The Questions - Anne Wareham

Anne Wareham is a garden writer for newspapers and magazines.  Anne edits the website ThinkinGardens a website for garden debate, discussion and critique.  Add to this, Anne is also an author of two books:  The Bad Tempered Gardener and her recent release: Outwitting Squirrels.  I have read and reviewed both books here and here.  Anne's Amazon page can be found here.

For those of you who live close to Nottingham, Anne is also going to be a guest speaker for the Nottingham Hardy Plant Society on the 13th November 2015.  It promises to be a highly entertaining evening.  Oh, and last but nowhere near least, Anne, with her husband Charles, is the owner and creator of Veddw House Garden, a garden that if you have not yet visited then you should add quickly to your todo list.

When I started to think about who I would ask to answer the Questions, Anne had to be on that list as I knew she would answer in good spirit and with thoughtfulness.  I was not disappointed.


The Questions

1.	In which garden do you feel happiest?	My own, inevitably
2.	If you could only have five gardening tools, which would they be?	Small electric hedge cutters – use for nearly everything, secateurs, bread knife, camera, mower.
3.	If you could only have five garden-related books, which would they be?	Graham Stuart Thomas Perennial Garden Plants, Gardening with Grasses, Michael King and Piet Oudolf, Planting the Natural Garden, Piet Oudolf Henk Gerritsen, Gardens of Illusion, Sara Maitland, Discovering Welsh Gardens, Stephen Anderton and Charles Hawes, (I assume I’m allowed to keep copies of my own books?)
4.	What was the most defining moment of your life so far?	Deciding to seduce Charles. (now husband)
5.	What are you most proud of?	That, possibly!
6.	If you won the lottery, what would you do?	Set up an annual award for the best garden review.
7.	Who are your garden heroes (no more than three)	Charles and Jeff (our gardener)
8.	What skill would you like to learn and why (does not have to be gardening related)	To be able to check  social media and find wonderfully positive things to say about everything, including banal but well meaning platitudes, pictures of dire gardens, and political nonsense.
9.	If you could visit any garden right this minute, which one would it be?	Sorry to be boring, but I’d be out there in my own. It’s early evening and the sun’s shining.
10.	What is your current plant obsession?	Red perennials and replacement plants for a whole large area of the garden – about 4 feet tall, and looking great for 6 months…
11.	Which garden tool is never far from your hand?	Camera.
12.	What is your favourite gardening/plant related word?	Drinks!
13.	What do you wish you could do better?	Be sweet to people who annoy me. Or everyone, come to that.
14.	What is the most important lesson you have learned so far?	Things will fail or die but that does offer expensive new opportunities.
15.	What makes a perfect day for you?	A good book and perfect peace. Friends or Charles in the evening. (someone else cooking)
16.	If you had one piece of advice to offer to someone what would it be?	Don’t get seduced by Wuthering Heights. Heathcliffe would have been hell to live with.
17.	Gnome or no-gnome?	I have a special gnome which I wouldn’t be without.

Next time: James Alexander Sinclair