Jonathan Thomas (00:21) Welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast, the podcast where we explore British travel history and culture, and I am your hose, Jonathan Thomas. Here is one of my favorite quietly magical things about Britain. On a given weekend, in villages and towns and city streets, all across England and Wales, ordinary people and some rather extraordinary ones throw open their garden gates and invite strangers in. You pay a few pounds, you wander through someone's private paradise, borders they've tended for decades, and then this being Britain. You sit down to a slice of homemade Victoria sponge and a cup of tea. And every penny goes to charity, most of it to the nurses. And it it is possibly one of the most charming institutions in the entire country. And if you're an American who loves Britain, exactly the kind of authentic, off-the-beaten path experience that you probably dream about. It's called the National Garden Scheme, and this year it is nearly one hundred years old. My guest today is the perfect person to tell us about it, Dr. Richard Claxton. Is the chief executive of the National Garden Scheme, and he came to it by an unusual route. He's a former doctor, a GP, who became a champion Richard Claxton (01:25) Thank Jonathan Thomas (01:26) of what's called green prescribing, the idea that time in a garden can be genuine medicine. He's also a guard designer and a volunteer at Sissinghurst one of the most beloved gardens on earth. So he can talk to us as a doctor, a designer, and a gardener all at once about this remarkable charity, about why gardens are good for us and about the Glory of the English garden itself. Richard, welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast. Richard Claxton (01:51) Jonathan, thank you so much for having me it's a real pleasure to join you. Jonathan Thomas (01:55) Thank you for taking the time on a on a bank holiday Monday nonetheless. So, Richard, you have one of the loveliest job descriptions I've come across. You but you didn't start out in horticulture, you were a doctor. So how does being a GP, which in Britain is a general practitioner, end up running the National Garden scheme? Richard Claxton (02:13) Well, it's a bit of a roundabout pathway that I've been on, but gardening for me has always been a part of my life. I remember my grandad, my grandfather teaching me to grow sweet peas when I was really quite little. And I've grown them pretty much every year in his memory ever since. But then when I was a junior doctor, So an intern or a resident in American parlance, I would garden for my own sort of stress management and time out and for my own well-being. I'm not very sporty and I didn't really like the idea of doing going to the gym or anything like that. So I would garden and I would grow stuff and I would eat it and I would have a lovely garden that made me feel good about creativity and productivity and good about myself because I was learning new skills. And I was managing quite stressful work and long hours that way. And then I became a GP. I had a 25 year career as a GP, a community physician. And increasingly I recognized that gardening could help many of my patients and time spent in nature could help many of my patients and in recent years many of the problems that we see in primary health care are related to lifestyle choices. When I was at medical school lifestyle choices were about smoking and drinking but now they're about the way people shop or the way they commute to work. They're very often working from home in this country and not really getting out of the house. Social anxiety is a problem. Weight gain is a problem. Mental ill health and depression and anxiety. Loads of different things that could respond to time spent in nature. So I started to recommend that. I started to find out about therapy gardens. I started a therapy garden for the National Health Service in my town. and I started a charity that would enable people to find therapy gardens near there. So I became a bit of an advocate for gardening and health. And then, a garden design diploma for hospital spaces in particular, I specialized in, or hospices. And as a result of that, this job came up. And it was the dream ticket for me because it combined both gardening and health and visiting gardens and garden design and people and cake. So it was a win-win-win for me in getting this job. I really am the cat that got the cream because it really is perfect. Jonathan Thomas (05:27) So you you've become a champion of of quote green prescribing while you were practicing medicine. So for our listeners who may have never heard the term, what is it, what did you actually see in your patients that convinced you that gardens could be good medicine and what does it actually kind of entail? Like is it say is it a simple go to go to a garden or is there is there a method to it? Richard Claxton (05:48) No, there's lots of methods to it and there's lots of different ways that it can work and there's lots of evidence behind how it can work. And just before I go on, I would emphasize I'm not a complete hippie as a doctor. I'm not remotely new age. I was very conventional as a GP in terms of standard prescriptions, pharmaceutical and surgical pathways of referral, I was very comfortable with. The green social prescribing is simply a way of pointing out in a holistic sense to a person who's struggling with any different aspect of their health a prescription that