Gardens, weeds and words: S01 Episode 08: Words and gardens. With Sean Swallow

S01 Episode 08: Words and gardens. With Sean Swallow

Mar 15, 2019

S01 Episode 08: Words and gardens. With Sean Swallow

A blend of slow radio, gardening advice and conversation, and readings from the best garden and wildlife writing.

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Garden soundtrack

Is there anything left to write about gardens?

The garden as a place of ideas

The garden as a place of activity – where ideas can flow.

Words as containers for thoughts and ideas

Interview with Sean Swallow

07:38 intro

07:56 from garden designer to poet

16:38 the garden at Scatterford

20:17 are gardens ineffable? Why do we bother trying to capture then in words

22:46 strong gardens

22:30 disruptive poets

23:40 thieving bumblebees. Carpenter bees stealing nectar by drilling through flowers https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=14120

24:56 Death in the garden, Poussin’s Et in arcadia ego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego

29:40 Poems ‘strong enough to help’.

Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Poetry https://www.seamusheaney.com/the-redress-of-poetry

30:42 gardens reflecting the shape of thoughts

A short film of Sean, his work, and his garden

Sean’s garden at Scatterford on the NGS website

You can find Sean on the web at http://www.seanswallow.net and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sean_swallow/

Further reading on writers and gardens:

The Writer’s Garden: how Gardens inspired our best-loved authors

Jackie Bennett