Bunny in the Garden with someone special, someone who is well known for something other than their green fingers but who is also a mustard keen gardener. Bunny Guinness discover a range of guests through their garden, why, how and when they garden, the best tips they’ve learnt and their gardening style and approach.
31: Emma, Duchess of Rutland
Jul 26, 2024
Show notes
Bunny chats to Her Grace, The Duchess of Rutland, Emma, in her gardens at Belvoir Castle. Emma talks about her life and gardens, including how she won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music to study opera singing, before changing direction and training as a land agent. Emma has completed many ambitious projects at Belvoir, including recreating the Capability Brown scheme for Belvoir Castle which was Brown’s final scheme, plus creating The Engine Yard, a retail village next to the castle, complete with a small hotel. Emma also explains how she has managed to bounce back from her breakdown, which was triggered by the break-up of her marriage. Emma also talks about the hugely successful podcast ‘The Duchess’, that she started, where she would chat to other chatelaines of English country houses. #theduchess #bunnyguinnesspodcast
30: Emma Bridgewater
Jul 18, 2024
Show notes
Bunny is talking to Emma Bridgewater in her seaside garden. Emma tells Bunny about starting up her business at the tender age of 23 - it now has a turnover of £30,000,000 - and how her stepfather’s accountant ‘begged her to desist’, not realising her determination, and how she wanted to help revive and preserve the pottery tradition at the potteries at Stoke-on-Trent. The days the factory not only produces thousands of pieces of pottery each week, but also has a factory garden, where she holds a literary festival most years. Emma was president of the CPRE (Council for Protection for Rural England), which highlights her passion for all things rural. Emma talks about how she developed rheumatoid arthritis due to her frenetic lifestyle, and how she has managed to overcome it with help from outdoor spaces, her garden and learning how ‘to walk back to herself’. Emma’s appreciation of gardens comes originally from her two grannies who were both keen but very different gardeners. Emma’s garden contains two verandas, important covered spaces for enjoying the fresh air in all weathers. She talks about how she designed the verandas, her treatment of her pelargoniums, her love of herbs and her meadow. Plus how she added her amazing look out point with sea views created from a reclaimed metal staircase. Emma chats about her proposal to make a greenhouse from reclaimed windows that she is just about to embark on. To see Emma’s garden and kitchen see Bunny’s YouTube video ‘Emma Bridgewater’s kitchen, garden, veranda and lookouts’. #emmabridgewater #autoimmune
29: Caroline Haughey OBE KC
Jul 12, 2024
Show notes
Caroline Haughey OBE KC talks to Bunny in her idyllic garden (with its own cricket pitch) about the problems of modern slavery, how she works with the police and crime writers for TV dramas, and her love of boots! Caroline uses her outdoor spaces as a counterpoint to her frenetic life. Despite having a life time phobia of soil, she still loves gardening. Her mother (who also ran her own legal practice) is an amazing gardener, and together with Caroline’s her late father, Baron Ballyedmond, who was also was passionate about restoring and bringing to life houses and gardens, they did extensive work to Ballyedmond Castle, where Caroline spent some of her years growing up in a remarkable garden. #antislavery #bunnyguinnesspodcast
28: David Austin Junior
Jul 05, 2024
Show notes
Bunny chats to David Austin Junior in his Shropshire garden. David Austin Junior is the son of the world-famous rose breeder, David Austin OBE who died in 2018. David (who is Bunny’s cousin) joined his father in the family business, after running a jewellery business for eight years with his first wife. David has always had a keen interest in business, which he combines with a passion for roses. David talks about how he grew up with the rose business as a child, how he realised that his father’s business was going to be massive, and how he helped develop the strategy including the licensing to many countries, developing the wholesale side and working with the garden centres. David’s own garden is full of roses grown in many different ways. He gives a fascinating insight into the business, the way roses perform and how to get the best out of them. To see David’s garden see Bunny’s Youtube video ‘David Austin junior’s Fantastic Garden with Great tips on roses’. #davidaustinroses #bunnyguinnesspodcast
27: Anna Pasternak
Jun 28, 2024
Show notes
Bunny is in the seaside garden of Anna Pasternak. Anna is well known as a journalist and author. Anna had the privilege of growing up in a Gertrude Jekyll garden as a child, and loves gardens with different spaces or rooms within them. One of Anna’s favourite plants is lilac, as they were her great uncle, Boris Pasternak’s favourite. Boris Pasternak won a Noble Prize for his book ‘Dr Zhivago’. Anna wrote a book ‘Lara: The Untold Love Story that Inspired Doctor Zhivago”, the book revealed for the first time the critical role played by Olga Ivinskaya (Boris’s mistress) in his life, and argues that without Olga it is likely that Doctor Zhivago would never have been completed or published. Anna has also authored “Princess in Love” (about Diana and James Hewitt) and ‘Untitled:The Real Wallis Simpson’. Her mission is to write books that rehabilitate women whom history has treated unfairly. For her present, Bunny took Anna a little known plant, Aloysia polystachya, which can be used to make a delicious herbal tea that has been proven to help relieve anxiety.
