James Alexander Sinclair: ‘I don’t like letting go of my gardens; my ideal job goes on for ten years!’
11 October 2011
As a garden designer, James Alexander‐Sinclair is well known for his evocative plant combinations and his ability to design beautiful gardens.
He’s well known in the industry for his blogging prowess, his well crafted articles and his brilliantly funny presentations. “Most of my stuff requires gardeners.” He said to the assembled
audience; “ One of the first questions I’ll ask a client is; ‘how
much gardening do you want to do’. Then I have to ask ‘can you afford a gardener’?”
James joked that the best advice he could give regarding design for maintenance was to “pick your clients because they have money – if they have less money than you – they’re the wrong person. They
have to have more. Deep down we should love bankers – they have bonuses and they spend it on us. We should like the fact that bankers getting bonuses – they are the ones who are in the position to employ decent people to look after the stuff we do.”
On a serious note, James underlined that the newly designed garden “will deteriorate and vanish really quickly if it’s not looked after.”
James professed to making friends with his clients and said that he “only works with people he likes” as he’s going to be spending a
lot of time with them. “I don’t like letting go of my gardens – my ideal job goes on for ten or fifteen years.
How I want to build a garden with a client is the same way I build one for myself – I don’t want to get in there and get the hell out – I like something that has space for me and development and a place for me to sit at their kitchen table and eat their best biscuits for at least the next decade. Then nothing can go wrong – I’m there.”
James suggested that any design scheme will change – nothing stays the same for the client. “the clients situations change – their children grow up, they buy a dog, things change, and if you’re not
there to help the whole thing will go to hell in a hand‐cart. “
Design for maintenance
James delivered some interesting sound‐bites on how to design with maintenance in mind.
“We want our clients to love what we do, enjoy it and nurture it. I try and teach every client I have that there’s nothing wrong with having a couple of weeds in there. Nobody’s been arrested for having weeds in their garden – be relaxed about it.
“There’s a lot of guff written about (I may have even written it myself) how places should be calm and commune with nature, but what we really want is to go out there and be enthused.
“Colour is primeval – it appeals to everyone. It’s all about the colour and the way it affects them and moves them.
“Work with the shape of the flower and the colour and the way they go together – all of those things can enrich people’s lives and make us happier. I haven’t drawn a planting plan for 3 and a half years
because I like to just do it. I drop in groups and singles and different combinations. Put all of these things together you end up with the beginnings of gardens – of plants coming together. A of course all of these spaces need looking after. Quite a lot of
plants need staking, dividing and phaffing around with.
Sex and death
“Gardens as we know are mostly about sex and death – when death comes it has to be as pretty as you can make it. If you cut things down there is no picturesque death – there are plants out there who
die like poets in garrets – you want to keep them going for as long as you possibly can. Plants are not puppies – if you want to kill them it’s okay. If you get bored of them, you can compost them – they can go to that special place behind the shed. Chuck stuff out, throw things away, move things around.
James closed the day by saying: “If everything is low maintenance, where is the skill? There’s no skill in wielding a hedge trimmer, there’s skill in looking after a garden – we need more gardeners who can do this stuff. If we don’t have high maintenance gardens where will these people learn?”
Palmstead
Nick Coslett, Marketing Manager for Palmstead Nurseries said at the close of the annual event; ‘’We’ve had a really great day – the speakers were really great and provided a lot of food for thought.
It’s important we value the skills needed to maintain things and we each have to be an ambassador to promote those skills to our clients and also be ambassadors to promote quality green space for all.’
Nick then introduced key members of his team to the audience who later escorted a large number of delegates back to the Nursery at Wye in order to see view the plants and take a tour of the site.
For further information contact Nick Coslett at Palmstead 01233 811304 or nick@palmstead.co.uk
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