The actress, famed for her role in the BBC drama Silent Witness, loves to unwind in her garden. ‘I’m a big gardener, I love gardening’ she says, recently telling Woman & Home magazine that at some stage in her life she’d like to work in something to do with gardens or flowers.
Emilia lives in West London with her daughter Rose where she transformed her concrete outdoor area into a cottage-style garden, with a lawn, brick wall, lavender, roses, jasmine and pretty clematis. There are also lots of pink, white and dark purple tulips and other spring bulbs.
‘I’ve always found cottage gardens very romantic and I’m probably a bit of an old romantic,’ she said in an interview for the Oxford Mail. ‘My favourite plant is the Natasha Richardson rose, a beautiful light pink rose with an old-fashioned scent,’ she added. ‘My sister got it for me in memory of the late actress and it’s just outside the back door underneath the lavender wall.’ Sweet peas are another favourite, which she grows in vintage looking terracotta pots. Emilia has a lovely dark purple variety named after her and recently tweeted. ‘I’ve had jam jars full of sweet peas every day which smell so delicious, look dreamy on the kitchen table and make me so happy.’
She attributes her passion for gardening to her parents who still help out, with her father Edward Fox ‘a master pruner,’ pruning the Wisteria and her mother actor Joanna David looking after her collection of pots. ’My mum has incredibly green fingers. My childhood memories are of hyacinths and paperwhites up the stairs while the table was always full of wild flowers and sweet peas…I’ve always felt that wherever you go, if you’ve got flowers it will feel like home,’ she said.