The Cut Flower Podcast

Designing Life Outdoors: Gardens with Purpose and Passion

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 121

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

In this episode, Roz sits down with award-winning garden designer and author Polly Wilkinson to explore the art and heart behind meaningful garden design. With years of experience and a beautifully honest approach, Polly shares how she transitioned into the world of garden design, how her background in marketing shaped her business, and why flexibility has been key to her career success.

The conversation weaves through Polly’s thoughts on designing gardens that blend beauty with practicality—spaces that work for families, evolve with lifestyles, and invite people to connect with nature. Polly also talks about the relationship between interior and exterior design, her experiences showcasing at the Chelsea Flower Show, and the joy of creating gardens with real purpose—including her upcoming project designing a therapeutic space for spinal injury patients.

If you’re curious about garden design, career pivots, sustainable living, or designing a life that works for you, this episode will leave you feeling inspired and grounded.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

🌿 How Polly transitioned into garden design and built an award-winning career
 🌼 The role of marketing in growing a creative business
 🌳 Balancing beauty and functionality in family-friendly gardens
 🌾 The parallels between interior and garden design
 🪴 Insights from exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show
 🌻 Why sustainability and eco-conscious design matter now more than ever
 🧑‍🦽 Designing with empathy: Polly’s project for spinal injury patients
 🏡 Childhood dreams, career changes, and lessons in adaptability
 📚 Behind the scenes of her book, How to Design Your Garden
 🌸 Why women’s voices are vital in the future of horticulture

Make the most of your garden by visiting bramblecrest.com and use the code FIELDGATE at checkout. See website for full details.

Find out more about Polly and her work here: https://studiopollyanna.co.uk/

First Tunnels, leaders in domestic and commercial product tunnels. 


Roz (00:02.599)
So I am so delighted to welcome Polly Anna Wilkinson to our podcast today. Polly Anna is an award-winning garden designer, a bestselling author of How to Design Your Garden and also a podcast host amongst lots of other things. I've admired Polly Anna for a long time now from Instagram. yeah, welcome Polly Anna. It's lovely to see you. So your journey into garden design is quite inspiring. Could you just share?

Polly (00:24.619)
it's lovely to be here.

Roz (00:31.294)
how it led you to transition into this field and establish your studio. What's your beginnings? Where did you end up?

Polly (00:37.526)
Yeah, so I was one of the many, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and always envied those that did, to be honest. So it's not sort of a romantic story about being a three-year-old sowing her first seeds. I couldn't care less about gardening until I was an adult and until I had my own garden. So I did 10 years in the corporate world through bouncing around between various law firms doing marketing.

Roz (01:05.309)
Cool.

Polly (01:06.478)
I hated it, but I just didn't know what else to do. And you sort of fall into a job in the city and then not really know what else to do. it wasn't until I had my kids that I actually thought, right, okay, if I'm going to pay the exorbitant costs of childcare, then it better be for something I actually like doing. So I, and it took quite a while to figure out what that was. And it was kind of staring right in front of me because my mum and my brother are both working design and my entire family are

wildly keen gardeners. My grandmother used to open her garden for the National Garden Scheme. And at that point, I absolutely loved gardening, but I just didn't really realize that garden design was a viable career choice. I don't think it was one that was particularly talked about nearly 10 years ago, or it certainly wasn't on my radar.

Roz (01:40.935)
Wow.

Roz (01:57.085)
definitely not

Polly (02:00.684)
And then actually it was talking to my neighbor who was a careers coach and she can see into my garden from her house and she was like, is there something here maybe? You know, putting it all together with the design and the passion for gardening. So I have her to thank for it and actually I trained when my little one was a baby on my second maternity leave. I went back and retrained and haven't looked back. That's it. I trained and set up my own studio straight away because I had

two kids under three, and I couldn't join a studio. Children at that age at nursery are sick every other day, and all of the studios that were near me were in central London, and I could not figure out how I could get them to nursery and then get into town. It was pre-COVID, so the working from home thing was not a thing. To me, I couldn't see a way of going to work for a studio, so I set up on my own straight away, and then it grew with the kids.

Roz (02:32.785)
Yeah, poof.

Roz (03:00.509)
And you had a marketing background of anyway then presumably having done marketing. I mean, if you do marketing, my daughter's a lawyer, so I know marketing for law firms is pretty tough. And so if you had some marketing background that kind of helped you in the beginning, because just setting up a business and going, hey, this is who I am. You've got to massive visibility.

Polly (03:16.91)
Yeah.

That was, mean, it's funny enough people say, oh, your marketing must have really helped you, but the marketing for a law firm is very niche. You know, you're not, I wasn't sort of dealing with advertisers or anything like that. It's very corporate. Actually, what working for a law firm did was give me wild attention to detail because lawyers are like, oh my God, they're amazing. It's spotting the one typo in like a 5,000 page document. yeah.

Roz (03:25.115)
You're very nice. Very corporate.

Roz (03:38.286)
yes.

Roz (03:45.029)
or the dot in the wrong place, honestly. Every time I write something, my eldest daughter says, mum, I wouldn't have quite done it like that. And that dot's in the wrong. It's like this morning, our dog is 17, right today. Our dog is 13 today. So I put up this mosaic that actually came on Facebook and I just posted it. I didn't even look at all the pictures. Immediately, she comes back and goes, that picture in the third row, two along, is not Jessie. And I think, how does she know that?

Polly (03:53.336)
Totally.

Polly (04:02.316)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roz (04:15.677)
it's it's but so yes it did teach it teaching that but it drives me nuts

Polly (04:17.23)
Amazing training though, incredible training. actually what it did, and it taught me professionalism actually, which I think is really key in running a business and understanding how to work with clients, how to offer a good service and all of those sorts of things. So I'm very grateful that the corporate element I think is vital because it's very easy just to think it's going to be sort of creative and isn't it going to be lovely playing with plants and actually, you know, for it to be a business you need to be.

Roz (04:43.485)
you

Polly (04:47.47)
professional efficient and all of that.

Roz (04:49.881)
Yeah, definitely running the business is a lot of it. yeah. Yeah, marketing's about, I reckon marketing is about 80. And then because actually, if you've got no visibility, you've got no sales, you've got no income, you've got no business, ultimately. And I know you work hard on it. I've obviously followed you. So I know how hard you work on that. But that's

Polly (04:52.686)
Yeah, 95 % of it. Feels like.

Polly (05:01.078)
Sure, yes.

Polly (05:08.492)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Roz (05:16.709)
I mean, that's ultimately what you've got to do as running a business. So you're based in Cobham now. Your studio is based in Cobham.

Polly (05:24.428)
Yeah, in the garden, which I love. So do you know what? It's one of the things that was really important to me when I set up the studio. Having worked for a corporate for 10 years as a mother as well, I thought for me, my priorities were I want to minimize my commute. I want to work with a diverse range of people, but I want to give a flexibility that others don't.

Roz (05:41.82)
Yep.

