Frost in May
Spring is here at last and in his gorgeous Lincolnshire garden, Adam Frost thrills to every bud that bursts into blossom. The BBC Gardeners’ World presenter tells us how nature and the countryside have inspired his career
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Adam Frost appears on BBC Gardeners’ World, Fridays at 8pm on BBC Two
There’s something in the air and it’s not just the uplifting scent of spring. Garden designer and BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Adam Frost is quietly making changes in his own little parcel of England.
As our gardens and green spaces burst into joyous riots of colour, it’s a good time to take stock and appreciate what we’ve got in the here and now. “Enjoying the moment,” as Adam puts it, “and not the race to get wherever we’re going.” It’s a familiar outlook since the pandemic began. “We talk a lot about that now, being in the moment, but how many of us actually do that?” he says. “That connection with our environment, the outdoors, nature… that’s it for me.”
Adam’s latest book, The Creative Gardener, featuring more than 20 projects for all types of gardens, is about enjoying hands-on processes rather than the end result. It was written during the Covid lockdowns, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, became focused on time: past, present and future. “I am handy,” Adam says. “I wasn’t good at school, academically. One of my grandads was a gun engineer, my old man was a landscaper, and my Uncle Greg was forever doing bits and pieces with me. I’m happiest using my hands. It’s not necessarily the outcome, it’s the doing: feeling woodgrain under fingertips, the satisfaction of knocking a nail in.”
The book, he admits, was “mammoth”. “I made every single project in it; they are things to look forward to, to get outside with.” And outside is where he longs to be, never more so in spring. “I love everything bursting into life, the limes and greens, the blues, whites that appear early on in the year; that early sun on my back, getting my hands into soil that’s warming a little, getting going in the veg garden, the air… everything’s fresh. Spring is a celebration, about blossom and early scents. I guarantee I will be on my hands and knees, nose-deep in wild tulips.”
This tactile, personal link with nature runs deep: “I had a difficult childhood and I associate being outdoors – long walks, running, out with the dogs, the garden – with safety. I was often escaping something, going off playing in the fields, and they were calm places to be, yet it took until my mid-40s to work that out.
“I love my work and I feel privileged in so many ways, but sometimes you need to take stock. People might think ‘he’s on the telly, he’s writing books, doing this and that’ – none of that was planned, it just happened, and it’s fantastic. But I’m now considering why I do things. I went through a process of writing down what I actually did and thought, ‘Frosty, you must be mad. How did you think this was a good idea?’ If anyone else showed me that kind of workload, I’d tell them it was impossible.
“Spring a celebration… I will be on my hands and knees, nose-deep in wild tulips”
“I want to spend more time with Mrs Frost and the kids, doing the things I love. We live in a world where we are brought up to get results, buy a house, buy a bigger house – the stuff that society expects of us. Writing a book, the lockdown, has made me rethink what’s important.” Adam says he is taking time to reshape his life. “I don’t quite know how it will end up, but I’ve gone into 2022 very differently to, probably, any other year since I was 16, when I first trained in gardening.” He has seven gold medals from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and a design business, not to mention a famous garden, thanks to presenting BBC Gardeners’ World, but for 52-year-old Adam, the best thing is being in Lincolnshire with his family. That’s wife Sulina, who’s from Stamford, and their children, 25-year-old Abi-Jade, Jacob, 24, Amber-Lily, 17, and Oakley, 15.
LOVE FOR LINCOLNSHIRE
Essex-born, Adam moved to Lincolnshire aged 21 to work with the late, great Gardeners’ World presenter Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale Gardens over the border in Rutland. The Frosts’ limestone farmhouse in the village of Barnack sits within a garden that’s deliberately regional. Adam has spent an age sourcing the right types of seeds to grow native plants – especially wild ones – for conservation and diversity, to in turn attract wildlife. That’s something he picked up from Geoff.
