History

 

Inspired by Sarah Raven who is a gardener/writer/seed producer and all round green fingered person, Olive's Garden is the result of something she thrust into my hands last year.

I looked at some scrawny old bits of plastic and thought, Be Polite but Oh Dear. But then I had another look and actually loved the idea of making flowers out of component parts (petals, stems, leaves, stamens and the calyx) ... this naturally progressed to making a garden.

And the idea of making one which....
a) involves no mess at all,
b) you can do again and again
c) you don't need to help with

....began to take shape. As I am very irritated by the way most childrens toys are time consuming to put away - which means nobody does - which means bits get lost - we had to have a suitable box which the garden could be swept into without having to be dismantled. Hence the suitcase. And frankly, what a suitcase!

Together with Catherine Gibbs who steers Portobello Games, Betty Soldi, a very talented designer and Howard Webster who helps us through the tricky, sometimes nightmarish, issues of production, we came up with Olive's Garden.

It is named after my daughter Olive and I am now working on a new range which will be named after William ... Olive is 8 and loves it - but so does Anna, who is 4. Somehow the simplicity of it, the instant results and the endless variations have come together and we are all delighted with the result. I hope you like it - we are now working on new products for the garden which will be available by mail order.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the garden for years to come.