Polly (05:50.114)
So I run a really unusual studio in that we're together one or two days a week and the rest of the time everyone works from home. They work incredibly flexible hours that fit round children, family, other commitments, but also joy. So if people have an allotment and they want to start work a little bit later, because they want to, know, so it's a very, very flexible arrangement because I think I get far better out of my team as a result. And frankly, we're all grownups and I think we can all manage our own time.

Roz (06:11.611)
Wow.

Polly (06:21.486)
And I think it leads to a really positive work environment. it's because that's what I wanted. When I worked at a corporate, I thought I wish I could just, you know, be trusted that if I have a doctor's appointment, I will make up that time rather than having to sort of declare it and say when it is and all of this and being treated like a child. And I just thought actually to give people agency, I think it's really important. So for me, the studio is a little bit unusual in that regard. And I'm really proud of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Roz (06:46.621)
despite works. I mean that's exactly what I do. I've got a workshop, I call it workshop, on the property and obviously all my plants and everything are here anyway so they can't work from home but actually you know one of my team is really good at marketing so she does two days a week at home working at home because she's got a young son and she works around her hours and she does the marketing and some content.

produces lots and lots of content as we know we have all have to produce loads of content and then the other two days a week is she's here but she can move them around and it doesn't actually matter to me and I never really know when she's here when she's not here and it kind of works and then so I have a sort of core team who do exactly that

Polly (07:11.789)
Yeah.

Roz (07:23.791)
And like say, they're all grownups. And then I have a team, a huge team of freelancers, like if I'm doing a big wedding or so on. And again, same thing. It's really quite self-managed. You know, it's kind of like we're all grownups and we've been doing this for a long time and it works. And we have a team meeting online on a Monday and we kick off the week and that's it. Off we go.

Polly (07:29.644)
Right. Right.

Polly (07:44.302)
But it's lovely, isn't it? I just think giving that level of agency and just, and also for me it's really, really important having seen, I hate seeing mothers being sidelined in the workforce. I hate it because of childcare and like, you I'm a mum. So when the holidays are up, it's sort of, it's all a bit crazy and there's a juggle and I have to dump them at camp at 9.30, you know, which is basically the middle of the bloody working day. I'll pick them up at three.

Roz (07:55.005)
.

Roz (08:05.915)
Yeah, that's funny.

Polly (08:11.746)
But I find the women I've worked with, either clients or peers who are mums, they are a force to be reckoned with. Give a task to a busy woman, I think. So I just hear for championing it all, really.

Roz (08:28.251)
Yeah, brilliant. That's why it works. That's absolutely why it works. So in your book, How to Design a Garden, you provide a comprehensive guide to garden creation and maintenance. What motivated you to write this book? mean, writing books is not easy. And what do you want the key message and what do you hope the readers will take away from it? Where did it all start, the dream to write a book?

Polly (08:42.113)
Hmm

Polly (08:48.91)
I mean, I think it came mostly from as a result of my social media, spend a lot of time talking about, you know, sort of giving tips on how to design or how to garden as well. And I thought actually it makes a lot of sense here that I try and put all of this knowledge into a book. But also so many of the questions I get on my social media are really basic tricks that I learned on week one of my design course of what do I do with this border? How do I make my garden look wider? You know, what?

what do I do with these fences? And I just thought actually putting all of this in a book, because so much of it is so obvious, as soon as you know it, it's like a light switching on. thought let's put it all in a book. so, I mean, it's really inspired by what I learnt when I studied, because I really remember a lot of the sort of light bulb moments where it would be like, paint your fences black. And I was like, actually not. Black? Who wants black fences? No one wants to be staring at like really your stair black fences in your garden.

Roz (09:26.321)
Yeah.

Polly (09:46.766)
And they'd like, oh, we paint them black, because then you plant up them and the fences vanish. Because let's face it, fences aren't very attractive. You don't really want to look at them. You want to look at green and plants and feel like you're in the country. And that blew my mind. It's such a tiny trick, but it has such a big effect. So I really wanted to sort put everything I learned in one place and it to be incredibly informal. I would not call it a formal book. It's a chatty book. It's not a textbook.

Roz (09:53.435)
No, very, we'll try.

Polly (10:12.546)
and I give my opinions about things that I like and don't like, because I'm assuming if people are buying the book, they might quite like the style of garden we do. So, you know, I don't hold back on the sort of materials that I personally don't use in gardens because I don't much like the look of them. Doesn't mean you can't use them, but you know, I think sometimes these textbooks that tell you you can use, you can have crazy paving if you want, or you can, you know, use, I don't know, I won't give examples, I'll upset people.

Roz (10:19.995)
Yeah, yeah.

Polly (10:39.342)
But you know, I think if you're too on the fence about anything, then, yeah, I don't think it makes for such an engaging read.

Roz (10:48.475)
Yeah, I think it's a lovely job. It's interesting because obviously, I don't really know very much about garden design because when you know people think you would because you grow cut flowers and obviously that's beautiful but it's obviously on a commercial scale. And then I look at my garden and it's fairly well designed but then I think gosh wouldn't it be lovely to have in I'm a bit of a water feature fan. So, because I like the sound of it. And it's kind of like let's and my husband says he's not building anymore because every time he builds one it breaks down. every time

Polly (11:09.357)
Yeah, lovely.

Polly (11:14.286)
This is the problem with water features, they're glitchy!

Roz (11:18.839)
are and he says I'm not having any more you know we were away somewhere I know where we went last weekend we went to the newt in Somerset which is lovely with some friends yeah we went for the day it is and they have this massive enormous circular water feature like I mean enormous like I don't know how many meters it must be and I looked at it and I looked at my husband he went no just no as I'm taking photos of it

Polly (11:26.382)
that's like my Disney world. Gardening Disney.

Yes. Yes.

Polly (11:40.654)
Dream on love. How about no?

Roz (11:46.813)
That's the one I want. The answer is no. But I do find it quite inspiring, you know, and I find, yeah, I mean, I've come back and ordered.

I don't know, 18 more perennials for my own garden. Must be mad because I just like full beds, like really natural, love your style. it's just like, but garden design is an art. It's like interior design. can't just become an interior designer. You've got to have some skill. It's like, it isn't that easy.

Polly (12:03.811)
Yum.

Polly (12:19.276)
Yeah, well so much of it is really technical and actually that was probably the most difficult bit to put in the book and I did need to sort of own there comes a point where I can't teach everyone how to do construction drawings of retaining walls and it's not responsible either. So it's more a case of the book is focused on the layout and to a degree a bit on levels but again levels are complicated and it's sort of thinking how useful is it me telling everyone how to calculate.

step levels and how much is it is let's give them the principles and then they're going to need to work with a really great landscaper. And obviously I cover plants in great detail as well in terms of planting plans because I think that's that's the holy grail I think a reason a lot of people are buying the book it's very difficult to find planting plans in books they don't really come up.

Roz (13:07.163)
Yes, yes, absolutely it is. Yeah, and then it becomes a bit of a mishmash, doesn't it? And once they're in, they're in, you know, you're buying a perennial and you're putting it in, it's in for quite a while. So no.

Polly (13:09.731)
Mm.

Polly (13:14.21)
Yeah.

