Dame Mary Berry might be better known as the queen of the kitchen, but she’s just as accomplished in the garden.
The beloved national treasure has been passionate about gardening for decades, and this year, she published her first-ever book on the topic, My Gardening Life. In the book, she covers everything from her first garden in London to her current one-acre land in Henley-on-Thames, where she is often found at peace inside her greenhouse.
Giving fans a sneak peek inside her "first-rate" garden greenhouse, Mary revealed that she’s designed it cleverly to require "no maintenance", including the addition of an automatic vent.
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It’s a great tip for anyone looking to really invest in their own gardening space. Greenhouses with auto roof vent openers or an automatic system make regulating the temperature less of a chore.
Mary has also added lighting, so she can spend evenings tending to her plants, including the cucumbers, tomatoes and kumquat she happily shows off in the video. True to Mary Berry’s nature, she reveals that she’s going to turn her kumquat crop into a homemade marmalade.
Mary Berry shares her second great love: gardening. From a passion that was sparked in her childhood as she helped her father in their vegetable patch, gardening has become a source of great joy to the national treasure.
There are other clever ways Mary has designed the most accessible and easy to use greenhouse, such as having everything on raised beds or tables with what appears to be built in storage at an easy level to reach.
If you’re wanting to grow plenty of fruit, veg and plants like Dame Mary, but you don’t want to always be crouching or bending down, this is a really clever way of making it perfect for your needs.
Having things in organised containers and laid out will also stop things growing out of control, and reduce the need for you to be out weeding or shovelling mounds of soil.
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As well as growing crops for her baking and cooking, Mary shared how she uses the greenhouse to always keep a steady supply of scented geraniums for her home.
She explained, "I bring geraniums, pelargoniums, in and out of the greenhouse, and once they've flowered, perhaps I've had them in the house, I bring them out to recover."
While baking is, arguably, always going to be her bread and butter - pun not intended - having a garden has been something of a lifeline for Dame Mary over the years.
In an interview with the RHS at the beginning of the year, she explained how the Chelsea Flower Show offered a "breath of fresh air" for her after losing her son, William, in 1989.
What followed was finding comfort in gardening. She shared, "We were given many plants after William died - white-flowered Helleborus niger in particular, which was in bloom around the time.
"We brought them with us from our last house to this because I couldn’t part with them. I brought many plants from that house - such as Romneya coulteri, and Alstroemeria because they hold happy memories of Will."
Today, Mary has created a space for more happy moments for herself. She said, "I love the greenhouse because it's somewhere where when it's pouring with rain, I want peace and quiet, I come here."
Sounds heavenly.
