INSIDE AND OUTSIDE: Nature + Pop Culture News with Jessica Murnane · Jessica Murnane

Gardens as Therapy + To Lawn or Not to Lawn + Slow Horses with Clare Foster (author and Garden Editor at House & Garden)

·48 min·3 clips

Claire says gardeners should design for caterpillars as well as pollinators, not just adult bees and butterflies.

1. Inside and Outside: Nature + Pop Culture News with Jessica Murnane centers this conversation on gardening, lawns, and one TV pick, Slow Horses. 2. Jessica Murnane hosts, and Claire Foster appears as the garden editor at House & Garden, a garden journalist, author of Pastoral Gardens, and a Create Academy teacher on growing flowers from seed. 3. The episode asks what gardening looks like when the guest is already an expert and whether a more ecological, less formal approach can still feel beautiful. 4. Foster says her own garden is her “solace” and “therapy,” especially because she is in her 50s and has a busy life. 5. She describes leaving her desk when she gets writer’s block, spending half an hour outside, and returning with “lots of new ideas.” 6. Foster explains that she started as a writer in book publishing, worked at Thames & Hudson, and later moved into magazines through Gardens Illustrated. 7. She says Derek Jarman’s Garden changed how she saw gardening because the photography made gardens look like art. 8. Foster says she has never done a horticultural course, but she learned through reading, practice, and years of work. 9. She points to apprenticeships and hands-on learning as strong alternatives to formal horticultural training. 10. Foster describes a UK shift toward No Mow May, reduced lawn areas, and more gardening for wildlife because pollinating insects and birds are in decline. 11. She says artificial lawns are “awful” because nothing grows there and water cannot permeate the surface. 12. Foster describes her own front garden transformation from gravel and a dark laurel hedge into planted beds with a picket fence. 13. She says people walking past comment on her hollyhocks and flowers, which makes the garden feel socially connected. 14. Foster defines a cottage garden as informal, full of flowers, vegetables, and herbs rather than rigid formality. 15. She names hollyhocks, roses, irises, tobacco plants, daphne, tulips, honesty, peonies, love-in-a-mist, dahlias, asters, and chrysanthemums as part of her seasonal planting list. 16. She says supermarket chrysanthemums are sprayed with chemical growth inhibitors, while taller hardy chrysanthemums are more useful and attractive. 17. The interview style is practical and conversational, with Jessica asking direct questions and Foster answering with examples from her own work and garden. 18. The tone stays calm and encouraging, with a lot of specific garden terminology and clear explanations rather than abstract theory. 19. People who like gardening, cottage gardens, and ecological planting will get the most from this. 20. People wanting celebrity drama or fast pop-culture gossip may skip it.

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