Polly (13:19.598)
Yeah, it's not cheap. If you look at the planting plants we produce, we're probably putting maybe 30 of the same plant in, because you're clustering them and repeating them. That's not cheap. And then times that by how many plants are in the garden. I think, I guess another reason of writing the book is to try and prevent people wasting their money, because it's really easy to waste your money in the garden and make bad choices just from not knowing otherwise.

Roz (13:26.801)
Yes.

Roz (13:37.872)
Yeah.

Roz (13:43.835)
Yeah, I absolutely agree. So the book covers topics. We talk about the book from conceptualization to plant care, plant care. How did you decide on the structure and content to ensure caters for everybody? I would say I was a real, I would say it was a good, obviously a good plant knowledge, but I'm a real novice in design, absolute novice in design. Because for me, we just put them in straight rows and we cut them and it's really easy.

Polly (14:09.578)
Yeah, I don't encourage that in the garden.

Roz (14:13.693)
So if you come to my garden and see my borders and it's all in really straight rows, you'd be thinking, what's, how regimented is she? And actually what you really want is a cottage garden where it's all just rows together with loads of grasses and it just looks amazing. But it's quite difficult, isn't it? How do you cater for it all in the book? Did you just start from the start? So I'm going to give my tips. This is what I think. This is how it is. Give it a go.

Polly (14:16.014)
how regimented!

Polly (14:26.967)
Mmm.

Polly (14:37.762)
So I basically broke it down by how we design gardens for our clients. So the process in the book is pretty much exactly what we do, obviously in more detail, but we will always start with the wish list of what do want your garden to have in it? How are going to use it? Who is going to use it? How long will it be your garden? Because that's a really important one. And also what do you want to spend? Because I think how long you're going to stay should inform how much you're going to spend as well.

Roz (14:45.708)
Okay.

Roz (14:57.403)
Yes. Yeah.

Roz (15:06.139)
Yes, yeah.

Polly (15:07.574)
So all of that, so actually all of that sort of homework, which I think people can skip a bit and just, you know, nip to the garden center and buy plants. You think, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's just figure this out. And then figuring out your layout because your garden, particularly now, is much like your house. You know, your house has rooms and you use each room for a different function and by and large, garden is the same, albeit on a larger scale usually.

Roz (15:16.189)
you

Polly (15:31.182)
So figuring out your layout of space, what we call sort of concept, but the layout of the space is the number one most important thing. Where are you going to eat? Where are the kids going to play? Where are you going to grow your cut flowers? All of that needs to be figured out based on the sunlight in your garden and also sort of what's going on around you. And you know, don't necessarily want to be waving at the neighbors if you like to sunbathe topless in your garden. So figure out where that is. So all of that needs to be considered. So layout is always number one.

Roz (15:42.653)
Yeah.

Roz (15:54.727)
Yeah.

Polly (15:57.454)
So we're really stripping it back to basics here. It's not just about the plants or not just about the materials, but it's sort get your layout and maybe you're happy with your layout and then you can skip straight to materials. And then, so we're talking through all the different materials that you can choose in your garden. And I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is just handing this decision over to builders that doing something in the garden or something on the house and being like, just put a patio down for us, please. And they don't even ask what the stone is going to be.

And so they end up with the cheapest thing from the builder's merchant, which is usually some sort of Indian sandstone, which is going to sort of go green instantly and has massive grout gaps, and you'll be cursing it in a couple of years. it's sort of showing people that just like inside, you've got loads of choices on the materials in your house, you've got loads of choices for the materials outside too, and it's not to be skipped. And then, you know, maybe you're happy with all of the materials in your garden already, and you only want to look at plants, so that's why we look at plant plans, so.

Roz (16:44.454)
Merci.

Polly (16:55.434)
everything you could possibly think of from plant plans, from making them seasonal to structure, form, texture. then at the end of the book, which is really important to me, because I think it would be irresponsible not to, is how to look after your garden afterwards, because it's all very well designed, it's all very well planted. But then, frankly, that's only really step one, because the garden is forever changing, forever growing. And so you need to look after it. So then that's why there's the chapters on actually what to do month by month, because

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is just assuming the garden sort of look after itself. And you know, everyone wants a low maintenance garden. It's number one on every single brief we get. But you know, I'd quite like a low maintenance house. I'm not sure it exists. It seems to get messy all the time, whether I like it or not.

Roz (17:34.843)
Is it?

Roz (17:41.853)
I exactly right, every time I go away with this said friend which I've just been away with to Malaga, we always see enough these lists of things we're going to do and a lot of it revolves around, you know the house needs sorting out and I really need to get the curtains cleaned and I need to get the car so in exactly the same way it doesn't stop and you think like the fourth bridge haven't you done it all it's all lovely and then it's lovely for a very short amount of time and then you're doing the whole thing again and so the garden is the same

Polly (18:07.214)
Totally

It is, I mean what really amazes me is we often get clients who've bought a house with massive garden and they're like, really want this to be low maintenance. I'm like, you've bought a massive garden? You've got a huge garden? I mean, low maintenance would mean, guess, mowing, I would regard as quite high maintenance, you in the summer, you're at it every week. So, you know, which, yeah, I mean, which I do, which is an absolute godsend, but even that, you it can't handle massive.

Roz (18:19.225)
it.

Roz (18:28.221)
I think it's high maintenance. Unless you've got a little automatic mower.

Polly (18:38.798)
fields or whatever. it's, yeah, that's always the biggest struggle is the request for the low maintenance garden. They grow, don't they? Much like kids, whether you like it not, they grow.

Roz (18:39.005)
No, no, no, no, no.

Roz (18:47.377)
No, no, no, they grow. They grow and get out all wieldly. I mean, we do have little automatic mower, but, and when my husband bought it, I said, that is the most ridiculous thing you've ever bought ever. This is ridiculous. This is complete waste of money. And it was quite not like him at all. In fact, I wanted a water feature in the middle of the lawn, so that wasn't going to work. But, so this little automatic mower goes round, but it actually only does one part.

Polly (19:07.022)
No!

Roz (19:13.245)
because if you've got to get going across the drive and you've got to get to another part which our gardens in three grassy areas where the path that goes through in middle you can't go across the path so in actual fact what you need is three we need three of these we've kept it with one but so there's never an idea so although you think a little automatic mower would be great it only really works if you have a square patch with nothing in it

Polly (19:13.386)
Polly (19:20.099)
Yeah.

Polly (19:23.694)
Well that's quite pricey, isn't it?

Polly (19:39.042)
They work really nicely in discrete spaces like that, yeah.

Roz (19:42.673)
but not in mine, but it mainly does cut it down. So as a co-host of the In-and-Out's podcast, how do you balance discussions between interior? So that's, mean, do you love interior design as well as exterior design? Do they two go together? And what perspectives do you bring to the show? Because it's kind of like, they are different, ins and outs, but I like to the garden as an extension of the inn. I'm more interested in the garden than they are in the inns.

