Award-winning production designer Fiona Crombie joins Cass Dowding for a conversation about memory, storytelling and the gardens that stay with us.

Best known for her work on films including The Favourite, The King, Cruella, Mickey 17 and Hamnet, Fiona reflects on the gardens of her childhood, from Sydney bushland to her grandmother's garden in Brisbane, and the plants that still carry a deep sense of home.

Together, Cass and Fiona explore how gardens helped shape the emotional world of Hamnet — from wild, useful planting to hidden foraging spaces, orchards and one unforgettable tree. It's a gentle conversation about beauty, atmosphere, creativity and the way nature helps us tell stories.

Fiona also shares her three sentimental plants: wattle, gardenia and pawpaw.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:55 Earliest Garden Memories

07:33 What a Production Designer Does

10:34 Discovering the Gardens of Hamnet

14:27 Designing Through Collaboration and Discovery

16:24 Finding the Tree

21:44 Creating the Gardens of Hamnet

28:51 Building the Henley Street Garden

30:57 The Knot Garden and the New House

35:03 The Hidden Foraging Garden

35:58 Designing the Globe to Feel Like the Inside of a Tree

40:10 What Stayed With Fiona After Hamnet

42:51 Three Sentimental Plants

45:52 Quick Fire Questions

49:39 Cass's Reflection

51:43 Credits and What's Next

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Credits:

Music: Hayden Schueler from Vereya Gardening

Audio support: Tom Dowding

Produced and edited by Cass Dowding

See https://libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy/ for privacy information

The story of The Sentimental Gardener.

Cass Dowding swaps roles and takes the guest seat as is asked all the questions she asks her guests.

Guided by brilliant host Chloe Foster, author of The Rookie Gardener, host of 3CR Gardening Show and Horticulture educator, Cass opens up about starting a podcast, how gardens contained and plants helped her process her grief and what grew after.

From dreams of being a dancer, to finding a career in midwifery and nursing to how motherhood made her face what's really important, Cass' story is a winding journey of a life filled with finding the thing that brings life and joy ... which is now plants! And gardens. And people who garden!

00:00 Introduction

02:16 Childhood Garden Memories

08:29 Career Path: Ballet to Nursing

12:42 Covid, Motherhood and Change

18:44 Grief and Becoming a Sentimental Gardener

22:27 Cancer, Anxiety and the Garden

24:02 Writing and Discovering Garden Stories

27:39 How the Podcast Began

33:51 Finding Confidence and Voice

44:29 What Surprised Me About Gardeners

46:53 Three Sentimental Plants

55:37 What Gardens Teach Us About Life

1:00:29 Why Gardening Brings Belonging

Other Sentimental Gardener podcat episodes mentioned in this episode:

• Fleur Flanery on what the landscape says about us, The Australian Landscape Conference and a million trees
• Sandra Schwartz on the study of greenspaces
• Hayden Schueler on being a closeted gardener, Japanese topiary and caring for other people's gardens
• Chloe Foster on her book The Rookie Gardener, prickly grevilleas and growing gardeners

Join other garden and plants lovers getting podcast updates in their inbox and Substack writing in regular newsletters - join here

To become a financial supporter of the show and help us spread more stories of the joy of a life in gardens - join here

Credits:

Music: Hayden Schueler from Vereya Gardening
Audio support: Tom Dowding
Produced and edited by Cass Dowding

See https://libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy/ for privacy information

Cass shares what's coming in Season 2 ... returning March 2026

Annie Winter, gardener, and Cass share laughs, tangents, and heartfelt reflections in this Christmas Special recorded in The Winter Garden.

Can they cover everything they want to talk about? Most likely not! But along the way, you'll hear:

• How their friendship began (it started with a "no")
• Behind the scenes of starting a podcast and dealing with imposter syndrome
• Gardens where they felt the 'whoosh' this year
• Reflections on this season's incredible guest stories
• Listener stories that made them cry
• One lucky listener winning a $50 voucher from Kuranga Native Nursery

Stay until the end for a hilarious outtake!

About Annie's garden: Annie's garden opens in January 2026 for Global Gardens of Peace fundraising event. Read more in Garden's Illustrated, Galah magazine, The Design Files and Studio Home Unearthed.

Follow The Sentimental Gardener on Instagram and Substack: @the_sentimental_gardener
Follow Annie on Instagram: @annmaree.winter

And go to the website www.thesentimentalgardener.com for show notes and other stories.

The Sentimental Gardener is a gardening podcast (that's not really a gardening podcast) hosted by Cass Dowding.

