Quick Takes With: Kendra Wilson

Today, we’re thrilled to open up this column to all R/G readers, not just subscribers, to share the Quick Takes answers from our very own Kendra Wilson.

Kendra is among the OG Gardenista crew—she’s been a contributor to the site since its launch in 2012. She’s also worked for British Vogue (“my first writing job”), contributed to The Guardian‘s gardening blog, created her own “secret blog” about estate gardening in Northamptonshire, England (it was the era of blogs), and written ten (!) books—the latest being Gardenista: The Low-Impact Garden. In bookstores October 14 and available for pre-order now, it’s the newest addition to the R/G collection.

We couldn’t have dreamed up a better author and collaborator for the book. Kendra, who was raised in Fairfield, CT, but moved to the U.K. as a teenager (“I’m essentially American, despite the English accent”), is passionate about gardens and the people who bring them to life and is opinionated in the best possible way. Read on to learn what strikes her fancy (including new-to-us, and now must-have, gardening gloves), who gets her goat, and why “gardening for nature is not a trend.”

Photography courtesy of Kendra Wilson.

Above: A spread from The Low-Impact Garden.

Your first garden memory:

Petunias. Exploring the woods and meadows around our house in Weston, Connecticut, always barefoot. The sounds: cicadas, frogs, blue jays.

Garden-related book you return to time and again:

I return to these singular voices: Russell Page (The Education of a Gardener), Christopher Lloyd (The Well-Tempered Gardener and many more), Vita Sackville-West’s columns for the Observer newspaper (“In Your Garden”). And less imperious: Marjorie Fish (We Made a Garden), Eleanor Peréni (Green Thoughts), and Derek Jarman (Derek Jarman’s Garden). His description of the photographer Howard Sooley is one for the ages.

Instagram account that inspires you:

@marcfinds, @idleriver, and @arthurparkinson when he’s annoyed about something. [Find Arthur’s own Quick Takes here.]

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Abundant, indulgent, buzzing.

Plant that makes you swoon:

Crab apple blossom, lily regale, old-fashioned roses, oriental poppies, very full and highly scented lilacs.

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Hyacinths—there is no reason to plant them in the garden after they have finished flowering indoors.

Favorite go-to plant:

Above: The back of Kendra’s former home in Leicestershire, with Rosa ‘New Dawn’ stretching across 34 feet.

Anything in the Rosaceae family, i.e. roses, strawberries, raspberries, blackthorn. Apple, pear, quince, plum, cherry, apricot, peach, almond, rowan and hawthorn trees… For someone who mainly loves to stare at insects and birds, roses and/or fruit trees are a whole garden. I also like editing, so pruning is part of the enjoyment.

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

When people ask for garden advice, it’s important to be concise and relatable, since they tend to stop listening very quickly. In garden writing, too, there is no room for waffle: In these urgent times, the message is all.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

A full garden is much easier to look after than something very controlled, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. My former neighbor was a classic garden panicker and would say, “This is hard work!” before slowly pulling everything out and seeing it replaced by weeds. The next step is paving.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

The backlash against a more ecological approach, i.e. “It’s my garden and I garden for myself, not wildlife.” Gardening for nature is not a trend; it’s logic.

Favorite gardening hack:

Above: An easy-to-make habitat pile, at the Newt in Somerset.

If it looks purposeful, it has beauty. I love seeing garden “waste” turned into a form of self-expression, eg. cuttings made into habitat piles, twigs and branches shaped into a dry hedge.

Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.

Gathering flowers and leaves that might not look like much outside but which combine well into a good-looking bunch, which is further improved by adding herbs.

Favorite hardscaping material:

Decomposed granite (US); self-binding gravel (UK) for permeability, which is so crucial.

Tool you can’t live without:

Tough Touch gloves by Gold Leaf, which cover my arm up to the elbow and are thick enough for grasping nettles, brambles, and thorns, which I do a lot.

Every garden needs a…

Above: A Victorian pancheon bowl set out for summer in Kendra’s garden.

Bowl (or bucket) that can become a mini pond with the help of pygmy water lilies and a tiny pump. In short: water.

Go-to gardening outfit:

Pajamas, unintentionally. If I’m going to the allotment, Union Made overalls.

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Coton Manor, Great Dixter, any nursery where plants are propagated by people who care about growing. And plant stalls at local markets and charity openings, for the same reason.

On your wishlist:

A stormproof polytunnel from Keder Greenhouse.

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

Stoneleigh, on the Main Line in Pennsylvania. It perfectly illustrates how good native planting can look against any kind of architecture; in this case, an early 20th century stone house. And it’s free. [See our Quick Takes with Stoneleigh’s director here.]

The REAL reason you garden:

Above: Inside the garden hut that Kendra and her twin sister Megan (@ancientindustries) decorated for Jo Thompson, at the Chelsea Flower Show. Photograph by Howard Sooley.

It’s a complete mood-enhancer. I’m aware, though, that the “gardening is good for you” mantra is best applied to people like me who are not professional gardeners; I’m lucky to be able to gaze out the window and not worry about the clock ticking on a to-do list that never ends.