House & Garden garden editor Clare Foster talks to garden designer Butter Wakefield and florist and cut-flower grower, Rachel Siegfried, of Green & Gorgeous, on growing flowers to pick and how to incorporate these in your garden, large or small. They will look at what flowers to grow through the seasons to ensure you always have something to fill your home, as well as foliage and scented flowers. With an introduction by Pitzhanger’s director Clare Gough.

Panellists

Clare Foster

Clare Foster is Garden Editor at House & Garden magazine and a freelance garden journalist. After starting her career in book publishing, she spent nine years at Gardens Illustrated magazine (1996-2005), latterly as Editor. She has been at House & Garden since 2005, where she is responsible for all the garden-related content of the magazine. As well as writing about plants and gardens, Clare has always gardened herself, first on an allotment in London, and now in her garden in West Berkshire. She is the author of four books including The Flower Garden: how to grow flowers from seed, published in 2019, and is also a Trustee at Maggie’s Oxford, a national cancer care charity known for its architecturally-designed centres and gardens. Her website can be found at www.budtoseed.co.uk. 

Rachel Siegfried

Run by Rachel Siegfried and her partner Ashley Pearson, the Green and Gorgeous farm has over two acres of flower fields, orchards, and herb and vegetable beds. Rachel’s idea for Green and Gorgeous began germinating long ago, while she was working in an 18th century walled garden in the Cotswolds. Tending the cut flowers, Rachel became aware that the natural beauty and scent that surrounded her was missing from the commercially grown offerings available on the high street.

Using her love and knowledge of cultivating flowers, and driven by a core belief in growing sustainably, Rachel decided to bring the beauty of an English garden to the world of cut flowers. In 2008, in the heart of the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, she planted the first seeds in the Green and Gorgeous garden. The business flourished.

Butter Wakefield

Butter grew up on the East Coast of America, on a little farm outside of Baltimore, Maryland.  Her love for dogs, ponies and all things outdoors taught her at an early age the responsibility and hard work that accompanies these pleasures.  Her mother, aunt and grandfather were all keen and accomplished gardeners, and she remembers with great fondness wandering around their beautiful gardens as a child – her deep appreciation of beautiful surroundings and passion for gardening is a family inheritance running deep in her veins. 
Butter trained at the English Gardening School (1997/98) completing the Year Diploma Course in Plants and Plantsmanship, and winning two prizes. More recently she graduated from The London College of Garden Design (2013/14) with a Merit Commended. Originally she worked as an interior design assistant at Colefax and Fowler on Brook Street where she was trained in the world of decorative interiors.  It was there that her love of the creative process took hold as she learned about scale, texture, pattern, colour and the principles and practices of design. 
 
Butter Wakefield Garden Design is a small design studio, offering a very unique and personal service. Butter has over 15 years of experience creating many inspirational and purposeful gardens of all sizes both in London and beyond.  She has a profound love for her job and her clients and takes a tremendous amount of time and care over them both. 

The Pitzhanger Design Series

Interested in design? This is the third event in a new series of panel debates with leading experts focusing on different aspects of the restored Manor, programmed by House & Garden editor Hatta Byng and interior designer Joanna Plant. Each talk will begin with an introduction by Director, Clare Gough.

Future topics in the series are:

• Chinese Wallpaper

Booking details coming soon.