Polly (19:44.462)
you

Polly (20:10.394)
You and me both, yeah. You're singing from my hymn sheet. Yeah, I mean, the reason we started the podcast was really Jojo, my friend, she's an interior designer. And we just noticed there seems to be this sort of disconnect between the house and the garden for people where they might be really passionate about interior design and really focus on their interiors. But I mean, something I love doing, if you ever look at interior design magazines and they've taken pictures of the house and you know,

a lot of people have glazing now, you'll often look through and the garden looks absolutely crap through the windows and they've got this beautifully finished house and then this sort of rather depressing garden that's not been done or has been done a bit questionably. And I'm always like, God, you've got, you know, you're clearly really proud about the interior of your house and you've taken the time to think about it. And then like your windows, which are essentially like art, the garden's letting the side down a bit and it's sort of like, garden needs to look good too.

what looks good, you know, depends on person to person. But for us, the reason we started the podcast is because the garden is an extension of the home, or the home is an extension of the garden, if you want to look at it that way around. So for us, thinking about, you know, so much of my job is looking at people's interiors, looking at their house, and translating that outside suitably, you know, it's not a case of being like, oh, we're going to match the cushions.

Roz (21:20.507)
Yeah. Yeah.

Polly (21:36.13)
But, you know, what are the materials inside? We're gonna match them outside. what's the architecture of the house? Okay, it's an old Georgian house, so it needs to be traditional materials. Or they've got a new build, so we're gonna do something more contemporary. The whole thing feeds in. so that's the whole basis of the podcast, is sort of what's going on outside, what's going on inside. And there's, you know, the two are so hand in hand.

Roz (22:02.651)
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I have to sit at my desk.

working as I am today and I had to look out and I need to look out to see and there were two doors in my study and I need to look out I need to see this massive olive tree I need to see it's I've kind of done it like a Mediterranean garden which sounds very posh but it's absolutely not and there are loads of pots because it's sort of at the back of the house which is scorching in the summer absolutely scorching so but I need to be able to do that I need to be able to look at it I need to be able to open the doors I need to be able to step out there and have a cup of coffee and come back in again and it needs to be an

Polly (22:18.678)
Mmm.

Polly (22:34.819)
Yeah.

Roz (22:35.547)
I'm more interested in what's out there actually than what's in my house because I also look at a what bike an electric bike and a bike in my study but I look past that I look outside the door.

Polly (22:37.996)
Yeah, yeah.

Polly (22:46.658)
This is it, but your views are so important, right? You're washing the dishes at kitchen sink. What to me, it feels like five times a day. I'd quite like to be looking at something nice while I did it.

Roz (22:56.093)
It is five times a day, what do you mean? So your designs, obviously I've seen your designs at Chelsea. What, Chelsea's hard, to do anything at Chelsea's hard. We looked at doing some gardens this year up in...

Polly (23:08.47)
Mmm. Mmm.

Roz (23:15.597)
Gardner's World Live. But I'll tell you what, it's hard, it's a long process, it's a costly process, it's all sorts of things and we have to think about sponsorship and all sorts of things. What have you done at Chelsea? How did you get involved?

Polly (23:22.286)
Very, yeah.

Polly (23:29.934)
I've done two gardens at Chelsea now, so the first year I did a garden with Project Giving Back, which was just such an incredible godsend for designers and for charities. I think, as you say, Chelsea is sort of the holy grail for us designers, is we all want to do it. But trying to find the funding to create a garden, costs thousands, and trying to find that funding is very difficult unless you've got the right connections, I suppose.

It was just the most amazing opportunity, because Project Giving Back was their first year and we did an all about plants garden in the, what's it called, pavilion. We did it in a pavilion. And I had this incredible charity called Mothers for Mothers, who focus on mothers' mental health, sort of anxiety and depression, post-natal depression. Just such a special charity. And it was the most amazing opportunity to create a garden. And I'm a bit of a sucker for a...

Roz (24:08.86)
Yes.

Roz (24:18.108)
Wow.

Polly (24:27.096)
for symbolism, so we went quite heavy on the symbolism of the healing journey of motherhood, I guess. Which was magic, we loved it, and very lucky to get people's choice for that as well, because I think we sort of captured hearts and minds, and also the planting was fairly scrumptious, because I basically went, what are the plants I love? And we went very heavy, sort of cottage garden pinks and apricots, and just, I loved it. That's sort of my joy, though, my...

Roz (24:34.172)
Wow.

Roz (24:50.769)
That's it. Thank you.

Polly (24:56.076)
love of plants, that sort of style. And then the following year, we're very lucky to be invited by the RHS to do the garden around the monument, again in the pavilion. So I've not made it outside in Chelsea yet, one day. And that was celebrating women in horticulture, which again, means a huge amount to me, because as a studio, we're just very much champions of women. to celebrate these incredible women, so we were celebrating Beth.

Roz (25:04.445)
Thanks.

Roz (25:19.741)
100 %

Polly (25:24.078)
Chateau and Vita Sacral West and just these icons of horticulture. There's many more than that as well. So that was really fun. And the brief for that I loved because the brief was to choose plants that were quite accessible. So was sort of, you choose plants that people could actually potentially find at the garden center rather than trying to be too clever about it and loads of niche plants that people were able to find. So that's why we were using sort of Geranium rosan and...

Roz (25:37.809)
Right?

Goodbye.

Polly (25:49.058)
GM Tote Tangerine and Lupin Masterpiece, sort of the classics that you always see at Chelsea and that are readily available so that it felt a little bit more accessible and easier to copy, I suppose, which was lovely. I thought that was really fun. And then, you know, hopefully we will be back one day, but again, trying to find the funding, not easy.

Roz (25:59.717)
Yes.

Roz (26:10.245)
Yeah, it's almost like you need a corporate funding or you need a charity, one or the other. It's pretty tough. Yeah, I mean, I'm a trustee of WRAG I'm a trustee of Women in Horticulture, or WFGA.

Polly (26:16.941)
Yeah.

Polly (26:21.934)
yeah, yeah.

Roz (26:24.773)
I don't know how I found that, I found my way in there, but I am a trustee of that. And that's an interesting one because it really is fundamentally about women in horticulture. Although it encourages men, but I would say 90 % of the base is women. And their career change is coming in to change their careers and generally go into horticulture. So they normally do an RHS one, two and three alongside it. I've always employed Wrags, always. And they tend to be...

Polly (26:41.422)
Mmm.

Polly (26:49.036)
Lovely.

Roz (26:52.477)
I would say middle-aged women, women in their 40s, 50s and 60s and they want to do gardening, you know, they have a complete aspiration to do gardening and they tend to do the scheme for a year and then I tend to recruit them afterwards. So mine have always been, they're just really, really good pipeline. I've got four at the moment, I can tell you it's a really good pipeline and a really good thing about it is they all love each other.

Polly (27:01.73)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Polly (27:08.833)
amazing. That's a good pipeline, isn't it?

Roz (27:21.457)
because they're the same age and they're all women and they're doing the similar things and lots have come out of corporate and lots have burnt out and they all sit and when I go out and they're all sitting under the apple tree you know with their mid-morning cake that one of them's baked for that week and they're all sitting there chatting having cups of tea I think what joy I just think it's lovely so I think women in horticulture is really really important.

Polly (27:21.559)
that's lovely.

Mmm.

Polly (27:40.989)
I love it, yeah.

