Anna Pavord (born 20 September 1940)[1] is a British horticultural writer. She wrote forThe Observer for over twenty years[2] and forThe Independent for over thirty years.[3] Her bookThe Tulip (1999) was listed as aNew York Times best seller.[4]
Pavord was born inAbergavenny,Monmouthshire, the daughter of headmaster Arthur Vincent Pavord, a best-selling garden author (d. 1989), and Welsh teacher Christabel Lewis (d. 1978).[1][4] The family had neither TV nor a car and she spent many hours roaming the Welsh mountains with her brother. As a child she loved radio jazz and dancing.[5] She attended Abergavenny High School for Girls theUniversity of Leicester and graduated in 1962 with aB.A.(honours) degree in English.[1]
Pavord married Trevor Ware on 18 June 1966. The couple lived on a sailing barge on the Thames atShepperton, gardening the 80 feet of riverbank that came with the mooring. The barge is where her first daughter was born.[6] She has three daughters, Oenone (b. 1967), Vanessa (b. 1970) and Tilly (b. 1974); and 12 grandchildren.[4][1]
"It was at our first house and on the first patch of ground that we actually owned that I really discovered the point of gardening. It wasn't a Pauline conversion. There was no sudden, blinding vision of beauty. I didn't see myself (still don't) trolling through bowers of roses, straw hat just so, gathering blooms into a basket. Nor had I any idea at first of the immense joy of growing food. But I had at least begun to understand that gardening, if it is to be satisfying, requires some sense of permanency. Roots matter. The longer you stay put, the richer the rewards."[6]
The family lived in Sussex and then later, looking for somewhere wilder, bought The Old Rectory inPuncknowle, WestDorset, built for rector Thomas Seeley in 1702. The Georgian estate had one and a half acres of land, including a walled garden, a 13th-century dovecote and a neo-Gothic stone folly, built by Henry Etherington in 1846. It had been empty since the war, the house dilapidated and collapsing the garden overgrown. They spent the first 18 months there, with young children, aged six and four with a third on the way, clearing the land back to the boundaries. They renovated and planted, staying for over thirty years, with no central heating for half that period. She grew peaches, apricots, nectarines, greengages and French pears along the warm garden walls. In 2002 the family moved to another home in Dorset with 18 acres of land and a garden already stocked with 130 species of plant.[6][7]
Pavord worked as copywriter for Lintas Advertising Agency (1962–63), as production assistant and eventual director ofLate Night Line-Up, a daily, live TV and media show onBBC TV 1963–70. She wrote forThe Observer (1970–92),The Independent (from 1986),The Sunday Times,Country Life,Country Living andElle, and was associate editor ofGardens Illustrated (1993–2008).[3] She was the writer and presenter ofFlowering Passions, a 10-part TV series onChannel 4, appears regularly on BBC radio and was featured on "Desert Island Discs" in 2017. InThe Curious Gardener (2010) Pavord assembles a collection of articles from her newspaper columns.[1][8] She wroteThe Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad (1999) which was listed as aNew York Times best seller.[4]
Pavord was awarded the GoldVeitch Memorial Medal from theRoyal Horticultural Society (1991), and anHonorary Doctor of Letters degree from theUniversity of Leicester (2005). She is a member of the Gardens Panel forEnglish Heritage and chairs the Gardens Panel of theNational Trust. She received the Garden Media Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.[3][1] Pavord is a trustee ofGreat Dixter, and was a close friend ofChristopher Lloyd.[9]