isn't necessarily in a packet of pills or tablets. It's not an operation, it's not a referral for a specific conventional medical therapy but there are therapists who do it. So for example a course of therapeutic horticulture might be 10 sessions in the same way that you might have 10 sessions with a counselor or a psychotherapist and in those sessions you might be doing some talking with the therapist whilst spending time in a garden maybe vegetable garden, maybe a fruit garden, maybe a herbaceous border, maybe physical activity in a green space or maybe there are sort of forest trails and things like that. And we know that if it's done correctly, there is evidence that for moderate depression and anxiety, those 10 sessions will be equivalent in benefit to a course of cognitive behavioral therapy for the same amount of time. and it will cost a lot less than a one-to-one cognitive behavioral therapist and it will be roughly equivalent in impact to a prescription for a much longer period of time for an SSRI, one of the standard antidepressant drugs that are used for anxiety and depression. So it's not mumbo jumbo. There is real evidence behind it and there is logic. There's also quite a lot of evidence about preventative healthcare. So gardeners who grow their own veg and fruit are much more likely to be thinner than the non-gardeners. They're much more likely to eat a healthier diet, richer in antioxidants, nutrition, and it's better that they'll have lower rates of cancers once you allow for everything, other factors. They'll have low rates of dementia. They'll have lower rates of a whole range of different different health problems. And there are so many problems that we face in our society and in the world today, be they to do with food security and food production in Europe, be they to do with climate change and biodiversity loss, be they to do with loneliness and isolation in communities. Gardens can connect people, gardens can help with all of these problems. And so that's where we're coming from. Jonathan Thomas (09:13) And so you're you're also a garden designer and wonderfully a volunteer at Sissinghurst, which is Vita Sacksville West Garden famous garden in Kent. What is it like to have your hands in the soil of somewhere so famous and what have you learned from your experiences there? Richard Claxton (09:28) It's such a beautiful garden. I think it is pretty much my favourite garden in the world. And I've been visiting it since I was 16. So it was a no-brainer for me to try and get a volunteer role there. Which I've done now. I stopped that when I started this job just because this job is a bit too much. But I wasn't actually... I'm flattered, Jonathan, that you think I'd be able to dig the soil or they wouldn't even give me a pair of clippers there or something. because it's too precious and I'm not skilled enough. So I was mainly guiding and explaining the history behind it and explaining the context of it and why it is such an amazing Jonathan Thomas (10:14) So let's talk about the National Garden Scheme because a lot of Americans may have never heard of it or come across it. So, in simple terms, what is it and what happens on the day that a garden is open? Richard Claxton (10:25) So first of all, it's a charity. It's not a membership body. It's a network, if you like, of 3,200 gardens around England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands. It doesn't cover Scotland, but that has a similar charity of its own. And it's best to explain it by looking back to the origins of it. So 99 years ago, there was a fledgling service of community nurses in this country, district nurses, and it was really struggling because this was before any organized national health care service. It was really struggling to fund the jobs for the nurses and Florence Nightingale had been famously involved in its birth. So a group of very inspirational and well-connected people were running the committee behind funding the Queen's Nurses, as they were called. And one of them, lady called Elsie Wagg, came up with this idea. She was so well-connected, she was the daughter of a wealthy stockbroking family. She was so well-connected that she said to her in the committee, why don't we get... as many people as possible to open their gardens for charity and let the public in. And so in 1927, 600 gardens opened for the very first time and they charged a shilling ahead for the public to come in and they raised in total that year £8,000 to fund the Queen's Nurses. Fast forward 99 years and 80 million we now have a national tradition of exactly that same formula. So the National Garden Scheme coordinates these gardens. Opening the private citizens open their gardens. They're usually keen gardeners. They're always very proud of their gardens. They make sure they're as weed free and as immaculate as possible. They usually get help from friends and neighbours to help steer people to the site with signs up, to help people bake the cakes, to help people make the tea, to help parking. And then people come in and they still pay, it's not a shilling anymore, but it's still relatively modest fees. So it's about six pounds. And to give you a context of that, if I went and saw a movie at a cinema, that would be between 15 and 20, 25 pounds. Or if I went to a large, big public garden, I might expect to pay 20, 25 gardens. So these are six pounds a head. There's almost always cake. There's usually, on the cake menu, there's usually