Caroline Quentin: Drawn to the Garden

Tickets £5-22

This is a live, in-person event.

Location: Morningside United Church, 15 Chamberlain Road, EH10 4DH

We're incredibly excited to welcome actress, broadcaster and TV presenter Caroline Quentin as she takes us on a horticultural journey through life with her new book Drawn to the Garden.

Caroline Quentin is well known for her lead roles in the award-winning British sitcom Men Behaving Badly and crime drama Jonathan Creek. But aside from her career as an actress, she has been a passionate gardener for many years. 

In Drawn to the Garden, Caroline shows how much joy she gets from spending time in her garden, whether it be grappling with the best way to grow plants and vegetables, or raising seeds in her potting shed. Though she now has a large Instagram following, her attitude to gardening is the same as it has always been – expertise helps but is not essential. Gardening should be fun and enjoyable, filled with the simple pleasures of planning, planting, harvesting and cooking. It is also a meditative and restorative pastime, and a great way to lift your spirits.

Written in a warm and engaging way that reflects her personality, Caroline tells stories of growing chillies from seed in her greenhouse, berating the thieving blackbirds in her fruit cage, and swimming in her pond singing to dragon flies and flag irises. Over the years, she has come to realise that gardening, just like life, is a series of happy accidents, unplanned successes, and baffling and frustrating failures.

Illustrated by Caroline herself, this gorgeous book mixes personal stories of her life and experiences in the garden, with practical tips, recipes for food and drink, and even the occasional favourite poem. As she likes to misquote Dorothy Parker: ‘Take to horticulture, it’s cheaper than a shrink’.

Caroline Quentin is a renowned figure in British comedy. She grew up in Reigate, Surrey, but now lives in a country farmhouse in Devon, where she grows her own vegetables, and has a large orchard. Her dedicated Instagram account, @cqgardens, shows her love for gardening in pictures, and is wildly popular in its own right. From rhubarb to kale sprouts, she shows off her cultivation skills in all their leafy green goodness.