again!
I would love to be entered in the draw and thank you for the opportunity. I have just acquired an allotment so will be growing most of my veg there and can finally have some more flowers in our little garden. i imagine this book would be very helpful for inspiration.
Had a quick peek at this this morning in a well known high street book seller. The illustrations looked delightful. Always great to hear new voices whatever age they might be. Would love to be entered in the draw ~ thanks WW
Great to have new younger influences in the gardening world.Like Lucinda I also have an allotment where lots of veg is grown. Having a small courtyard garden at home we grow lots of things in pots or hanging baskets. Would love to win this book!
Sounds like my kind of gardening book! Please enter me in the draw.
I, too, try to do some long-term planning but bulk it up with quick-fixes like sweet peas and other large annuals, and I think it’s really satisfying to see something YOU’VE done, even in the first year.
I would love love love to be the lucky person to win this book. Good competition.
Sounds like a facinating book. I like the idea of using verbena for screening, it certainly gets tall enough. I’d love to get my paws on a copy too!
I’m a window ledge gardener currently seeking my first home with a garden. If I’m lucky enough to find one, this book would be fabulously helpful. Please enter me into the draw.
Sounds like a great book – I am just getting started with my first garden and I do feel a little overwhelmed. Please enter me in the draw. Thanks!
I’d love to be included please. It sounds like she’s got some fresh new ideas which are very interesting.
Sounds great, looking forward to indulging myself in it soon, best of luck
)
Laeticia!
I’ve just got my first real garden and would love a copy of this book to help and inspire me. Although I’ve had an allotment for years I have no idea what to do with flowers! I’d love to be in the draw please.
I’d love to win a copy of Laetitia’s new book in the draw. Her blogs are always inspirational & it’s refreshing that she points out mistakes made as well as successes.
Please put my name in the hat! It sounds such a refreshing book.
I live in the United States and came across your blog when researching A Shropshire Lad.
I have recently purchased a one-room stone schoolhouse built in 1840 which has no garden whatsoever as it was abandoned for many years. I have ordered some David Austin roses and beginning to work on a garden design plan.
I would love to have a book that would help me have a major impact immediately as I will be 77 on April 13 so this seems destined to be for me.
Count me in I would love to own this book but I must say good luck to everyone entered and well done to the winner of such a great book. I have 3 allotments so I need all the inspiration I can get. Having 3 allotments are very hard work but I NEVER have enough space to grow everything, crazy I know but once you have planted your spuds and your brasicas you are then trying to find space for the rest of the things you need to grow. I also grow a vast array of fruit do I have trees and bushes which take up 1 allotment and I have rhubarb and soft fruits dotted about everywhere. Then of course I have my girls 9 chickens and my greenhouse and sheds.
Happy Easter to you.
Sounds like a fun book, I’d like to be included in the draw. Any book with sweet peas in the title would always catch my eye. I folow her blog and they are always really cute and i like the crafty ideas for making your own things for the garden and using things from the garden.
I stumbled across your beautiful blog via a book review for monty’s gardening at longmeadow and will certainly be back! I would live to be included in the draw for this fantastic book, Lucy
Count me in please. It was lovely to hear her talk in Oxford.
Looks like a great book, I’d love to be included in the draw!
As always an interesting post, and one that would surely inspire anyone moving into a home with a garden for the first time.
Kindly don’t include me in the draw. Flighty xx
A lovely book review WellyWoman, great final question for the interview too!
My love of gardening started with a London balcony container garden, helping my mum. Thinking back it was amazing how much she actually grew, considering the lack of space. Every inch was blooming, hanging baskets provided another element of interest. The book sounds very interesting, I’d love to be included in the draw if that’s OK. Thank you.
Interesting post…and a girl can never have too many gardening books for inspiration! Please include me in the draw.
Please count me in. If lucky I know I will flick through it before my husband – flaneurgardener – gets it and reads it cover to cover…
Just saw this post in time Welly! Flowers are not my forté as I’m mostly into edibles but there are swathes of borders and grass here that would benefit from some inspiration so I’d like to check out Laetitia’s book. Whether I’m lucky or not, yours is a good review which has made me want to find a copy of her book … Caro x
Hi Caro, You’ll be in the hat! I’m definitely going to seek out her first book.