Jinny Blom: Why We All Need Somewhere to Hide

Jinny Blom is one of Britain's leading landscape designers. She has created over 700 gardens – and each one begins, in some way, with a search for security.

Jinny trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist, working for many years in mental health, before a prophetic dream prompted her to devote herself to her lifelong interest in natural landscapes and gardens.

Since then, Jinny has created spaces that promote the relationship between nature and health – from her sky garden at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to a healing garden she created with King Charles.

In this conversation, Jinny speaks openly about a childhood marked by abandonment and abuse, and how those early experiences shaped the way she experiences architecture and landscape. 

We talk about the childhood hiding place that still influences her work today, the unusual rules she follows when designing a garden, and how creating beautiful landscapes became a way of making sense of a very difficult start in life.

This episode was recorded in Jinny's converted sixteenth-century threshing barn in Oxford.

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Jinny's Current Work:

Jinny’s studio has projects across various continents as well as in the UK.

Her most recent book ‘What Makes a Garden’ won Garden Book of the Year in 2024 published by Frances Lincoln/Quarto. The accompanying self-made podcast series launched in October 2023, with guests as varied as Tim Walker, Skye Gyngell and Brian Eno.

The studio has won prestigious awards for large, completed estates, some of which appear in her new book.

Jinny has launched a bespoke range of English ‘landscape colours’ designed by her specifically for use outside. She has teamed up with Dominic Myland, the owner of the family run paint maker and Royal Warrant holder Mylands. It is a unique plant-based formula for wood, metal and masonry.

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Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office
Produced by @podshoponline

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