“Gardens are about space, plants and people – but also place. I’m happier creating a garden that feels like it belongs. The countryside plays a massive part in our lives. We have red kites flying over. We saw a marbled white butterfly in the garden, and I was jumping up and down like a kid. I go on early morning runs all year, seeing the seasons change, often through the grounds of Burghley House nearby, thinking about how ‘Capability’ Brown wandered around. That heritage inspires me.
“Lincolnshire is a gem. It’s huge – the diversity of its landscape is incredible. There’s Stamford in the south, a beautiful limestone market town, then across the Fens with big skies and up into the Wolds. Then there’s Lincoln and the coastline… it doesn’t get enough fanfare.” Since joining BBC Gardeners’ World in 2017, Adam has done his bit to showcase the county.
“It all feels slightly daft, it’s just my garden,” he says, of his ‘celebrity’. “I’m just a bloke who loves what he does. Let’s be honest, I’m talking about gardening. I’m not a rock star walking out in front of Wembley. It’s rather strange, but a huge privilege. When someone says they have had a go at a project, or I meet a youngster at a show, these small things all add up.”
APPRECIATING THE MOMENT
Why Adam loves plants in three words? “They represent life,” he says, instantly. There’s no doubt that he is taking his own advice, given in his book The Creative Gardener, by making a conscious e ort to slow down and reconnect with the present moment – but it’s not easy. “I’ve become stricter,” he admits. “An average day starts at 5.30am with a run, sorting the family, and then getting into the o ce or on the road. I sit down at about 9pm. I find [work] easier in the summer –I struggle mentally with winter’s lack of light. To come home and have a potter, whether that’s watering pots or weeding, is a lovely way to see the day out.”
Adam is now taking time to appreciate his achievements. “If I look at the teenage-toerag me, to where I’ve got to… I mean, I’m dyslexic, so writing a book was beyond anything I’d dreamed of. I would tell him to enjoy it more – I’ve always done something and cracked on to the next thing. I never spent enough time taking a moment. Now I’m doing that.”
RHS The Creative Gardener: Inspirational Projects and Ideas To Create the Space You Want, by Adam Frost, is published by DK, £20.
A PLANT LOVER’S GUIDE TO THE EAST MIDLANDS
Adam’s favourite country places
1 Woodlands “The Lincolnshire countryside and coastline are stunning,” says Adam, “but it’s freezing when the wind comes in! I’m a sucker for woods and their sense of shelter. To be in a wood and the only person there – that’s near-paradise. I’d live and die in a wood. I like the calmness they provide.”
• For more on Lincolnshire woodlands, go to explorelincolnshire.co.uk/things-to-do/ outdoors-and-nature/forests-and-naturereserves.html
2 Clare’s Cottage “Poet John Clare (1793–1864) is one of my heroes,” says Adam. “Helpston is a couple of villages on from me, and I love the walks from Clare’s Cottage. They give you a taste of Lincolnshire – it’s a good place to start to explore the county.” Visit the restored house and gardens on Mondays and Thursdays, 10am to 3pm. clarecottage.org
3 Burghley House, Stamford “I love the grounds… some of those oaks and horse chestnuts,” says Adam. “As sad as this is, I take photos up-close of trees, or take time looking around a tree’s diameter, enjoying encounters with nature.” burghley.co.uk
4 Easton Walled Garden, near Grantham This 450-year-old garden – with its yew tunnel, long borders, rose meadows, woodland and orchard – is revered in the gardening world. “Spending time there is lovely,” says Adam. visiteaston.co.uk
5 Barnack Hills and Holes, Cambridgeshire The site of a medieval quarry, this wildflowerstrewn area is now a national nature reserve, described by the Woodland Trust as “one of Britain’s most important wildlife sites”. woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/barnack-hills-and-holes-nnr/
Lucy Wood is a writer who lives in Lincolnshire. Her books include The Little Book of Lincolnshire (History Press).