Book
Garden Colour Palette by Paul Williams
(Conran-Octopus, £17.99)
I’m studying plant design and I’ve found this amazing book. Each page is divided into three panels with different plants pictured on it. You can lift up the panels to experiment with colour combinations. It really helps to see how the foliage, texture and form will look.
Film
The Straight Story
I saw this one afternoon and it really hit the spot. It’s a very tender, human story about two elderly brothers locked in a feud with each other. One [Richard Farnsworth] decided to make the difficult journey of reconciliation and drives his tractor across America to make peace. The pace is very slowbut that was necessary for the sentiment to be genuine. I was very moved by it.
CD
Moloko – Things to Make and Do (Echo)
I love the lyrics, I love Roisin Murphy’s voice – she’s an exciting singer. ‘The time is now’ was an interesting innovative and fresh song and ‘Sing it back’ is a great Ibiza anthem. Excellent.
Buy
I’ve just planted a woodland of 300 trees in the field adjacent to my garden. It’s basically a lot of sticks at the moment, but when it grows in three to four years it will be a real mix of birch, hazel, ash, he lot. By then my children will be five and eight so will be able to enjoy it. I did it for them really. It’s a gret time to create a woodland, you can get bare root trees quite cheaply.
Kim Wilde will be a guest designer on Garden Invaders, which starts on 30 April on BBC1.