I feel as if I’ve been chasing Anna Greenland for a long time. Eight years ago, while putting together the garden team at River Cottage, I approached Anna to work with me. I tried to persuade her to swap the damp climate of her then-home in Cornwall for the damp climate of Devon; for some reason the attraction of Monterey Bay, California, proved stronger.
Since then, our crossing paths have been a constant reminder that I missed out. She’s been on TV, on my work radar, working at gardens I photograph, growing in places I’d love to be gardening: for Raymond Blanc, Jamie Oliver and Tom Aikens; at Heligan, Le Manoir, Huntington Botanical Gardens in LA – and she had a big hand in creating the first vegetable garden at Kew.
She’s now at Soho Farmhouse, the 100-acre members’ club in Oxfordshire beloved of the Cotswolds glitterati, where she has been head gardener since before it opened, two years ago. “This has been my opportunity to use every moment’s experience to create something special from scratch, to lead on the creation of the gardens at the Farmhouse,” she says. “Hard as it was to leave Raymond, it was time to spread my wings, to create something from nothing.”
And what a “something” it is. As well as 48 productive raised beds, there are polytunnels and glasshouses of everything from lemons to microleaves, with a beautiful garden dominated by herbs and trained fruit, the ideal setting for a cocktail and relaxation. Orchards, wild flower meadows, raised beds and productive containers: Anna’s influence stretches across the site.
Having trained in journalism and worked as a fashion model, Anna moved to Cornwall a dozen years ago, working as a waitress at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, in Watergate Bay. She says: “I got to know most of the suppliers and, in particular, one fascinating grower. I visited him at his smallholding and on a whim I asked if he had any jobs; he hadn’t but he did offer me space to grow and to buy anything if it was up to scratch. I bought lots of books, and went for it – focusing on simple but delicious things: salads, edible flowers, beetroot and so on.”
Anna discovered that growing had been sleeping in her bones, from a childhood of being outside with her parents. “I loved being in the garden all day as a kid, but horticulture was never a career that was spoken of as a choice for anyone, never mind a woman. I hope and believe that’s changing at last,” she says. Anna took on a quarter acre, growing by day, waitressing at night. “I had a huge sense of pride serving courses that included produce I’d grown. Jamie was instrumental in making the possibilities known to me.”
Fifteen led to a role as crop coordinator/gardener at Heligan. “It gave me an introduction to growing for both public visual consumption and the kitchen at Heligan,” she says. “It was quite the challenge and made me up my game: it had to look good all the way from sowing to the plate. I loved it but after a few years I needed to move on. While there is nowhere quite like Heligan, at the time it was very period-correct, and I am experimental and curious by nature, and I had ideas I wanted to try.”
A six-month intensive course at the Centre for Agricultural Ecology and Sustainable Food Systems in Santa Cruz, overlooking Monterey Bay, immersing herself in forward-thinking…