a lemon drizzle and there's, I think as you rightly say, almost universally a Victoria sponge. And people love the cake, they love the tea. They love the time spent in someone's private sanctuary in a beautiful garden. They may come back year after year and see how it changes. They may be getting inspiration for their own garden. They may be using it as a thing to do if they've got a week away or a weekend away in the country. They may get on our website and have a look for gardens or if they're spending some time on holiday in a part of the country they've not been to. a lovely thing to do. I also find it's a really nice way to meet people. if you're meeting members of your family you might say well let's meet halfway for a cup of tea and a wander around a garden in a neutral space and that can work really well. But the point is that it's private gardens, the public come in and they raise money for amazingly good causes, they have a gorgeous time. in a private sanctuary in a beautiful garden and they sometimes can buy plants that have been propagated in the garden and then they go home and they know that they've actually done a philanthropic act as well by raising money. Jonathan Thomas (14:59) And so the these gardens are not just gardens at grand estates or castles or anything. These are actually people's private gardens that that in their in their homes, behind their houses or in front. Richard Claxton (15:07) Yeah absolutely yeah no the the the first 600 back in 1927 were mainly sort of stately homes, mansions, big big big properties but but now we've got as I say nearly three and a half thousand and numbers are going up in anticipation of the centenary next year but there there are some stately homes and big, big country gardens. There are also group openings, so you get neighborhoods with people with relatively modest small back gardens. We have things called allotments. Do you have allotments in the States? So allotments are where someone's given over a field, a patch of green space in usually an urban center, like in part of a city or a town. and they divided it up into a space. It's probably about half the size of a tennis court is an allotment. And that was thought to be for people who had social housing or small properties and they didn't have their own garden. They could rent an allotment and be able to feed their family. And so allotments are big communities in their own right. I garden on an allotment. and they are hugely varied and they're a really dynamic, lively part of a community and so they can open for the National Garden Scheme as well and that's a lovely occasion, it's almost like a village fete and everything in between. So all ends of the spectrum are welcome to open their gardens as long as there is a bit of quality control as long as there's a level of interest and a level of quality in what's on show that's important but yeah it's a gorgeous thing. Jonathan Thomas (17:17) So then then how do how does a garden get chosen to be in the scheme? Is it do they have to apply? Is there is it a contest? You know, how does it work? Richard Claxton (17:25) It's not a contest. Sometimes there are amazing gardens that we will approach because we know that they're amazing. Sometimes, but more often than not, they approach us. And we have, as a charity, we're tiny in some respects, but we've got this massive reach. So we're tiny in that there's only 13 of us who are employed by the charity. but we've got 600 volunteers around the country who coordinate things. So if Jonathan, you were living in England and you wanted to open your garden, you'd contact us through the website or directly through email or phone, and we would arrange for one of our county team members to come and visit your garden and find out how it looked. Think about things like access, parking, accessibility within the garden, how are you going to do the catering, where are the cakes going to come from, where are they going to get served and when in the year are you going to open because you need to chart this out. So we've got a diary through the year and people if they're interested can access that diary effectively online through the National Garden Scheme website. There is an app as well where you can find a garden. to visit by just putting in your location and the dates that you're free. And then you can find somewhere to, you sometimes book online, but sometimes you can pay on the gate. And it's all very straightforward. Jonathan Thomas (19:08) So so just for for clarity, this isn't like open house London where there's only a certain weekend that you can do this. This is happening throughout the year. Richard Claxton (19:20) Yeah, so our gardens mostly will have a set day. So for example, just say I had a really lovely garden for Wisteria. I would know that there was a few weeks in May that it's going to look absolutely amazing. So I would put that in a diary for the National Garden Scheme. But if as well as the Wisteria, I also had let's just say nice roses as well, then I might do a June opening too. So I would put those in the diary and then people could look on the website and put them in their diary. So if you're planning a trip to the UK, could see what was available months in advance. So you can plan your trip and book tickets that way. But sometimes the rose garden might actually be also available for a private approach. And we call those by arrangement openings. So that means that even if you see a garden or you