Polly (27:45.891)
Thank you.

Roz (27:46.397)
So I'm with you on that one. So yeah, so you have to think what your next one is going to be another child's ending

Polly (27:51.84)
I know, we've got some ideas, we just need to find a, you know, good sponsor. Yeah, if anyone wants to sponsor a gun, give me a call.

Roz (27:56.199)
So if there's anyone out there, what we need is a really good sponsorship. And there are out there, are people out there, but it would be a corporate sponsor, would think. Somebody who was willing to sponsor a garden. if you're, mean, I'm sponsored on this podcast by Bramblecrest Furniture.

Polly (28:07.317)
Ideally, yes.

Polly (28:17.328)
lovely, yeah.

Roz (28:17.565)
So if they're out there and they're listening to this and they would love to sponsor a Chelsea Garden that would be lovely because I know they share with Chelsea so that kind of thing might be the answer but getting us some sort of sponsorship would be lovely wouldn't it? I'll keep you posted!

Polly (28:23.918)
yeah.

Mmm, yes. It would.

We'll get there.

Roz (28:38.127)
You emphasise creating gardens that are both beautiful to me and functional and I agree with functional because it depends what you're to use it for that's another thing I want besides water features I also want a swing which is completely not functional I would probably never swing on it in my entire life but I've got to find a tree to put it in because it's got to be quite big hasn't it so I haven't really got that either so now we've got water features trees and swings but I get the the functionality of a garden you know you obviously you want to be able to be out there and cooking in it and you want to be sitting in and having your coffee in it and you want to enjoy the beauty of it

Polly (28:54.094)
Got that.

Polly (28:57.677)
Love it.

Polly (29:07.831)
Yeah.

Roz (29:08.687)
So it's about balancing both of them, isn't it? And you've done that really well in your book about, it is about function and form, but it's also about, you know, beauty. It's got to be beautiful.

Polly (29:17.73)
Yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah, I mean, I'm, as a studio, we're probably, I would say, you know, I use the word practical in my sort of tagline of sort of recreate practical and elegant gardens, because I think it's really easy in this industry to be a bit too romantic about gardens. And I would love for them to just have loads of amazing.

plants in it and no hardscape and I'd love that. But is that practical and is that fair to the client? Probably not. So I am really passionate about also acknowledging people's lives and how they live in their space because it's, you know, I don't want to be one of those designers that sort of dismisses how people actually use a garden just to make something beautiful. It has to be practical and useful. It has to be usable and beautiful. So, and that's...

Roz (30:08.882)
Yeah.

Polly (30:13.326)
I'm so passionate about that because I think it's easy to sort of let your creativity take away and you know, why let someone actually using the garden get in the way of a nice one? So for me that's of asking people how they're going to use their space. And also we have quite an honest chat about their lifestyle as well. So I asked some really nosy questions when we're doing the interview, like when I'm taking a brief. So I'm like, you know.

Do you think you're gonna have any more kids? Which feels really uncomfortable. Or I'm asking people that have not got any kids, are there going to be any? And I'm not asking to be nosy, I'm asking because if there are, then we might need to reconsider the massive open body of water that we're planning for. It's just asking about who else is gonna be using the garden and are they gonna have a gardener. It's just these slightly challenging questions like who's actually gonna maintain this? Because you guys both have full-time jobs and have said that you don't like gardenings.

Roz (30:54.257)
Yes.

Polly (31:09.294)
Are you gonna have a garden? So all of that is, and also as I've said before, we design a lot of gardens for families and a lot of clients fall into a trap of designing their garden for their children. And I've got kids, I've got a nine and a 10 year old and my God, I've learned how fast they grow up. So that climbing frame, seems like a really great idea now.

Roz (31:09.563)
Yeah.

Roz (31:36.219)
You know everyone had.

Polly (31:37.494)
You know, everyone had, I had one in my old house, we had a climate frame, I think it lasted two and a half years before we realised they never went on it. And it was a total waste of time and money. And things like sand pits, and know, positioning permanent fixtures really near the house because you want to keep an eye on your toddler, and of course you want to keep an eye your toddler, but you're not going to need to keep an on them in about four years, and you know, this is an expensive process. So we spend a lot of time sort of, bigger picturing, sort of zooming out, and like, look, how long you going to be here?

Roz (31:59.389)
But yeah.

Polly (32:07.31)
you know, kids grow, who's looking after it, are you actually going to entertain out here or, you know, and so it's a very collaborative process, that sort of initial brief, because that's what makes it, and you'll use it if it fits your life. Yeah. Yes.

Roz (32:13.628)
Yeah.

Roz (32:22.045)
It is understanding, isn't it? Their lives. Yeah, it's because my daughter's just about to buy her first flat, my lawyer daughter, because she can afford to, in Leighton in London. Can you imagine what that is? A two-bed flat. But when I was going around looking at them, I was going, right, this garden, we've got to this garden, we've got to have it like this, and this will be lovely. She's like, hate gardening, She's like, you're 28, not interested.

Polly (32:29.454)
Sure. Amazing. Good on it.

Polly (32:44.51)
Yeah, no, she's not there yet. Yeah.

Roz (32:45.083)
don't want to go, never going to sit it not there yet. And you have to understand that thing. Okay. All right. Well then a few pots then I might get away with, but, but it's like, yeah, like understanding what comes next. And yeah, very interesting.

Polly (32:57.966)
Mmm.

Roz (32:59.771)
So sustainability is a growing concern, obviously in garden design and then growing as a whole, isn't it? How do you incorporate eco-friendly practices into your projects? Does it become part of it? Is it based on the client brief? How does sustainability work?

Polly (33:15.758)
Yeah, I mean, as far as we're concerned, so much of what we do is adding because we're, I mean, I'm obsessed with plants. So the number one thing that we're doing is obviously adding loads more for biodiversity in terms of adding trees, adding pollinator friendly planting in abundance. And I'm always fighting for more plant space. So that's sort of a really small thing. I mean, I don't even see that as a sustainability tick. I just think that's common practice. But for us, it's things like,

Roz (33:42.994)
Yeah.

Polly (33:45.55)
I mean I see it our job to offer the options. So we'll see, for example, we'll go to a garden and if they've already got really great paving it just needs relaying perhaps because the grout's popped or it's not done in the right pattern or we need to change the shape of it. If we can keep it and it's suitable we absolutely will and we'll be like, look there's absolutely no point putting this in a skip, just start again, it's just wasteful. So a lot of it is actually looking for the opportunities of what we can keep, reuse.

That's not always possible if it's really, really inappropriate for the garden or maybe it was done very cheaply and poorly. So then we'll start looking, well, can this be re-crushed down as an aggregate? So rather than it going in a skip, can it be actually used in the garden as a sub-base to new paving? If not, can it go to a rec yard? If it can be donated, re-used, that's something we will always encourage. I mean, it's a matter of course we're doing. The little bits.

Roz (34:20.433)
Yeah.

Polly (34:42.574)
bug hotels and bat boxes, bird boxes, bird feeders, all of these tiny little bits. I mean, don't even, I don't think we get any medals for these sorts of things. They're just, again, for us, they're just, of course we're going to be doing nice. We're trying to reduce the amount of sort of massive lawns, just big void of lawns in favor of of wildflowers, longer areas, rewilding spaces.

