It’s not long until Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh’s first garden design collaboration is unveiled at The Royal Windsor Flower Show and, ahead of its reveal, Good Housekeeping has been speaking to her design partner, Alan Williams of Landform Consultants, to find out more about what to expect – and what it’s really been like working with the Duchess.
‘It’s been magical. It’s been amazing,’ Alan tells GH. ‘The Duchess has just been so involved in the process from start to finish.’ Whereas it could be presumed that Sophie could simply put her name to the project without having the time or expertise to be properly involved, Alan insists this couldn’t be further from reality. ‘It’s not just one-sided, or it’s not me putting things in front of the Duchess and saying, “This is what we’re doing.” She’s been really involved in the whole process,’ he says. ‘We’ve changed materials and we’ve chosen them together and we’ve talked it all through to make sure that she’s happy with them.’
Such a close collaboration has meant a lot of meetings with the Duchess, with her making the time in her busy schedule to make sure she could be across all the decisions. ‘We’ve had some amazing meetings talking through what her likes are and her dislikes are like, and what I’m into,’ says Alan, admitting that, at first, sitting down for a meeting with the royal felt more than a little unusual. ‘It’s always bizarre and weird, isn’t it? When you get to go and meet at one of the royal households, and sit there and have a cup of coffee with them and just talk about stuff that you’re really passionate about.’
Most of the meetings took place at royal residence Bagshot Park, beginning with Alan presenting mood boards of ideas to share concepts around what the garden could look like. One detail he was particularly keen to include has now become Sophie’s favourite feature of their garden: a potting shed. ‘I sneakily included it on the mood board within the final presentation of ideas because I knew she was gonna love it,’ he says. ‘As soon as she saw it, she absolutely fell in love with it.’ The pair also met at a plant nursery to select what they wanted to feature in their design. ‘We’ve obviously then been out to the nursery together at Creepers and gone through plants that they're growing for us and trees that they're holding for us,’ he says. ‘We’ve chosen bits and pieces to go in there to make it really special.’
Alan also reveals how the collaboration had come about. ‘I had a conversation with Adam Scott, who’s the Duchess’s head gardener at Bagshot. He’s also the head gardener at Windsor Castle. I’ve known Adam for a while because of our continuing work with the royal households and we were at a function together. I mooted the idea to Adam and he said he loved it and said, “Let’s see if the Duchess would like it,”’ he says. ‘She said yes. I received a phone call and I was asked to go and meet the Duchess, and we sat over tea, coffee and biscuits, and had an amazing conversation about what we would like that garden to be.’
The pair will unveil the Plants with Purpose Garden at the Royal Windsor Flower Show next month, with the aim that it will bring attention to the importance of healthy soil and aid understandings around how food is grown. This reflects The Duchess’s work around sustainable food production and supporting opportunities for young people in the industry.
The Royal Windsor Flower Show takes place on 6 June at Windsor Great Park