know of a garden that you like the sound of, but it's not got an actual arranged date for opening, it says by appointment or by arrangement, then you get a bespoke visit. You just contact the owner, you say, Hi, I'm gonna be in your part of the Cotswolds or Norfolk on such and such a date. Is there a way we could come and visit? And more often than not, they'll say yes, come and they'll bake a cake for you. Jonathan Thomas (21:01) Well that sounds nice. Richard Claxton (21:02) Yeah, it's a lovely way and they're very flexible. The garden owners are the lifeblood of the charity. Without them, we wouldn't be anywhere in terms of fundraising. And so they are hugely generous people and as well as being very talented gardeners. Jonathan Thomas (21:20) And so in and you've already talked about the history. So the over according to my notes, over the lifetime, the the garden scheme has given almost eighty million pounds to nursing and healthcare related charities. And so that's where the money goes when you're when you're paying the admission to these gardens, correct? Richard Claxton (21:39) Yeah, absolutely. So the theme of those first community nurses lives on in the bulk of what we give away. So 80 million pounds, about four million pounds a year currently is our output. And so we support some of the biggest charities for healthcare in this country. So Broadly speaking, the National Health Service is the universal provider of healthcare in the country. There's a small private sector for general practice, but most of the private healthcare happens in hospital care. So we're talking about community care is almost all NHS led. But because the NHS is perennially strapped for cash, and underfunded, there are charities that have grown alongside the NHS that support crucial aspects of our healthcare needs. So for example, if you have Parkinson's disease, you'll be looked after in the community by a Parkinson's nurse who's actually not part of the NHS. She works alongside or he works alongside the NHS, but they are funded usually through a charity called Parkinson's UK. Likewise, there's a charity called Macmillan, which helps people on journeys with cancer diagnoses. There are hospices where people go for end of life care and they have community nurses too. And there are carers, carer charities who support carers who aren't medical or nursing, but they're looking after people in their homes to prevent them being admitted to hospital. So basically there's this whole industry of charities supporting people with healthcare needs in the community, which I obviously became very familiar with as a GP. And the National Gardener Scheme is the biggest funder for huge numbers of those charities. And without the garden openings and the cake and the tea that raises the money, we would, as a nation, we would really suffer in terms of care or support. hospice support, Parkinson's nurses support, Macmillan Cancer, there's a spinal unit charity that we fund. We fund veterans after they've left the armed forces who have health care problems through garden support as well. So there's a whole range of nursing charities that we still support in the same way, including most importantly and most long-lastingly, the Queen's nurses still. They're one of our major beneficiaries. Jonathan Thomas (24:39) so with every every slice of cake you're helping to improve the local community or wherever you're visiting in Britain, essentially, which is some that's Richard Claxton (24:48) Absolutely. Jonathan Thomas (24:49) that's nice. Richard Claxton (24:51) Yeah, and that further fosters the sense of community that you get in one of the garden openings. So it really is a, I think we talk about it being a bit of a national treasure and there's this kind of duality to the generosity, so there's the generosity of the garden owners, as I've said, who open up their spaces just so kindly. There's the generosity of the people who pay small amounts but they're investing in the process, the charity, in a generous way. And then that all gets pivoted round by the generosity of the charity as I oversee it in terms of the donations that I make. And I started the job in October last year and the spending round for the beneficiary charities happens in December. So I'd literally not even got my feet under the desk and I was being asked to write checks for half a million pounds to these charities. It was amazing and it really brought home to me the value and the impact of what we do. Jonathan Thomas (26:03) Yeah, I and I imagine it must be it must be really fulfilling to to write those checks. Cause I know here and this is on topic, but weirdly off topic. I don't here in in Michigan City, Indiana, nearby, we have a big casino. And part of the terms and conditions of the casino being allowed to operate a casino in a in a non casino area was they have to give us a a chunk of their profits to the local community for charitable contributions. And so there's a whole board and that decides the local charities who get the money that is dispersed every year from the casino. And I've been to the to the the gala dinner where they distribute the checks and it's like an abelian celebration where they're literally handing money to doing all to people doing all these great works who are just thrilled to be getting this to get the getting these checks. So I imagine it must be like that. Richard Claxton (26:56) It is like that, but it doesn't end there because, and I often, if I'm