James Alexander-Sinclair: Making a new garden for someone is 'thrilling', but we need more sensitive and skilled gardeners to look after them

You might think it unlikely, but making a garden for someone is thrilling. A telephone call out of the blue, a drive to some distant part of the country, knocking on the door of a strange house and meeting not only a new person, but a new garden. That first meeting bursts with potential — the views, the house, the trees, the flaws, the treasures and also the people. It is a bit like a blind date. We circle around each other, me trying to work out what the site needs and the client wants. How much gardening do they want to do? Will they employ help or do it all themselves? Kitchen garden? Ponds? Orchards? How much do they want to spend?

There follows a flurry of sketching, specifying and tweaking. Landscapers are summoned, prices are gathered, materials are ordered and plants are sourced. The client, the designer, the landscapers and the nurseries are all closely involved in the intricate dance of garden creation. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Scottish country dancing, but it is often like a particularly frantic Orcadian Strip the Willow: relentlessly energetic with a lot of aggressive twirling.

For a few brief months, we are all together working all hours, meeting, exchanging lots of urgent messages and wading around in mud and chaos. Something changes every day: a path is completed, a pond filled, a delivery arrives or a tree is planted. Then, one day, the job is finished. The client is happy, the paving is laid, the gravel raked and every tree, perennial and bulb is safely planted. A hush descends on proceedings and all one can hear is the sound of plants growing and the minutes passing.

Now starts the important bit: no garden can look after itself. We have all seen neglected gardens and they are sad places. There is some thought that gardens left alone will become a wild, romantic spot populated by Nature where every creature lives in perfect harmony — a bit like the scene in Snow White where she is cleaning the house of the seven dwarfs, assisted by cutesy bunnies and simpering squirrels.

It is not as picturesque as that: with remarkable swiftness, Nature will reclaim what is hers and it will no longer be the garden that we built. Instead, it will become a feral thing where the thuggier plants clog dance upon the countenances of the more delicate and all pattern and intention are lost. Somebody — the client or, if funds allow, a professional gardener — needs to take on the responsibility of caring for this new, vulnerable thing or it will vanish. It might seem obvious, but without gardeners, we have no gardens. I have built hundreds over the past 40 years and the hardest thing has always been finding people to look after them.

We do not have enough sensitive and skilled gardeners. This is not a revolutionary statement, as many people have been chuntering about it for years. Horticultural courses have collapsed and schools careers officers do not see the advantages of a life in horticulture. Gardening is still not considered a worthwhile career. Perhaps it is not seen to be exclusive enough. If you need a surgeon or an astrophysicist (or even a plumber or a car mechanic), you will be happy to pay top dollar because you know that they can do something you cannot. With gardeners, people can’t see the skill level. They think gardening is a hobby anyone can do, so it can’t be that hard: ergo, it should be cheap.

This is wrong. The professional gardener can do many things you cannot. A gardener will have studied hard (often in filthy weather). They will have an exhaustive knowledge of not only the habits of fruit, vegetables and flowers, but also a good handle on paving, brickwork, fencing, plumbing, electrics and diplomacy. They will be able to feed you and your family, impress your visitors, provide amusement for your children and shade for summer. They will grow things from seed and cutting, keep your plants alive, your soil healthy and create an environment that will allow birds to adorn your shrubberies and ensure your borders are alive with bees, butterflies and earthworms. Any wise designer will listen to what they have to say and be guided by their knowledge. Good gardeners will improve any design over time.

Design is important — there are hugely talented and exciting designers out there, from the old guard to the young and upcoming — but, no matter how innovative or clever our designs may be, they are only as good as the gardeners who take care of them. Pay your gardeners properly, as, without them, you will have no garden.