I met up with Mark Lane at Gardeners’ World Live to talk about kneading soil, digging for roots and putting his garden in the public spotlight
Despite being an old hand at presenting after two years on the Gardeners’ World team, Mark Lane admits to being somewhat nervous about this week’s programme. Rather than filming in someone else’s garden, it’s his own plot that will be in the TV spotlight.
“It was very nerve-wracking,” he tells me. “Obviously, the garden is going to be viewed by several million people.
“I did go around with my gardener and we were trying to pull out as many of the weeds as we possibly could but there are lots of weeds in my garden and I live with them, so it was how they found it.”
In the past, Mark and his partner of 25 years, Jason, have opened the garden under the National Garden Scheme – something he describes as scary – but this is on a different scale.
The slot on the BBC programme aims to show people how they can garden regardless of either horticultural knowledge or physical ability.
Mark will be giving suggestions for good tools and how to choose them; walking around a garden centre with a trowel or fork in your hand for a while will soon show you if it’s too heavy, he suggests. There will also be handy tips, such as using long-handled ‘grabbers’ to help with planting, if you can’t get down to ground level.
It’s a difficulty he knows a lot about, having been in a wheelchair since a car accident nearly 25 years ago. Even so he’s planted 98 per cent of the plants in the Kent garden.
“I do a lot of the gardening on my bottom and I literally drag myself along. I’ve planted from tiny bulbs up to large trees.
“It’s one reason why I plant so densely because at this time of the year I can’t get into the borders.”
Being at wheelchair height has also influenced his design style: “I’m seeing a garden always through plants. It’s a completely different perspective.”
So, the view through things, such as grasses, and the way light falls are important considerations alongside contrasts of textures and form.
And he advises anyone planting up a garden to check what it looks like when they’re sat down.
“Have a look at it and see if it still looks right. More often than not you’ll find one plant might have to move because of the views through.”
Mark’s also fascinated by roots and admits to digging plants up to see what sort of root systems they have before replanting them and “hoping they will still live”.
Tap-rooted plants are put next to those with a more aerial root system in what he calls ‘companion planting’ so that they don’t compete in the same way for water and nutrients.
When it comes to plants, he prefers species rather than cultivars, believing them to be more robust. Digitalis purpurea is one example: “It may not flower for as long and the flowers may not face upwards as much but it’s a really good doer.”
Top of his plant choices are open-flowered things that are good for pollinators, thistles, such as eryngium, ornamental grasses, echinacea and summer bulbs, something he feels is often overlooked.
He does have a ‘love hate’ relationship with roses but grows them because his grandmother did: “It’s a nod to her.”
At the moment, they’re with traditional companions of peonies and hydrangeas but he’s planning to try them with ornamental grasses instead.
Formerly in publishing, Mark now has his own garden design and landscape business. He describes the garden as “contemporary wild” with a loose, natural feel. It’s been divided into varying areas: an orchard with long grass and wild flowers, a herb garden, a blue and yellow border, a new white border, an ornamental grass border, and a 30m-long herbaceous border.
“It’s my playground where I get to play with plants, colours, textures.”
Gardening has also been vital in combating physical pain and depression after the accident, pulling him out of what he calls ‘a dark place’.
“Jason suggested I went out into the garden and even though it was only for 10 minutes, I forgot about the pain, the depression, everything because I was just focussed on the breeze on my face and the colour of the plants.
“I try to get out there as much as possible to physically garden because I know from my own recuperation how that physicality of just doing gardening has helped me considerably.”
Indeed, he suggests anyone who wants to build up strength in their hands should try kneading soil for five minutes a day.
“You’ll be amazed after about three months how much more strength you’ll have back in your hands.”
He tries to spend at least 15 minutes a day in the garden, with his mood dictating where he goes.
“If I want to be uplifted, I’ll go to the colourful borders, or if I just want to chill, I’ll go to the white border. It’s my magical place.”
You can read about the rest of my visit to Gardeners’ World Live 2019 here.
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Thank you for this. I have known the benefits of gardening on my own mental health for many years, and have spent hours in the garden, unaware of time, finding solace in the mud, the weeds, the planting, the fruits, vegetables and blooms throughout all seasons.
Recently, my husband, younger than me, from a family where gardening isn’t in the genes, like mine, has ‘discovered’ the same comfort, and a release of stress from his extremely high-pressure job, whilst helping me mow the lawns (it started off as jealousy of my new red fuel mower!) and then the extensive job of weeding the driveway – something I was studiously ignoring! I found him ordering new gardening gloves last night. I think I might have acquired an under-gardener…..
Another joy we now share is visiting gardens open to the public on the NGS, but I have yet to persuade him to watch Gardeners’ World. That will come in time, I am sure!
My garden has long been my refuge from the hassle of life. I always feel so much better after an hour or so pottering outside.