Modern heroes of horticulture - Katy Watson
Has there ever been such a dramatic pivot in the search for a new career? Just a few years ago, Katy Watson was performing solo to audiences of 2,000, her soprano voice filling venues across the continent. Today, you're more likely to find her dividing perennials for the cameras on Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club or co-gardening with clients who need a gentle hand through their first seasons of plant parenthood.
Katie is a former professional opera singer who had a successful singing career, performing with orchestras for over 2000 audiences. She returned to work just twelve weeks after having her first son, but stage fright and pressure from traveling with a baby led to career burnout. "I really knew I wanted to give up for positive reasons as well as the negative.” she says. “There's no sense of missing it or regretting it. I'm much happier now and doing what I actually love more than music."
Katie has had a lifelong fascination with plants and botany since childhood and her grandmother was a keen gardener who gave her a patch of garden and encouraged her interest. Katy says "A love of plants and quite a specific love of what you might call botany... has been a defining thing about me since I was a tiny girl." She studied for RHS exams backstage during her singing career before going on to complete a garden design course at The English Garden School in 2020/2021 promptly going on to win the Judges Choice and People’s Choice Award for her first show border at the Belvoir Castle Flower Show.
Katy now offers a ‘co-gardening’ service, teaching clients alongside hands-on gardening. "There's a real lack of gardening knowledge. And what those people need is hand holding through that process. While we garden we'll be cutting back a load of perennials and talking about that process. It's nice for me because it's intellectually stimulating. It's diving into a load of different gardens and helping different people with different tastes."
A keen writer, Katy won The Garden Media Guild’s Blog Award in the lockdown year of 2020 and has written for The Telegraph subsequently and is giving her first talk this September on the subject of perennial cut flowers. Moving from London to Hampshire two and a half years ago she now has a 3-acre garden, a dramatic change from her 3-metre wide garden in the city. “And it's been really good. Every autumn and winter, I tackle one big area. So, this spring, I turned what was just a bare lawn into four beds that are seven and a half by five meters, with drought tolerant planting.”
With parents-in-law living in Nice, France, Katy says “I make a point of driving over the border into Italy, where there's the most amazing town with a huge Italian marketplace, with all these old ladies growing their veg up in the in the hill sides, on terraces, and bringing it down to this market every morning.”
Katy is a presenter on Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club on ITV. where she tells the story of her move from city life to her new adventure in Hampshire. Katy loved the presenting experience and hopes to return next year. Plans to eventually teach from her own garden once it's more established are in the pipeline too.
