The garden is the second stage

Kim Wilde, pop and style icon of the golden eighties, wants to go at it once again. On August 5 she performs live together with Chris de Burgh in Zofingen.

Kim Wilde, you already performed once before in the Zofinger Mehrzweckhalle in the eighties. Do you have some memories of Zofingen or Switzerland?
I have always loved Switzerland – and I’m very glad that the Swiss have always stayed faithful to me over all these years. Recently someone said that the sales of my album ‘Close’ (1988) was sold relatively the most in any country in the world! A few months ago I was in Zurich and Lausanne again, when I performed at ‘Art on Ice’.

What many people in Switzerland may not know is that you have started a very successful career as TV-gardener and author of books. Is gardening something that has always interested you, or did you stumble on that by accident?
I have always loved gardens, but only became a gardener myself when I moved to the countryside and started my own family ten years ago. At first I just wanted to raise fruit and vegetables for my children, but the interest soon flourished into a passion. TV stations became interested, but that wasn’t my intention when I started with gardening…

Are there any botanic specialties in Switzerland, you would like to see when you are here on tour?
A few years ago I visited the botanic garden in Zurich and enjoyed a few very relaxed hours there.

In which country besides the UK would you want to live?
In France! Every year I spend a few weeks in the Dordogne… I even speak some French.

The ‘Cumbrian Fellside Garden’, which you won a gold medal for at the ‘Chelsea Flower Show 2005’, is a greatly romantic place. Is that how Kim Wilde envisions paradise?
I think the garden is somewhat my idea of paradise – at least one of them – Koh Samui or a big Sushi platter were other such ideas…

How do you deal with the ‘problem’, that most of your listeners want to hear the hits of the eighties most of all? Do you play a ‘best of’ concert or are there also new songs in the program?
It is no problem at all! It may have been that, which was the cause of me leaving the music business for a few years, but now I enjoy it again, to play the old favourites. A few new songs from my latest album ‘Never say never’ (2006, EMI) will be on the set. And we will play a few cover versions…

Your last album was called ‘Never say never’. Is there something which you say will never happen in your life?
To have another child!!

You are playing live with Chris de Burgh, another ‘giant’ from the eighties. Are you singing anything together?
Nothing has been planned yet. I do remember that we sang a duet once in Paris in a hotel bar. That is at least 20 years ago!

What are your plans after this tour? Will you publish more gardening books or is it time for a few more music years?
At the moment I am really enjoying music again, but I have become certain that both gardenening and music will stay central for the rest of my life.
Why wouldn’t I do both?