talking to the garden owners or the volunteers, I have firsthand recent experience of patients of mine who were getting immense help from Macmillan or immense help from Parkinson's UK or Carers Trust or the Queen's Nurses. And so, Yes, you go to a gala and everyone's in their tuxedo and dressed up and celebrating the charity side of things, but actually it's very fresh in my mind just what those charities do. And so the beneficiaries aren't really the chief execs of the other charities or the people who work in fundraising for the other charities. The real beneficiaries are the British public. who know that they are supported through this philanthropic, beautiful vehicle. It's just, it's genuinely humbling and moving when I think about that. And I did wonder when I left my patients of 23 years in the practice, the last practice I worked at, that I felt like I was moving into this and thinking, Am I letting them down by getting away from them and leaving them? But actually the complacency and arrogance of that was soon put into perspective because they'll soon forget who I was as their doctor. But the impact of what I can do as, you know, as whether or not I was a doctor, steering this charity and helping people like these enormous, the... important charities decide how to spend their money at a public health level. That's actually more impactful than it ever could have been on a one-to-one basis in my consulting. Jonathan Thomas (29:07) And so let's let's move on to the to the your passion about how gardens can help improve health. So tell me about Richard Claxton (29:13) Thank Jonathan Thomas (29:14) the gardens and health program and the little yellow book of gardens and health and what what are you trying to do with these programs and how does how does that tie in with the garden openings? Richard Claxton (29:24) So of our just around four million pounds that we gave away this year, about half a million pounds is dedicated to gardens and health projects specifically. And we are kind of champions of that nationally. So trying to make that as the understanding of the role that gardens can play in healthcare, both prevention and treatment is a big part of my job. But the gardens and health program of funding is a dedicated output for us to invest in projects around the country that provide healthcare in a garden space in perhaps a slightly unconventional way, sometimes attached to a conventional medical unit. So a good example of that today I was visiting a garden that we part funded, which was a roof garden space on an intensive care unit roof in London. So patients who are effectively on life support machines ventilated and on fluids and sedated can come up and feel the sun on their face and the breeze. They can look into the tree canopy. They're surrounded by plants and climbers, shrubs and grasses, aromatic plants and soil. And they have, it's been amazingly designed so that you can plug in the technical side of all the equipment that keeps them alive into cupboards effectively that are buried in the flower beds. And so it's beautifully designed and it's massively impactful. We're really excited to see the effect it has on intensive care as a subspecialty because it's almost like a pilot, a test site. But it's been really amazing for us to fund that. Likewise, there's a charity called Horatio's Garden in this country, which builds and supplies and funds and staffs. beautiful gardens in all of the spinal care units in the UK hospitals. So there are 11 of those around the nation and they're just building the eighth of the 11 that they want to build. So we're their biggest funder too. There are smaller projects, so for example in a deprived area of the north west We funded a garden for teenagers suffering from mental health problems so that they can connect with their carers, their therapists, as well as each other in a safe garden space. And doing horticulture, new skills in a garden environment is another strand of how they can help on their recovery. So all kinds of things that we're involved in in that respect. That's just a few examples, but there's a very wide range. Jonathan Thomas (32:43) Well let's let's talk about English gardens in general because I I think you're the perfect person to ask. What is it that makes an English garden distinctively English? And is there such a thing as a national style? Richard Claxton (32:55) Whoa, that's a massive question because we have a, I think, suppose you would think of what we call a cottage garden. And a cottage garden grew up around the idea of inverted commas, ordinary people who have a smallish plot, but they want both a mix of vegetables and fruit as well as flowers. and ornamental plants and so it would be quite densely planted in what they call the cottage garden style and it would be quite lush and quite green with a fabulous range of flowers that were designed to be in bloom in one way shape or form one or the other in like a relay through the season. So that's probably what you think of as a classic English garden but contemporary styles and fashions change things. So people sometimes pairing things back and a bit less busy but also the changing climate and these we're in the middle of a drought at the moment so we haven't had any meaningful rainfall in our summer for in excess of six weeks now and so if you've got what you would think of as a typical English garden with a stripy lawn and flower borders around it. The lawn currently is looking