Fiona Crombie on designing gardens for Hamnet, paw paw and her love of roses

Award-winning production designer Fiona Crombie joins Cass Dowding for a conversation about memory, storytelling and the gardens that stay with us.

Best known for her work on films including The Favourite, The King, Cruella, Mickey 17 and Hamnet, Fiona reflects on the gardens of her childhood, from Sydney bushland to her grandmother's garden in Brisbane, and the plants that still carry a deep sense of home.

Together, Cass and Fiona explore how gardens helped shape the emotional world of Hamnet — from wild, useful planting to hidden foraging spaces, orchards and one unforgettable tree. It's a gentle conversation about beauty, atmosphere, creativity and the way nature helps us tell stories.

Fiona also shares her three sentimental plants: wattle, gardenia and pawpaw.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:55 Earliest Garden Memories

07:33 What a Production Designer Does

10:34 Discovering the Gardens of Hamnet

14:27 Designing Through Collaboration and Discovery

16:24 Finding the Tree

21:44 Creating the Gardens of Hamnet