This is a very social place. The Royal Pavilion gardens are right in the heart of the city. We have visitors from all over the world. Also, a lot of people walk through on their way to work. They have told me that seeing all the birds and flowers sets them up for the day.
It’s the hollyhocks that people love most – you could say they mirror the pinnacles of the Pavilion with their rainbow-coloured radiance. Last year one grew to 12ft tall.
You won’t find any straight lines; the garden has a much more natural shape. I don’t cut everything back in autumn, and the seed heads are a food source for the birds over winter. It’s a real nature haven: the RSPB has an office nearby, and its employees enjoy spending lunchtimes here and telling me what birds they’ve spotted.
Volunteers help out a few times a week. I make sure they are all well looked after and they keep coming back. One woman has been coming for 20 years. She’s just turned 90 and does all the labels for our seed giveaways.
This isn’t a flower garden as such. We have evergreens of all different shapes and shades, so there’s something all year round. The flowers are more like jewels against a textured backdrop of green: snowdrops, wild daffodils, lilacs, tulips, peonies followed by rose, hollyhocks, foxgloves, poppies and sunflowers.
As you walk around you catch snapshots of the Pavilion from different angles through openings in the planting. The gardens have been reinstated to how they would have looked when John Nash originally designed them, with a mixture of the native and the new, exotic varieties the plant hunters were bringing back. It was such an exciting time in gardening history. You could say it’s a bit like a museum of Regency plants, which I’m always adding to – last year it was tree lupins.
People like meeting here. The gardens have been a backdrop to romances blossoming as well as relationships breaking up. One couple were obviously trying desperately to sort out whatever problems they had, but in the end they walked off down different paths… it was like a short story. I’ve been here since 1988 and I’m still fascinated.
My favourite spot
By the cafe, looking out across the lawn, past the winding paths and planting to the Pavilion, as I listen to a saxophone or sitar being played by a busker.
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