Roz (34:44.306)
Yeah.

Polly (35:05.582)
which is all very well saying that if you've got a country garden. But obviously I think people are fed up of hearing that they should rewild their small urban garden, because that's not very fair. If you've got a small garden, think expecting people to hand the whole thing over to nature is quite tough and lovely if you would, but equally you have to use it too. So I think it's more about how we can work in harmony and make it as a positive contribution as possible so that it's looking after biodiversity and you. And I think there are easy ways of doing that.

Roz (35:13.937)
Yeah, if they've got small gobs, no, no, no.

Polly (35:35.502)
trees, more planting. Even just a water bowl can make a massive difference. Get back for a water feature, you see. I mean, think there's so much we can do. And obviously, rainwater harvesting is a really big one for us now, and doing drought tolerant planting. Or you should probably not drought tolerant planting, because our weather is weird. More like resilient planting that can handle wet and drought.

Roz (35:40.861)
And a water feature! We're back to the water feature!

Roz (36:01.437)
to somebody quite recently on a podcast who said that we would have the climate of Barcelona by 2050. Well 2050 is only 25 years away isn't it, it's not that long. So you know are we planting for 20, you know if we were planting apple trees today are we looking for Mediterranean varieties? I mean it's kind of a little bit concerning what our gardens will look like in 25 years time.

Polly (36:21.164)
a lot bit concerning. we're definitely changing the trees that we specify in gardens now for things that we, know, some of the things we were reached for before, but like, we might swap to some others now because we're just noticing they're not as happy, which is heartbreaking. I mean, I take a bit more sun. I take a bit of the Barcelona weather in the summer.

Roz (36:33.426)
Yeah.

Roz (36:37.435)
Yeah.

Wet Springs Dry Summers

So would I.

Polly (36:49.166)
Lovely, yeah.

Roz (36:49.597)
day would be nice but lovely but yeah I would definitely take that but yeah it's definitely in 25 years time what we're going to be looking like it's quite interesting lots of olive trees maybe don't not sure so looking ahead are there any projects you've got coming up or trends in garden design you're particularly excited about

Polly (36:59.202)
That's terrifying.

Hmm.

Polly (37:12.874)
Well, the thing we are most passionate about, are so, I can't quite even believe we got it, but we are doing Horatio's garden. We are, we're doing the one in Middlesbrough.

Roz (37:21.513)
Are you? That's another charity I support. Which one are you doing? Well, that's exciting. I haven't seen, I think the latest one was Sheffield, which I haven't seen yet.

Polly (37:31.532)
That is being built as we speak, so we are doing the next one. Honestly, in terms of career highlights, to get that phone call inviting us to do the next one, let's just say, are you sure? You filmed the right studio.

Roz (37:41.085)
Massive. Massive. What number did you dial?

Polly (37:47.226)
I just, what an extraordinary honour and to be creating a garden for people with spinal injuries, to do something so meaningful, you know, we do, I love the gardens we do for our residential commercial projects, but to do one which I know is going to be of such mental benefit is just so special. And I went to university in Newcastle. So I'm going back up north and we used to...

Roz (38:11.581)
I'll see you going back.

Polly (38:15.694)
ago, drinking in Middlesbrough actually. I haven't been there in 20 years. But it's such a joy. What a privilege. that's another reason why we weren't really focusing on Chelsea this year actually is because Horatius Garden has our full attention. Yeah.

Roz (38:30.009)
It's going to be full on. Yeah. So you would start designing now presumably and then it would open in what 18 months, two years.

Polly (38:37.038)
So we're designing it as we speak and it will be, hopefully we'll start build early 2026. So hopefully, you know, finished. Yeah, yeah, will span a couple of years. So, you know, when will it be open? Maybe late 26, early 27, I suppose. All being well.

Roz (38:43.131)
Yeah, I was going to say, it's a long process.

Roz (38:51.675)
Yeah, it's so important, so important. It's like, I've done a little bit of work about gardens in NHS hospitals, not necessarily for Horatios, but for instance, there's a cancer centre in Milton Keynes which has a garden that you could sit there having your chemo and you're looking out at nothing.

Honestly, looking at a soil, it's got nothing just dire. And we've worked with them and said, okay, well, let's get this like, let's get some plants in here, let's start that. So on a very small scale. But NHS hospitals are normally concrete buildings that were built with no outdoor space. And they say, do you add that in later? It's the same with Horatio's garden. It's finding that right space outside, near a spinal unit, it's not that easy.

Polly (39:07.842)
Yeah, yeah.

Polly (39:21.774)
Totally.

Yeah.

Polly (39:33.71)
You know, we've got a, the site is quite challenging. It's a courtyard, a very large courtyard. It's currently just basically tarmac and a couple of trees. It's very, not a cheerful space until no one uses it because it's just a bit depressing. So, I mean, the quantity of plants we're putting in to turn it into sort of this sort beautiful green oasis. I mean, as you say, I find hospitals wildly depressing spaces. The gardens are always, well, there aren't gardens, are there? It's just...

Let's just tell him I-

Roz (40:05.733)
Yeah. I can't wait to go and see that one. I can't wait because I'm

Polly (40:08.782)
I just I can't wait to share the designs. We're so excited about it. It's just

Roz (40:12.893)
because I have done podcasts and so on with Horatio's Garden, was invited to Sheffield, which I will go to. But that'd be really exciting just to even see it now, how awful it looks now. It's like loads and loads of video, isn't it, of what it looks now and how it's going to develop. And then three years from now, it's going to be look completely different.

Polly (40:22.136)
Yeah.

Polly (40:25.794)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't wait. I mean, the other ones are so inspiring as well. We visited some to sort of understand the logistics of it all and they're just magical spaces. So I can't quite believe we've been added to the cohort because everyone else has designed it. are my icons really. So it's lovely to be on the list.

Roz (40:37.35)
Yes.

Roz (40:47.983)
Amazing, I think it's absolutely amazing and you should be really proud of it and we can't wait to see it, it's great. So three quick questions to finish up, what's your favourite plant?

Polly (40:51.19)
thank you.

Polly (40:56.334)
Do you know what? I have been agonising over this all week.

Polly (41:05.326)
thousand and I was like I'll say one and then the next day I'll think no it's not that it's something totally different.

Roz (41:10.205)
Change it. You're allowed to change it.

Polly (41:12.91)
Okay, do you know what, I still haven't landed on one because was like, ooh. Because favourite plant is like, what's my favourite plant to look at or what's the best doer? So the pedant in me is like, well, what's a plant that I would be out in a design or what's a plant that just brings me joy? If we're going with brings me joy, it's got to be the bearded iris.

Roz (41:35.154)
thing.

Polly (41:36.1)
I lost you there, sorry. I love bearded iris. I just think they are the most fruitfully indulgent, fabulous plant. Probably something like the one we used at Chelsea, which was iris wondrous, which is like, it's apricot one. Which, you know, that's my favorite in terms of if we're going full frivolity, yes, they're only in flower for like two weeks of the year. They've got some great foliage, don't they? So that's

Roz (41:37.778)
Interesting bearded Irish.