more like a crispy brown carpet and the shrubs and the flowers and the roses are really struggling to stay alive without irrigation and we have water shortages so water supplies on the on the limited list in many respects. So where I am, there's a hose pipe down at the moment. So people are beginning to change how they plant and the kind of plants that they choose. And we're seeing much more in the way of Mediterranean style planting and dry gardens, grasses, plants that are more drought tolerant. So I'm not giving you a very succinct answer to a good question because there's... just an enormous range now. And in some respects, that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of what's in our garden handbook, the garden visitors handbook, because there's stuff for infinite variety of gardens that you can visit. Jonathan Thomas (35:33) Tell us about Sissinghurst. Why is that garden so famous? What it what what makes it so world famous? Richard Claxton (35:41) All the best gardens, Jonathan, are ones where there's a love story behind them. And you either see that love story in the individual who is gardening it, and it might be a love affair that they've had with the space and with the plants, or it might be a love affair amongst the individuals that have gardened it. And Sissinghurst is the sort of ultimate example of a love story garden for me. I first visited when I was 16 and it opened my eyes to what a garden could be like because of the people behind it and the people behind it were extraordinary. They were a couple, they were aristocrats. So Vita Sackville West should have inherited the largest private house in the country that wasn't a palace in the form of Knole House in Seven Oaks just up the road from Sissinghurst But because she was a woman, the laws prevented her from inheriting back then. Thankfully, things have changed in that respect now. But she and her husband, Harold Nicholson, therefore didn't garden at Knole House. They bought Sissinghurst, which was a ramshackle ruin, and they turned it into one of the world's most famous gardens. And they... It has an iconic tower, which the first time I saw it when I was 16, sort of reminded me of Rapunzel's tower. And in that tower, Sissinghurst would write, sorry, Vita Saffer-West would write, and she wrote for the Observer newspaper, a weekly column. She wrote many books, she wrote many poems, and she would write, and she became an amazing plants woman. She would do the planting and Harold who was a diplomat for the British Foreign Office He he said if he hadn't been a diplomat he would have wanted to be an architect So he laid out the bones of the garden. So the structure of the garden is there and the planting was all Vita so the two of them made a brilliant pair and they had this extraordinary relationship because they were in love with each other, they would write each other letters frequently. Unfortunately, we can get to read those letters. But in parallel to their marriage, which was a very long lived and largely happy one, and they had children, they had two boys, they both had serial same sex relationships outside of the marriage, which... which I found perplexing and mystifying when I was 16. And it kind of caused me to reframe my definition of what a married couple looked like. And so the romance between them, the romance between them and their other partners who were part of the Bloomsbury set, so people like Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey. John Maynard Keynes, T.S. Eliot, these were all part of this circle of academics and creatives in the early part of the last century. And there's this lovely saying that the Bloomsbury group, they lived in squares because they were named Bloomsbury after the part of London where many of them lived when they were in London. So they lived in squares, they painted in circles and they loved in triangles and so there was a complexity to them and the nature of the garden is kind of hard to understand if you don't understand that background and the beauty of the garden is that it's got structure, it's got gorgeous roses, it's got a white garden that is world famous, it's got a Mediterranean garden, it's got lawns, it's got orchards, it's got a moat, it's got a beautiful medicinal herb garden, it's got a woodland garden and a lime walk, it's got quadrangles with lawns and borders, a bit like an Oxford College, and it's got a huge range of different things. whenever you're visiting it, you'll see different things that are at their peak because it's so varied. There's always something that's going to take your breath away. And then you can go up the tower and look down on it all a bit like Rapunzel. And you can see it all from the air in and amongst the Kentish countryside, which is unbelievably beautiful, rolling green, gentle landscape with hose houses and farms and distant hills. It's utterly beautiful and I've long since lost count of the number of times I go back there. But every time I go back there I fall in love with it all over again and I see something else that inspires me. Jonathan Thomas (41:08) Well now I feel like I need to go. I've been to Knole but I haven't been to Sissinghurst so I need to need to fit it in. Richard Claxton (41:14) I think Vita and Harold got lucky in not staying at Null because it meant that they had to create something from scratch in Sissinghurst which is truly inspiring and any of your listeners who are interested in gardens obviously as well