Saturday with Diarmuid Gavin: 'The best kind of relaxation is working in the garden'

Diarmuid Gavin: "I usually start my Saturday by making coffee (coffee is everything) and stepping out into the garden."

06.30

Unless I’m tired from travelling with work I will get up at around 6.30am or 7am. I’ll opt for yoghurt, berries, nuts and all that good stuff. It can be challenging to be healthy all the time and I slip up at times. I’m lucky to be travelling and staying in hotels but I find it is hard to be as consistent with my food as I can be at home. It makes me feel much better to eat well.

07.00

I usually start my Saturday by making coffee (coffee is everything) and stepping out into the garden. It’s a beautiful time of year - tree ferns are unfurling, blossoms are emerging, trees are breaking into leaf and the birds are in full song. If you’re a gardener your eyes are wide open from the moment you wake.

08.00

I’ll go somewhere local for bread and then to Dunnes Stores. If I go early it’s empty and I can whizz around. I obsess slightly over what’s in my food, which drives my family mad.

09.30

If there are no social plans for the weekend, I’m delighted because it means I can catch up with everything I need to do for work. Saturday tends to be a quiet day for emails so I get to plan for the week and look at the bigger picture across projects. I’ll look over my to-do list and check any travel plans or meetings I’ve got coming up.

I might do a few online consultations. Clients will have sent me photographs, site plans, and, sometimes, images. I’ll study what they’ve sent, do some sketching or research and get myself into the right space before I click into the call. These sessions can be with people anywhere throughout Ireland, the UK or further afield and clients are often relaxed, reflective and ready to get things moving in their gardens.

11.00

I might meet my friend Kealan Lennon, founder and CEO of CleverCards. We’ll have coffee or a bite to eat and talk through our week - share ideas, catch up, and get a bit of perspective from each other’s spheres. I have all the work I do already and lots of things I want to do. 

He will talk through it all and advise me, and he won’t make it easy on me, which is good. I’ve seen him go through every fundraising round, every hire and every pivot - he’s an incredibly hard worker. I’ll talk gardening and he’ll talk business strategy - he is a great sounding board.

13.00

The dogs will have been watching me all morning, waiting for their turn. I’ll bring them to the Murragh beachside walk near Wicklow town for a run or to Fassaroe, Powerscourt Waterfall or the Sugarloaf. They’re off the lead, running wild and loving every second of it.

An entirely different kind of Saturday happens when I’m on location filming - often in the UK on a garden makeover show. Those Saturdays start with a hotel breakfast and the sense of being thrown into a production day. I’m on site by 8am, filming, planting, turning things around at speed, making sure everything’s ready for the final shots. It can be intense. By 7pm or 8pm we’re already thinking ahead to the next day’s location, wrapping up loose ends and getting ourselves to the next hotel or the nearest airport.

16.00

If I’m at home, I might take a rest in the afternoon, but often the best kind of relaxation is working in the garden. I've been manic with work this year and I’ve hardly been out in the garden. I have about 10 days coming up with nothing much scheduled so I am looking forward to getting out into it then.

I’ll disappear into the wilderness, pruning, planting and prepping soil. I’m a believer in letting gardens grow a little wild, but sometimes that wildness gets out of hand. Brambles will have crept in and taken over the undergrowth, so I’ll cut those back or dig them out.

I might turn the compost heap. Turning it helps to introduce oxygen, speeding up the decomposing process. It’s messy, physical, grounding work and I love it. I’ve recently been eyeing up the hen house. I keep meaning to get a new batch of rescue hens. It’s one of those small domestic dreams that’s just waiting for the right moment.

20.00

I might visit the cinema with my wife Justine and daughter Eppie and have a pizza in Dun Laoghaire. If I’m watching TV it will be the worst mindless trash that you can imagine - I don’t sleep very well so sometimes it helps me to wind down or nod off.

21.00

I started running again last December after an injury, which helped with my sleep, but I find with travelling and arriving at hotels at night, it’s hard to get the run in as I usually would at 9pm.

23.00

I’ll go to bed at around 10pm or 11pm but if it’s a busy time of year, I might well jump back on the laptop to do some more work. I’ll be invigorated by the work I’m doing - especially the pet projects that I probably spend way too much time on.

• Diarmuid Gavin will be appearing on the Garden Stage sponsored by Zarbee’s at this year’s Bord Bia Bloom which takes place from May 29 to June 2, 2025. Tickets are priced at €30 and up to two children (under 16) go free with every ticket purchased. For more information see bordbiabloom.com.