Bunny in the Garden with...

This week is the last episode in this series.  The tables are turned and, Unity, Bunny’s daughter, as well as being the sound engineer, quizzes Bunny on her life, career and her garden.  There is an accompanying YouTube video on Bunny’s YouTube channel ‘The Guinness Girls gossip about Life and Gardening‘ which illustrates various aspect of Bunny’s life they chat about. This will go up on or just b...

This week Bunny is in the garden with nursery women Claire Austin.  Claire is the daughter of rose breeder David Austin (Senior) and worked with him following leaving Art College. Claire admits being more influenced by her mother, who also went to art college and was the gardener in their family.  Although when Pat died, her father, David took it over and radically altered it.   Claire set up her...

Today Bunny is in the garden with of Caryn Hibbert, founder and director of Thyme and the Bertiolli  Brand.  Caryn started life as a medic, an obstetrician and gynaecologist  whilst having  and bringing up 3 children.  Then in the early 2000 Caryn changed tack and started developing her own business.   Hear about the problems of combining medicine and a family, her brilliant father’s invention and...

Today Bunny is in the Garden with Sir Roderick Victor Llewelyn. Better known as Roddy.  Roddy is a gardening journalist, author and garden designer. He had a weekly column in the Sunday Mail for 12 years.  His father, the legendary Sir Harry Llewelyn, was the David Beckham of the day, an Olympic gold medallist in Show Jumping, and came second in the Grand National. His horse Foxhunter had a chain...

Today Bunny is in the garden with Lulu Guinness OBE. Lulu talks about her approach to design, how she loves creating original designs whether for handbags, interior design, gardens or clothing.  Several of her iconic handbags are in the V and A museum. Before setting up her business, Lulu was a model (probably the smallest one then in the world) a backing singer in Valentine Guinness’s band, and s...

Bunny is in the garden with David Haig MBE an extremely keen gardener though his famous face is familiar to many as Bernard in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, Jim Hacker in the film of ‘Yes Minister’ and has appeared in ‘Killing Eve’, and the Downton Abbey film too.   He is also a celebrated playwright, he wrote  ‘My Boy Jack’  where he not only penned  the play but also played Rudyard Kipling with...

Carole Boyd has been in the Archers since the mid 80’s. Following her training at the City of Birmingham University she then won BBC’s Carlton Hobbs award which involved a 6 month contract with  BBC Radio Drama Company.  But she started acting age 3, when, whilst being bored in long cinema queues, she used to sing and dance to entertain the other queue members.  Carole voices all the female voices...

Today Bunny is chatting to Melanie Reid MBE, about her garden in Scotland. Melaine Reid is best known for her weekly ‘Spinal Column’ in The Times magazine, which discusses disability and her life as a tetraplegic, following a serious riding accident.  Bunny and Melanie, chat about how she got into riding, the accident, dark humour in hospitals and aftercare. They talk about how gardening is good a...

Today, Bunny chats to George Monbiot, sadly not in his garden as it is a building site, but we hear all about his plans for the garden, which he is working on with his partner, Rebecca Wriggly. Rebecca is Chief Executive of Rewilding Britain.  Bunny and George  chat about why  George had an unhappy time at Oxford difficult, (he had an open scholarship) though enjoyed his course, his several near d...

Bunny is in Edward Bulmer’s beautiful, renovated Queen Anne house in rural Herefordshire.  Edwards family started the Cider firm, but Edward, having done a history of Art degree found that working in design was what really fascinated him.  Apart from being a prominent interior designer, he has his design shop in London, and has founded his natural paint firm, Edward Bulmer Natural Paints.  Edward...

Bunny is with the world famous fashion and textile designer Dame Zandra Rhodes in her zany 9th Floor flat in London, which has tiny outdoor spaces that face south, north and west.  Despite Zandra having designed clothes for numerous super stars such as Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana and Princess Anne, Zandra has a very down to earth side being passionate about making her own bread, listening to t...

I must come clean, Rachel is not green fingered, but she has had an eventful life and talks about visiting her high achieving brothers garden at Chequers while he was PM.  We are later joined by her husband Ivo Dawney, who is a keen gardener, and was a director and consultant to the National Trust. He tells us about visiting Chevening House, which was the home of Boris while he was foreign secreta...

Today Bunny is in Isabella Tree’s ground breaking Walled Garden at the Knepp Estate.  They start off in the more private garden by the stunning Knepp Castle before going into the Walled Garden that has been totally reworked creating hills and hollows to replace a flat croquet lawn and Traditional Kitchen garden. Lots of sand and crushed concrete have been added and the various aspects of the newly...

In this episode Bunny chats to  the renown homeware designer Sophie Allport in her beautiful east midlands garden.  Sophie’s range of homewares are inspired by nature, the British countryside, dogs and her busy family life. Listen to how Sophie started the business, got her first break at the country living faire, and went from designing mugs to textiles. Despite many heartbreaks along the way, le...

In the second of these two episodes top football correspondent, Henry Winter talks to Bunny in his Rutland garden about the importance of football to the economics of the country (somewhat larger than horticulture) and how footballers can have a huge influence  on excellent causes such as school dinners, autism and planting trees. His brother Tim (aka Abdal Hakim Murad), says of Henry "I was alway...

In the first of these two episodes top football correspondent, Henry Winter talks to Bunny in his Rutland garden about the importance of football to the economics of the country (somewhat larger than horticulture) and how footballers can have a huge influence  on excellent causes such as school dinners, autism and planting trees. His brother Tim (aka Abdal Hakim Murad), says of Henry "I was always...

In this episode Bunny talks to Bob  Flowerdew in his Norfolk garden.  They talk about his previous work before he started gardening professionally which include chicken giblet washer (advancing to chicken box counter), council care-home cleaner, dog impersonator, glass fibre laminator, houseboy & cook in house of ill repute, festival security lighting engineer, marine engineer, museum attendan...

In this episode Bunny chats to Tony Kirkham MBE in his South London garden. Tony Kirkham talks about his life growing with trees.  He was voted one of the most influential Londoners in 2016 but in fact he has a huge influence world-wide. He is extremely pleased The BBC Radio 4 program ‘The Archers’  is now highlighting tree surgeons, but is concerned that vast quantities of trees are being planted...

Today Bunny is in the garden with the star of BBC’s hit series ‘Normal for Norfolk’ Desmond MacCarthy.   Desmond talks about his beloved home, the Dutch gabled Jacobean, flint faced Wiveton Hall and how he has spent his life putting his energies into his family home with just a 250 acre farm to support it.  The series was the precursor to Clarkson’s Farm, showing just how difficult it is today to...

This week Bunny is in best selling author Caitlin Moran’s garden.   Caitlin is a best selling author, was the youngest broadsheet columnist for years and wrote her first book at 13. Bunny regards her as the nation’s psychotherapist as she takes problems we all have, makes them hilarious but gives us the tools to sort them. You always feel better informed having read her advice but will also have s...

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 Cas...

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 on...

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...

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....

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’. ...