Adrian Fisher interview

Who has influenced you the most and why?

I worked with Randoll Coate, designing 15 mazes in the 1980s, beginning with the Archbishop's Maze at Greys Court (National Trust) in 1981. It was a great collaboration - we were like sparring partners, and this experience accelerated my exploration of the potential of mazes.

What has been the best moment while working on your designs?

Creating a Multi-Sensory Mobility Maze for the Blind at RNIB New College, Worcester, in 72 hours on the TV programme "Challenge Anneka!”. The construction work involved over 100 craftsmen with cranes and heavy equipment, and continued 20 hours a day. By the end we were physically and mentally exhausted, but there was an overwhelming sense of team achievement and a very worthwhile result.

What has been the worst moment?

Leading Princess Alexandra around the hedge maze at Leeds Castle in Kent on its opening day, and taking the wrong turning. The entire royal party had to turn round and go back to the previous junction, before we could continue our progress and reach the goal!

Which gardening personality do you most admire?

Sir Roy Strong combines a tremendously cultured mind across the full range of art forms with the very practical achievement of his own garden at The Laskett. I appeared with him live in a studio in Aberdeen on a Radio Four gardening programme, and then we travelled back to London together, and it was a most delightful day.

What is your favourite garden and why?

Rousham House in Oxfordshire. It is one of the earliest landscape gardens in England, and on an intimate scale, yet it abounds in original and fascinating features, and makes the most of a relatively small and seemingly unpromising site. The Rill and the Eyecatcher are noteworthy; but even Kent's pavilions at Rousham are exquisite.

What is your favourite garden tip?

More hedges in mazes die from waterlogging than from lack of water. Creating rows of compacted paths is like making a series of dams. Water must be able to drain away, otherwise the bushes will get waterlogged.

What is your favourite plant?

The Cedar of Lebanon. It is the most elegant tree in the world, even when mature and massive. I grew up in a garden with 6 cedar trees as a boy. In our present grounds we have two magnificent cedar trees, and I have planted a third. They have such a long life cycle compared with our own lives, so to me they also symbolise eternity.

What is your favourite gardening season and why?

Spring is full of excitement and promise, banishing the cold and dark of winter, with longer and warmer days. I love the way coloured blossoms appear, one shrub or tree at a time, with new surprises day after day.

What is your first gardening memory?

My grandparents had a wonderful garden in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. It stretched from formal lawns and a rockery, to a rough orchard where there was a musty outbuilding reeking of the smell of onions. This was an exciting and secret place, which I thought I was the first person to discover, and of whose existence the grown-ups were not even aware.

What is the most exciting wildlife you have seen in a garden?

I was staying in the Chateau de Thoiry in France, where they have a safari park in the grounds. Viscount Paul de la Panouse took us out into the grounds, where I took a photo of him fearlessly feeding a biscuit by hand to a black bear. It was potentially quite dangerous.

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