as looking at the National Garden Skiing website when they're coming to the UK they should definitely try and get to Sissinghurst. Jonathan Thomas (41:39) So let's talk about the hundredth birthday of the National Garden Scheme. What what are your guys' big plans for that? Richard Claxton (41:46) I think there's a whole bunch of different strands. mean, every garden opening next year is going to be in a small way a celebration of the 100 years of philanthropy and sharing. So there's that underlying it all, but there's going to be quite a lot of media interest. There's going to be quite a lot of publicity. Of the 600 gardens that opened back then, this year, for example, in a non-centenary year, We're down to about 75 of them that opened this year. Next year, we're looking at hopefully well in excess of 150, maybe even pushing 200. So I've been working quite hard trying to persuade garden owners who maybe thought that their garden opening days were over, or maybe it's changed hands. Very often it's changed hands, their garden, their house. so getting them to come back on. So there'll be many more gardens next year. We're also going to have some gala events, concerts in gardens, dinners in gardens and an exhibition that travels the country and various show gardens in county shows around the country. Garden shows are a big thing in this country so we're going to have a sort very obvious presence there. and some publications and reports and things like that. We're producing an impact report, not just of what the charity does in a typical year, but the scale of what it's achieved in its hundred years for all those charities that benefit from the giving. So yeah, lots going on. It's going to be exciting. Jonathan Thomas (43:32) Well and we'll put the link to the website in the show notes to tell everyone to go sign up for your newsletter and all that so they can hear about it. Richard Claxton (43:36) That would be amazing. Jonathan Thomas (43:40) so my next question is I don't know if you can pick a favorite, but of all the gardens in the scheme, which one is your favorite Richard Claxton (43:49) Thank you. Jonathan Thomas (43:51) that you would tell everyone to make sure and see if they were coming over to visit? Richard Claxton (43:56) Again, a garden with a love story is a garden, small garden in comparison to Sissinghurst and some of the bigger gardens. It's called Balmoral Cottage. It's very near Sissinghurst in the part of Kent that I came from. So the southeast corner of Britain, it's about 45 minutes on the train from London and it is exquisite. It's the Walled Garden. It was the kitchen garden of a large, house and it was bought by a couple who are now quite elderly but they're very, very good friends of mine. And they set out the garden at the beginning of their married life with a wedding present ask for everyone who came to their wedding of a cutting, a small little plant of yew or box. And from those wedding presents, they have grown the most extraordinarily beautiful topiary garden that I've ever been in with 12 foot high peacocks and dogs and chess pieces and hedges and nooks and crannies to explore in amongst some lovely lawns and some open spaces as well as some really nice little cozy courtyardy spaces, tables and chairs in those and little orders with beautifully planted perennials and flowers and grasses and it's extraordinary and it's like I say it's a love story because it's rooted in their wedding present. and they're still there and they're gardening it and they're opening it and they're sharing it and you cannot fail to feel the love that exists on that property, in that house, in that couple, in that garden by visiting. Jonathan Thomas (46:08) Alright, I'm gonna Richard Claxton (46:08) down the road. Jonathan Thomas (46:08) I'm I'm gonna do something this isn't in the the show notes, so forgive me. And if it doesn't work, I'll I'll I'll take it out. But my question is, okay, I suffer I suffer from high blood pressure and sleep apnea. I'm being treated for for both. but if you were gonna prescribe me some green medicine, what would you prescribe me? Richard Claxton (46:32) I feel my way with it and just see what you were up for. There's a lot of evidence that even just what in Japan they call shinrin-yoku, foreign forest bathing. if you go and they, in Japan, the first studies really showed the real impact of space, of green space. So if you, Jonathan, with your high blood pressure, went for a two hour stroll gently in the woods or in a garden, or you did some gentle pottering in a garden, within five to 10 minutes your heart rate would fall, your blood pressure would fall. Within 20 minutes your cortisol levels in your blood or you can test it in saliva, So the cortisol levels would fall and cortisol is a stress hormone that drives blood pressure up. As you gently walk through, your heart rate and your cardiorespiratory fitness would improve. And if you did it on a regular basis, your levels of cardiorespiratory fitness would improve in a sustained way. And... I'm not sure there's direct evidence that it would help with sleep apnea as such, but there's definite evidence that it would help with blood pressure. If then I persuaded you to give over a patch of your garden to cultivating things like growing your own fruit and veg, then you would have a richer diet of antioxidants and vitamins, far far more impactful than anything you bought. Even if you went to a local farmer's market where