Diarmuid Gavin: 'It all culminated when the repo man came to take my stereo system'

In the early ‘90s, Diarmuid Gavin was 26 and on a “downward spiral” that saw him reach rock-bottom. The renowned garden designer and Chelsea Flower Show winner tells Helen O’Callaghan about the weekend when everything came to a head – and about a resolve he made in those 24 hours that was the first step to his subsequent success.

Diarmuid Gavin: "The look that man gave me… it really got to me. I was going through such a rough patch — this was just another layer on top, a very distinctive one."

The 24 hours where everything changed for me — a Friday/Saturday in 1991, I was 26, living in a rented basement flat in Rathmines.

I was a landscaper — creating gardens around Ireland but mainly Dublin. I was good at it, there was plenty of work. The issue for me — garden design then was very staid, you couldn’t do anything that was any way left of centre.