Emma Plunket
Garden Designer
When not designing gardens in the London and South East you'll find Emma at Chiltern Forage farm, where she has turned 8 acres of pasture into native wildflower meadows with plantings of edible flowers, berries, fruit, foliage and roots.
Your three favourite flowers?
Rosa mutabilis ancient, delicate and ever changing tones hence the name; wild violets and Magnolia stellata
Tell us about your childhood garden?
Memories of being in trouble for eating chives before my birthday party and cooking sausages, which were daffodil buds. So pretty hands on.
Who or what inspired your career choice?
Desperation to get out of an office full of brand consultants and graphic designers
What is a typical day in the life of Emma?
Luckily there isn’t one.
No garden is complete without …
Trees and plants (no apologies to the outdoor room proponents)
Something we’d find:
• On your bedside table: the best hand cream
• In your flower arrangement: anything wild from Chiltern Forage Farm
• In your garden shed: wish it was a greenhouse but it’s just a humble store in a shady corner
The flaw you wish you didn’t have?
I try not to dwell on such thoughts
What would you be in another life?
one of my dachshunds
Guiding principles?
Agree the brief before designing or planting anything.
Who is a horticultural hero?
The nurseryman on the south coast who’s been growing most of the plants for my gardens for over a decade
What is the one flower or plant you’d never plant in your garden, but don’t detest when you see others plant it?
Tree fern
If there was a fire, and you could only keep one horticultural book, what would it be?
Noel Kingbury’s ‘Planting: A New Perspective’ for its ecological approach
For posterity, what would you like your work to be known for?
What outlives me – the trees and the people who’ll look after them
Contact: www.plunketgardens.com @ChilternForageFarm
Quick fire: some favourite things
Book: Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking – a good read
Film: Jamon Jamon
Painting: Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights
Smell: Sarcococca in winter by our door
Meal: my husband’s cheese souffle
Travel Destination: Sicily for being on the edge of the Med
A cause near and dear to me: Plantlife
Place to go for inspiration: Hergest Croft Gardens
A great walk near where you live: Holland Park
Thing to collect obsessively: hats
Museum: The Green Vault in Dresden
Favourite person to follow on Instagram: @chilternhills
Garden in the UK: Aberglasney
Garden anywhere else: my grandmother’s on Kerry coast with sign on gate ‘Beware the agapanthus’
Images of Emma and her garden: GAP/Jacqui Hurst
