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James Golden: The View From Federal Twist

Christopher Lloyd and Great Dixter, Vita Sackville-West and Sissinghurst – some gardens are inextricably linked with the people who made them and lived in them day to day but what makes a home garden and is it different to any other garden?

In one sense, of course it is because a home garden is where we have chosen to live and be, it allows us to experiment freely and watch minute changes of light, weather and season. But what are our own gardens for, do they need to have a purpose, do they change our relationship with the land and perhaps even change us?

This film is a conversation with James Golden, author of a newly published book about the making of his garden in western New Jersey, Federal Twist, which Monty Don said made him “rethink what a garden can be and do” and award-winning garden designer Dan Pearson, reflecting on the making of Hillside Gardens in Somerset in the context of his other international design projects.