Polly (42:04.034)
But then, you know, if I was going for like, what's a plant, I wouldn't be without, probably go like, Hakuna Kloa macra, you know, just a grass, which I know isn't very exciting, but I would not be without that grass. I just think it's the best thing in the world. So you get two. Two favorite plants.

Roz (42:17.947)
I'll get you. That's good. Two for two, buy one, get one free. So we talked about childhood dream jobs, didn't we? And I remember going, we had a careers officer and I'm going back a long time now and his name was Mr. Bundy and he was old then and he had gray hair and was very quiet, sort of wore his little suit and his little jacket and you'd go in his and then he'd have a wall of books and you'd go in and say, what do want to do? And he'd pick the book out and he'd go and he'd flick through them and he'd go, you can be that. And I remember.

Polly (42:27.981)
Yeah.

Roz (42:47.089)
going in saying, well, I want to be a doctor because, you know, I didn't really know there were many jobs that I did. I'd have been useless by the way, but I also wasn't intelligent enough, which was also had a bit of a problem because you had to get three A's at A level in those days. So he tried to divert my attention to not being a doctor because he obviously realized I wasn't bright enough and said, well, why don't you go and be an optician or an ophthalmologist or why don't you go and be a... I went, thought, no, no.

Polly (42:50.04)
Did you? Yeah.

Polly (42:58.817)
Yeah, tricky,

Me!

Polly (43:11.06)
okay.

Roz (43:15.399)
do that because I want to do this so I was really angry at him and there wasn't a discussion about anything else so what do you think did you have a childhood job did you want to do

Polly (43:18.317)
Yeah, good on you.

Polly (43:25.71)
I wanted to be a fashion designer for a lot of my childhood. do you know, I love my parents so much, but I would tell them that and they'd be like, you don't have famous parents, it's not gonna happen. You know, like, I'm not Stella McCartney. So, they were like, maybe that's a hobby, darling, maybe that's a hobby. They very much steered me away from that. And fair enough, to be honest. I don't think I would have been a very good fashion designer at all.

Roz (43:30.173)
No!

Roz (43:45.489)
Change your name quickly.

Polly (43:54.67)
But that's the only thing I wanted to do as a kid. Other than that, there was nothing that spoke to me. And every time at school, we had to do those sort careers quizzes. I don't know, did you ever do any of them? And I always got like corporate. It would always be like, you should work for a magic circle. You should be a management consultant, which is funny enough what I started out being. And I was always a like, I want a corporate job. And it was what always came back.

is sort of you should do something corporate and I was there going I want to do something creative but I was not steered in that direction by my school or my folks or these quizzes so got there in the end though didn't I?

Roz (44:32.783)
Those quizzes, I know that makes me laugh. Those quizzes. I'm sure I must have some in the loft that I actually did. But I will always answer the question because I knew what I wanted to do. then that never worked out. So.

Polly (44:46.088)
Exactly! I think they're a bit biased, those quizzes, aren't they? You can steer them. Yes!

Roz (44:49.851)
bit biased. Do you want to work in the medical profession? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely stared, but nobody ever thought about horticulture or any of the jobs that could be outside. No, definitely not on the list.

Polly (45:02.538)
No, that wasn't on the list. That wasn't one of the results.

Roz (45:08.635)
If you think about things like archaeology or anything that's sort of outside or all the jobs that are coming up now that didn't even exist, know, or jobs that are going to be there in 10 years that we don't even know about yet. You know, we didn't know about AI five years ago and now we do. They'll all be coders. No, I'll still be able to cope for this.

Polly (45:16.15)
Yeah.

Polly (45:20.18)
No. Everyone will just be coders. We'll just all be coders.

Roz (45:30.397)
So if you won the lottery what would you do besides having a garden at Chelsea and I'd be in there with you so what would you do with a lottery win?

Polly (45:38.686)
Do you know what, I wouldn't do much. I would move further into the country. Yeah, I'm in sort suburbia at the moment, just by dint of my kid's school, really, and where their dad lives. So if it was up to me, I would live out in the country and I'd have, I just want like an outbuilding, which I can have a little pottery studio in.

Roz (45:44.687)
We'll do, moving ahead and out, yeah.

Polly (46:02.368)
and my other half can have a little carpentry studio. And other than that, I wouldn't really change anything. would just, more land for gardening is really the answer to mine. It was that lame. I don't really care about anything else. just, you know, I'd like to, and I'd probably be very selective of the jobs I did, because I'd only do ones that I was really excited about and just, well, obviously we try and do that anyway, but you know, even more so I'd be like.

Roz (46:02.74)
Ooh!

Roz (46:13.667)
Yeah, no, not at all.

Roz (46:22.428)
Yes.

Roz (46:27.609)
You could be, you could choose, you could absolutely choose. Yeah, yeah.

Polly (46:29.134)
You'd be really picky, couldn't you, when you don't care about paying any of the bills. But now I've just more land for gardens. Have some chickens.

Roz (46:37.693)
Yeah, more land. I mean, I've got enough land and I don't do, we bought this as a derelict house in a large plot and I've got enough land. Obviously as a flower farm you have enough land, don't you? But there's never enough land. So there's never enough. No. So then I would, up for sale at the moment is some allotment land next to us. Not expensive because it's amenity land. It's not even horticultural land. I'd buy that. I wouldn't move actually.

Polly (46:48.876)
There's never enough land.

What was he doing?

Polly (46:58.563)
Yeah.

Polly (47:03.437)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Roz (47:06.877)
because we're kind of like go back to we are in our forever house it took us 15 years to build the thing we're not going anywhere now I'd probably buy both girls a flat in London but that'd take all of it wouldn't it? mil, a few mil that would take a flat in Kensington yeah you might need 15 mil for that so

Polly (47:10.646)
Yeah, no fair enough.

Polly (47:18.494)
yeah, yeah, the money for the kids, yeah, yeah, I forgot that. We'd put the rest in there, yeah, sure, they can have some.

Yeah, it depends on the lottery win, don't win that much anymore on the lottery.

Roz (47:34.885)
more holidays probably but I do do little holidays anyway so yeah I'm with you I'd probably do some work with the Horatio's gardens actually or I'd do something yeah or something at Chelsea or I'd do something that I really like doing yeah and

Polly (47:37.112)
Yeah.

Polly (47:48.202)
It's sort of lovely, isn't it? Having the answer be like, not loads, just more gardening, more land to garden. mean, what a lovely answer, right?

Roz (47:54.321)
Well done, more plants. I've just bought 250 plants today. I'm not buying them. I bought them, is this silly or something? Yeah, they're for, no, they're for me, for my garden.

Polly (47:59.815)
watch my eye.

Are they for you? Are you for growing them or are they for God?

250, get on you.

Roz (48:10.011)
but they are cutting plants even though they're from my garden because I can't actually have something that doesn't have a Aranconos Horatio I bought some Echinacea, Hoona Dances I bought some

Polly (48:12.558)
course.

