The Sentimental Gardener

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' Reflection
51:43 Credits and What's Next
Join other garden and plant 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

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.
SHOW NOTES
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