Produced, recorded and edited by Cass Dowding. Mixed by Tom Dowding
Theme music by Hayden Schueler from @vereyagardening

Hosted on Libsyn Five. See https://libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy/ for more information.

Ralph Bristow, expressionist painter and garden designer, joins Cass for a gentle, searching conversation about what happens when we design not from certainty, but from listening.

They explore Ralph's experience of synaesthesia — hearing gardens as music — how embracing entropy and creative dissonance shapes living landscapes, and why beginning without a finished picture can lead to the most alive work of all. From colour inversion to jazz-fusion rhythms in planting, Ralph shares how his gardens emerge through risk, instinct, and deep attention to the land.

Along the way, they reflect on the emotional safety beautiful spaces create — how gardens can help us feel open without feeling overwhelmed — and how his mother's words, "Do it while you can," became quiet permission to keep creating even when outcomes remain unknown.

This is an invitation into uncertainty as a creative companion — into tending not just gardens, but our capacity to begin, listen, and feel fully alive.

See extensive show notes at The Sentimental Gardener — Ralph Bristow

Buy tickets to visit The Barwitian Garden with Open Gardens Victoria — January 2026

Music: Hayden Schueler @vereyagardening
Audio engineering: Tom Dowding
Production & editing: Cass Dowding

Privacy policy: libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy

Horticulturist, author, and advocate for Australian native plants, Roger Elliot AM joins Cass Dowding on The Sentimental Gardener to explore how a lifetime of noticing — from childhood bushland to decades of fieldwork — can shape the way we understand the natural world.

From early days learning under mentors like Edna Walling, Jack McLeod, and Glen Wilson, to co-authoring alongside David Jones the landmark Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants Suitable for Cultivation, Roger has spent more than sixty years asking: How do plants, people, and place shape one another? And what grows when we care with curiosity?

In this episode, they talk about:

• the "web of life" Roger saw long before ecology had a name
• the quiet, essential partnership of Roger and Gwen
• how nurseries, fieldwork, and mentoring shaped generations of plant lovers
• and why caring for plants is inseparable from caring for people

A gentle, generous conversation about legacy, relationship, and the slow work of cultivating a life with meaning.

— SHOW NOTES:

See extensive show notes over at The Sentimental Gardner - Rodger Elliot

Visit the Australian Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Cranbourne to see one of the landscapes Roger helped shape.

Music by Hayden Schueler @vereyagardening
Audio Engineering: Tom Dowding
Production and Editing: Cass Dowding

Privacy: libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy

Landscape architect, horticulturist, and Director of Outlandish Ventures, Fleur Flanery joins Cass Dowding on The Sentimental Gardener to explore how the landscapes we shape — from backyards to public parks — reflect what we value.

From childhood gardens brought to life by the imagination to managing Canberra's urban forest and curating the Australian Landscape Conference, Fleur has spent a lifetime asking: What is this place saying? What could it become?

In this episode, they talk about:

• memory, lineage, and legacy held in plants

• rethinking beauty in public spaces

• what it means to sit on the edge of an idea

• and why design — done with intent — is an act of care

A reflective conversation about tending both land and life with purpose.

—

SHOW NOTES:

Learn more about Fleur's work, garden tours and The Australian Landscape Conference at Outlandish Ventures.

Follow @outlandishventures on Instagram for updates.

Music by Hayden Schueler @vereyagardening
Audio Engineering: Tom Dowding
Production and Editing: Cass Dowling

Privacy: libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy

Canberra-based gardener, horitculturist, educator, and advocate for sustainable horticulture Attila Horgosi joins Cass Dowding on The Sentimental Gardener to explore what it means to live a life of observation — one that moves in rhythm with nature, not against it.

From his home garden in Bywong, New South Wales — affectionately known as his plant zoo — Attila has spent nearly thirty years cultivating more than plants. He's cultivated a way of being.

In this conversation, they talk about:

• how his family's migration shaped his philosophy of patience and observation,

• why he believes every weed tells a story,

• what the garden can teach us about paying attention, and

• the quiet rebellion of living slowly in a world that wants everything now.

A grounded, reflective conversation about time, attention, and what can happen when we stop rushing for answers and start listening to the world around us.

// Show notes //

Follow Attila The Horticulturist on Instagram

Find links and resources mentioned in the episode here.

Credits:
Music: Hayden Schueler from @vereyagardening
Audio Engineering: Tom Dowding
Production and editing: Cass Dowding

See libsyn.com/tos-policies/privacy-policy for privacy information.