Polly (48:17.654)
Alright, nice. Do you replant them every year? Because I find that carnation tricky little beast.

Roz (48:24.549)
Yes, yes and we do divide them. Some penstemons, fairy tools. I bought some, my favorite, phylactrum splendido white. I bought 10 of those, managed to somehow get in this order. Monata, beauty of Cobham actually is what I thought. Hey, so that could be, there's 10 of those somehow. So somehow...

Polly (48:30.6)
very nice.

Polly (48:35.693)
yum.

Polly (48:40.791)
Okay.

Polly (48:45.356)
Hey, I love a Monada, so do the butterflies. How'd you go with the tens? You've gone with an even number there, that's making me nervous.

Roz (48:56.829)
I kind of hope that, well yes, that is an even number. It's about cutting gardens again, isn't it? Maybe I'll just, I've got to go odd number, haven't I? I've got to sort of like...

Polly (49:07.038)
Yeah. Ideally, but I guess you could go with two fives. There you go. Just divide them into an odd number.

Roz (49:13.661)
Well done. Thank you. was getting a little bit concerned about what I'm going to do now.

Roz (49:23.997)
So what next for you? Obviously you've got this big garden in Middlesbrough to do which is exciting. I can't wait to follow you on Instagram and see how that develops. That would be amazing. What next? Obviously winning the lottery would be great and working with some great clients would be really great. Anything you've got another book up your sleeve or even more podcasting?

Polly (49:27.415)
Yeah.

Polly (49:32.408)
Thank you.

Polly (49:41.07)
pondering another book, but I just need to think what that would be. And it did, it took up a lot of time. I also don't want to of batter people over the head too much with myself. Do you ever just sort of think, oh, I just think I just need to be quiet for a bit now and just get on with life. So I think, actually, I think the next year or so will be, I just really want to focus on our projects and.

Roz (49:43.933)
This is cool!

Roz (49:58.427)
Yes.

Polly (50:05.814)
I don't really have aspirations to sort of grow the studio much bigger. I love the size we are. I would sort of describe us as sort of boutique, but I love our projects. And so actually, have really, the last thing I want to do is get to sort of a team of 20 and might spend my life people managing. just did not get into this to be a people manager. So I'm really happy with where we are. So more of the same.

Roz (50:25.755)
No, me neither.

Roz (50:32.187)
That's amazing. That's really amazing. So.

Polly (50:34.35)
Yeah, that's a nice answer, isn't it? I'd actually quite like to try and work on that whole work-life balance thing so that I maybe don't work through my lunch, for example, maybe go for a walk.

Roz (50:46.119)
might be interesting. Work-life balance. I mean, I thought about that last night. On Sundays I tend to write my to-do list for the following week and I thought I do work every day. There is very little doubt that I do work every day. There isn't... The only work-life balance comes in when I go away so I can't. But whilst I'm here...

Polly (50:46.574)
It's just a small goals this year.

Polly (50:55.788)
Yeah. Yeah.

Polly (51:02.284)
Yeah, I'm right with you. Right with you. Yeah, okay, that's on the list. Yeah.

Roz (51:07.069)
More holidays, more holidays maybe, more time away. Yeah, definitely on the list. And on my list is to my garden designed, actually, so it's still on my list. Because I'm not a gardener. I mean, that just has to have jumped in. And I'll say, well, I didn't realise it was coming. It's just the right... It wasn't on the plan. I didn't prove it. They obviously thought it was the right place to put it.

Polly (51:15.406)
With a water feature and a swing. You've got the wishlist nailed.

Polly (51:24.75)
He just arrived, it part of the brief.

Roz (51:35.797)
so yeah I'm definitely working on that one so definitely if I win the lottery I'd have it all done completely yeah 100 % yeah full money like grasses along one side and big water features and a swing and I'd have I'd throw everything in the kitchen sink at it because it would be really important so

Polly (51:41.442)
Would you? Full whammy.

Mm-hmm.

Polly (51:50.109)
yum.

Polly (51:54.85)
I'm nearly finished with my garden, it's been built as we speak. And it sort of ended up a bit different to what I expected, because actually it's ended up quite formal.

Roz (51:59.899)
Bye.

Roz (52:05.383)
How's it?

Polly (52:06.688)
Yeah, by the fact that I've had to keep a level lawn in there, or I've had to introduce one because of my boys who, much to my chagrin, want to play football. I hate football with a violent passion, but they love it and actually it keeps them off the screen and I think as long as I try and do that, as long as I possibly can. So in the middle, right in the heart of my garden is a very, very formal flat lawn.

Roz (52:15.963)
Wanna play football? Yeah.

Polly (52:35.212)
And therefore it doesn't feel wild and how I would like it to be. When they grow up, there will be no lawn. There'll be no lawn. It will just be plants and pathways and hidden seating spots and a little water feature. Well, I'll try not to wish it away.

Roz (52:40.987)
You'll be out there with the wildflower seeds.

Roz (52:47.739)
Won't be long, eight years from now one of them's

Polly (52:53.688)
for those bloody football goals.

Roz (52:57.329)
Yeah, I bet. I don't have to do that. I haven't got any of that. My two live in London now and they can do their own thing. Don't have to think about that, but I do have too much grass.

Polly (53:03.774)
Yeah, the time for that will come, so I'm treasuring my formal lawn for the time being, and the time will come, won't it? When I win the lottery and move out to my acreage, then they can have a whole field, football field. Yeah.

Roz (53:18.065)
wouldn't matter, wouldn't matter. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Polly, it's lovely to you as a guest. It's really inspired me. And now I've got to go out and have a look in the garden and go, my God, and work out how I'm going to plant these hundreds of plants. I have no plan.

Polly (53:35.34)
Yes, of luck with that. I love that you've ordered them on that. I'm glad. That's like going to the supermarket hungry.

Roz (53:44.069)
Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly, it's exactly what I've done. Are they a cutting plant? Can I cut from them? Will they be good? Yes. Do I like the look of them? Yes. Where am I going to put them? No idea. How am I going to get the manpower to put on all these plants? I hadn't even thought about that one yet. So I need...

Polly (53:55.054)
We'll figure that one out.

Polly (54:00.18)
that's the awkward bit, isn't it? And then they sit in pots for ages being like, I will get to putting you in the ground. I will get there.

Roz (54:03.121)
Yes.

Yes, no. I'll send you a photo on Instagram of the pots by the back door in about a month's time, the pots by the back door. So yeah, you know, but it's lovely to meet you. You know, I'll be following you on Instagram. Can't wait to see how your project's developed. Stay in touch. And when I'm ready, you can come and do all my designing for me. So I won't be as silly to go and buy plants. I have no idea where I'm going to put them or even what they're going to look like.

Polly (54:11.096)
Please do. You too.

Polly (54:32.49)
Amazing. Sounds good. Sounds like a plan. well thank you so much for having me.

Roz (54:34.727)
but I'm sure they'll be lovely. Brilliant, thank you very much. And we'll put all your links in the show notes and people know how to find you and what to do and they'll be following you on Instagram and see what you're doing up in Middlesbrough. It will be amazing.

Polly (54:50.956)
Thank you so much.