Meet The Gardeners: designer Jo Thompson

Don’t be fooled by appearances. Slight, pretty and endlessly charming, Jo Thompson is also one of the most determined people you will ever meet. How else could a divorced mother of two have turned herself into an internationally renowned award-winning garden designer in just 20 years?

Jo learned the importance of hard work from her father, an Italian cocktail waiter from the Rome of La Dolce Vita who came to this country in search of adventure and went on to build a chain of Italian restaurants in southwest England. As a child, Jo divided her time between Rome, where she was fascinated by the classical architecture, and school in Poole, Dorset. “I was quite a swotty girl,” she says. “At least until the age of 14, when I discovered Simon Le Bon and the New Romantics.”

Despite the distractions of Duran Duran, Jo won a place at UCL to read Modern Languages, and had a wonderful time learning about the history, art and literature of Italy and France, as well as grammar and syntax. After graduation she briefly worked for an Italian man who manufactured dresses for the designer Jasper Conran – “I got paid in sample size clothing, which only fitted because I couldn’t afford to eat” – then began a PhD at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge exploring the work of Absurdist playwright and novelist Pirandello.

In a plot twist that Pirandello would have appreciated, a lack of funds forced her to switch to teacher training and a brief career in London schools, before marriage and impending motherhood led a pregnant Jo to cross the road from her Maida Vale flat and ask the staff at Clifton Nurseries how she could improve her tiny roof terrace. “It was a lightbulb moment. In just a couple of windy days those guys transformed the blank canvas of our roof into a whole new world, and sowed the seeds of my future.”

By the time her baby was six weeks old, Jo was so desperate for a proper garden that she relocated the family to Kent and was soon obsessed with David Austin’s rose catalogue and the writings of Christopher Lloyd. A couple of years and another baby later, Jo signed up for the English Gardening School design course and discovered her calling in life.

“In 2000 I designed a garden for a friend, word got around, and everything suddenly snowballed. Since my marriage had broken up, leaving me with two tiny children to support, I took on every bit of work that came my way. Fortunately, 20 years ago I had more energy.”