26: Nina Campbell
Jun 21, 2024
Show notes
Bunny chats to Nina Campbell in her London Garden. Nina is the Doyenne of Interiors and is an internationally renown Interior Designer. Nina won the American Fashion award for ‘the Women who has most influenced style Internationally’ and works for many celebs such as Ringo Star and the royals. Nina is Godmother to Geri Halliwell’s daughter. She was born on the day after World War II ended. Nina talks about her life and how she got into interior design. Nina she still enjoys running her business despite being 79 years old . Her wide business interests include having a shop and designing fabric collections. Nina has no intention of having an exit strategy, but enjoys working with young designers and creating new ranges for a wide range of price points. Nina talks about her design strategies and how she plays with scale and colour. In her tiny London garden she has played with paving sizes to create false perspective, has used mirrors and narrow but high containers to make the space look bigger but also softer. The palette of plants, the louvred fencing and the furniture are chosen with great attention to detail and together create stunning relaxing spaces from what was a narrow, dusty, roadside strip with no privacy from the public. For Nina’s present, Bunny takes Nina a plant, Dianthus barbatus ‘Sooty’ , a short lived perennial with beautifully deep maroon flower heads that last for months. It also has an exceptionally long vase life. This plant self seeds (and is true from seed) so although technically a short lived perennial, in affect it rarely needs replacing. To see Nina’s gardensee Bunny’s YouTube ‘Bunny chats to Nina Campbell in her London Garden’. #ninacampbell #bunnyguinnesspodcast
25: Tim Hart
Jun 14, 2024
Show noteshis week Bunny is in the garden with Tim Hart. Tim switched from a nine year long banking career to starting a hotel in 1979. Now his world famous hotel, Hambleton Hall in Rutland, is renown for its superb cuisine – it has held a Michelin star since 1982, for 44 years, the longest of any restaurant in the UK. Tim gained this just 3 years after opening, while AA Gill’s brother, Nick Gill, was head chef. The gardens Tim has created, which overlook Rutland Water, are also exceptional. Tim explains how they altered them to give them year round appeal and how he prunes his stunning cloud pruned cork oak, climbing the trees himself in order to do it. See the video ‘Fabulous Food, Fabulous Garden’ on Bunny’s YouTube channel where she chats to Tim and the Head Gardener Rob. www.hambletonhall.com #hambletonhall #bunnyguinnesspodcast
24: Nick Mason and Annette Lynton Mason
Jun 07, 2024
Show notes
Today Bunny is in the garden with Nick Mason and his wife, Annette Lynton Mason. Nick is a founder member of Pink Floyd, and his wife, Annette, an actress and sculptress well known for her roles in big hits such as New Avengers, Cross Roads, Casualty, Treasure Hunt and more… They bought their house in Corsham, Wiltshire from the Parker Bowles, after Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles divorced in 1995. Their garden is open on the 8th and 9th June 2024 for charity. Visitors can admire some of Nick’s car collection as well as their garden complete with pigs, sheep, cattle and sheep. Nick talks about life with the Pink Floyd, and his new band Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, the meteoric rise of Pink Floyd, and what sort of architect he would have been if he had continued his architecture studies. Annette explains how she makes sculptures for the garden, and life as an actress. #bunnyguinnesspodcast #middlewickhouse
23: Max Cotton
May 29, 2024
Show notes
This week Bunny chats to Max Cotton. Max was a political reporter in Westminster for the BBC from 1995. He left politics in 2012. Max decided he would live for twelve months from his small holding near Glastonbury of 5 acres only allowing himself to buy salt. As Max put it ‘I wanted a plain pastoral existence, that a chap in Saxon England would recognise, for its stoic simplicity of purpose.’ Bunny chats to Max about the politics involved in farming, William Cobbett who in the 18th Century reckon a quarter of an acre could feed a family, and how he grew 2500 calories a day to feed himself for 365 days. #bunnyguinnesspodcast #maxgrowingsolo
22: Bella Hoare
May 24, 2024
Show notes
In this weeks episode Bunny talks to Bella Hoare in her magnificent garden next to Stourhead, the world famous 18th Century landscape garden created by Henry Hoare (Henry the Magnificent) . Bella is a direct descendant from Henry, and like him she is a banker and gardener but is also an artist. Her exhibition ‘A Different Green’ takes place at The Oxo Tower on London’s South Bank between 22nd May and 2nd June 2024. Bella has lived and worked in Russia, opens her garden under the NGS and is passionate about colour. See the video featuring the Bella’s garden, and Bunny and Bella, on Bunny’s YouTube Channel. #bellahoare #bunnyguinnesspodcast
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