things have been produced locally, the time from the plot to the plate, so to speak, is crucial for so many fruit and vegetable products. So sweet corn, for example, just goes maze. It goes rapidly downhill in terms of taste and nutrition the longer it's passed. And obviously in If you're shopping in a supermarket, not a farmer's market, who knows how long, how much cold storage, how much distance there is between where your food is produced and where you actually buy it. So if you did that, then not only would you be eating healthier, but the actual calorific output of spending time growing and tilling and tying in and staking. harvesting and mowing or raking or you're hoeing the soil equates to time in a gym. American studies have shown that gentle gardening burns in an hour or two as many calories as if you were in a gym for half an hour. So and you get tomatoes, you get potatoes, you get maize, you get courgettes, zucchini. It's a wonderful thing. So it depends really. Initially, if you said to me, let's just have a taster, I'd say go for a walk. Just go for a walk in green space. But if you were getting really into it, I'd say get an allotment, get digging, get busy and build that into your weekly routine. And you'll save on your gym subscription fees, but you'll also save on your shopping bill. Jonathan Thomas (50:14) have to make sure my wife doesn't see this podcast because she'll want me to help out in her garden. And Richard Claxton (50:18) Thank Jonathan Thomas (50:21) I I I I famously avoid avoid that, but maybe I should be more willing to to to lend a hand. And I have Richard Claxton (50:27) Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (50:28) I actually have been walking now. I've I've been preparing to walk Hadrian's wall, the national trail. so I'm leaving in two Richard Claxton (50:34) Wow, okay, yeah, that's amazing. Jonathan Thomas (50:36) weeks. And so just the process of preparing for this walk has massively improved my overall health. So Richard Claxton (50:41) Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (50:44) Just walking several times a week has been amazing. So Richard Claxton (50:48) Absolutely. And as a doctor, the biggest challenge when you have someone who finds that they're working towards something, they've got a finite target, be that an event or a trip or in this country, people sort of doing sponsored runs and things like that. The biggest challenge is working to build it into your lifestyle Jonathan Thomas (51:14) Yeah. Richard Claxton (51:14) so that it becomes not... it becomes not a kind of fast, bright, burning thing that then fizzles out. It becomes something that's doable and enjoyable and sustainable. And that's why gardens are so great because if you're lucky enough to have one, and most people in this country are, they tend to be just outside your back door. You're looking at it. So you haven't got to go far, whereas you might have to... get in your car and drive to go to the gym or play tennis or squash. Not that I'm against those, but it's just part of your home and part of your environment. So make it part of your life. Jonathan Thomas (52:00) And that's the hardest part is fitting it is fitting it in and make and making the habits. That's it's but you you can do it. Richard Claxton (52:05) Yeah, it is. It's tough. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (52:09) So well, thank you, Richard. This has been super interesting and and genuinely delightful. You've made me wanna jump on a plane, find a garden gate and eat an enormous piece of cake for charity. It's for charity. I can eat as much cake as I want. Richard Claxton (52:22) Yeah, yeah, a doctor told you so, it's okay. Jonathan Thomas (52:24) Exactly. thank you so much for joining us on the Anglotopia podcast. If you're listening and this has charmed you as much as it has charmed me, do go look up the National Garden Scheme. We will put all the links in the show notes and how to find a garden to visit and keep an eye out for the 2027 100 year celebrations. It sounds like the perfect excuse for a garden hopping trip to Britain. So Richard, where should people go to find out more and plan a visit? Richard Claxton (52:52) The National Garden Scheme website, is exactly what you'd expect it to be as a web address. And if you go onto your app store as well, the National Garden Scheme has an app, which is at the moment, it's simply an app that shows you how to find a garden. If you want to follow me specifically, I'm on Instagram as Richard Claxton Gardens. but so is the National Garden Scheme as an account there or on Facebook, YouTube as well. So we're a little bit, we're obviously, we're a 20th century charity, but we're bringing ourselves into the 21st century. Jonathan Thomas (53:38) I love to hear it. And as the links will be in the show notes below. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, or comment and tell us about your favorite gardens in England over on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. And if you love the Anglotopia podcast, please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club, where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other Britain enthusiasts. So join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places, and stories that make Britain's history and culture. So endlessly fascinating to discover. Thank you, Richard. Richard Claxton (54:09) And thank you for having me Jonathan, it's been an absolute pleasure.