Caroline Quentin has taken solace for decades in her remote Devon garden, out with a trowel – but sometimes no clothes!
WORDS: VICKI POWER
Yes, the esteemed actress loves nothing more than gardening in the buff, dead-heading in just an apron and some wellies.
“On a hot summer’s morning I will go out naked because no one can see me – let me hasten to add, I don’t live in suburbia!” Caroline (63), star of Men Behaving Badly, Jonathan Creek and Strictly Come Dancing in 2020, laughs.
“I’ll stick on a big denim apron or something because if I’m pruning roses, I’ll need it.
“It’s delightful to feel the air on your body and the warmth of the sun on your body. I swim naked in the pond, too. It’s liberating. I love it. I mean, being naked is just nice, so you’ll often find me in just an apron in my greenhouse.”
Caroline divulges that cheeky secret and more in her new autobiography-cum-gardening book, Drawn to the Garden. The title refers to the fact that Caroline has also done all the book’s illustrations, which may come as a surprise to those who only know her as an actress.
“I have painted and gardened pretty much for as long as I can remember,” says Caroline. She explains that the book came about as a result of her popular Instagram account, @cqgardens, which she started during Covid at her husband Sam’s suggestion – he got bored listening to her gardening chit-chat!
“I’d come in and say, ‘I’ve planted a new hydrangea!’ or ‘I’ve got some new seeds in,’ and he would say, ‘I’m not that interested in plants. Why don’t you tell people that might be interested? What’s for tea?’” She laughs.
“So I started an Instagram account and from there I found a community of people that I talk to all the time.” Caroline’s gardening skills have become so well-known that she was invited on to Gardeners’ World and was interviewed by Monty Don during last year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
Yet Caroline’s love of gardening was born out of a very difficult childhood. She grew up in leafy Surrey with three sisters who were quite a bit older than her, and a father who was a commercial airline pilot and away a great deal. It left young Caroline often alone at home with her mother, Kathleen, who had severe mental health problems.
“My mother was what we now call bipolar,” says Caroline. “She would suffer from very severe bouts of depression and would go into psychiatric units.
