Garden writer and cook Sarah Raven, 49,
tells Emma Pritchard about the flowers that have marked the memorable moment in
her life.
Sarah is married to writer Adam Nicolson,
and has two teenage daughters and three stepsons. She lives at Perch Hill Farm
in Sussex, where she runs courses in cooking, flower arranging, growing and
gardening.
“some of my most relaxed and happy times
were spent in the garden”
The man who taught me to love wild flowers…
My father was a keen amateur botanist, and
from when I was seven we would go on trips in his Morris Minor with a couple of
harm rolls, a bottle of fizzy apple juice and a large bar of Fruit & Nut.
We lived in Shepreth, near Cambridge, where he was a don, and we would see
pasque flowers, oxlips and fritillaries in the heaths, woods and meadows
around. He in turn had inherited his love of the natural world from his father.
Between them, astonishingly, they painted almost every plant in the British
flora. I still have 18 volumes of their beautiful watercolours. We also went on
weekend walks. I have four brothers and sisters – my twin sister Jane and I are
the youngest – but these walks were my time alone with him, and incredibly
special. He died from emphysema when I was 17, and towards the end I became his
legs. He would send me out to find his favourite mountain flowers, such as rare
and unusual yellow hawkweeds. Although gardening has always been in my blood, I
actually did a degree in history, but then my father’s illness influenced me to
change track and I applied to train as a doctor.
Window boxes and salad days
Gardening was a brilliant balance to my
hospital work. I only had a very tiny garden, so I started growing salad
leaves, herbs and radishes in window boxes, teaching myself with gardening
books. I progressed to artichokes and cardoons (flowers), a type of ornamental
thistle, which were a real success – I’m told they’re still growing there.
How I was wooed with freesias (and bacon sarnies)
I met my husband Adam on a skiing holiday
when I was a medical student. He never bought me flowers when we were dating
because they just weren’t his thing. But he knew how much I loved them, and
every February for my birthday, he’d take me to London’s Nine Elm market and
give me whatever cash he had for me to buy flowers. I used to choose bunches of
freesias because I adore their smell and the fact they last for weeks. We’d
always end up at the nearby greasy spoon for toasted bacon sandwiches – my idea
of heaven.
A scented surprise
The day I sat my university finals in
medicine I came home to find my little house in London completely filled with
the sweet scent of flowers. My mother had secretly come up from her home with
endless amounts of mock orange, roses and any other fragrant flowers and shrubs
that she could find in her garden. From the hall onwards throughout the place,
there were wonderful vases and bowls just full of flowers. It was a very
touching gesture because I wasn’t used to my mother being so demonstrative, and
it was the perfect tribute to my father.
Going back to my roots
I gave up my career in medicine when I had
children. It was a difficult decision, but I was working in obstetrics at the
time, and the long hours of hospital work didn’t fit in with family life. I
realized that some of my most relaxed and happy times were spent in the garden
or wandering down lanes to see what wild flowers I might find. It made sense to
return to my roots. Adam and I moved to our home in Perch Hill, Sussex, in
1994, and worked hard to create a fabulous garden. Some years later, I began
running classes here in gardening, cookery and flower arranging. There’s an
area for cut-and-come-again flowers, one for bee-friendly plants, a salad and
herb garden, and I also grow edible flowers such as violas, frosted chocolate
pansies and sweet Williams, which I’ll add to salads or use when cooking.
Nasturtiums make a tasty – and colourful – alternative to black pepper.
Every flowers tells a story
My garden is full of plants I’ve collected
or been given as gifts. I received a collection of snowdrops when my youngest
was born, which I’ve divided up every year since. So, 15 years on, January to
March, my garden is filled with them. One of my favourite trio of shrubs and
climbers is a combination of Elaeagnus “Quicksilver”, Clematis “Etoile
Violette” and “Cerise Bouquet” rose, which looks and smells wonderful, and I
also love the Euphorbia ceratocarpa my mum collected from Rhodes and which
flowers all year round. We spent quite a bit of time in Greece when I was
growing up and I have a beautiful green and black widow iris, Hermodactylus
tuberosus, which reminds me of holidays in Corfu, where I first found it, aged
seven or eight. My own girls are busy being teenagers just now so aren’t
interested in plants, but I hope they will be in the future – when you live
surrounded by flowers, it’s impossible not to be.
