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TL;DR:

  • George Harrison became dedicated to maintaining his garden.
  • Paul Simon said George Harrison was “fussy” about his outdoor space.
  • Paul Simon appreciated his friendship with George Harrison.
George Harrison and Paul Simon sit next to each other holding guitars.
George Harrison and Paul Simon | Richard E. Aaron/Redferns

When Paul Simon visited George Harrison at his Friar Park estate in England, he was struck by the beauty of the home’s grounds. He also took note of how particular Harrison was about the garden. Even while giving Simon a tour, he would pause to ensure everything was in order.

The former Beatle was an ardent gardener

When Harrison bought Friar Park, a mansion in Henley-on-Thames, England, he began dedicating himself to maintaining the grounds.

“I like the garden… In the garden, you see all the seasons come and go, and whatever you do can affect it all,” he said in an interview. “But at the same time, the flowers don’t answer you back. Don’t give you no trouble. It’s very nice.”

His second wife, Olivia, said that despite his many musical accomplishments, he’d like to be remembered, first and foremost, as a gardener who “wrote one or two good tune” (via the Sunday Times).

Paul Simon said George Harrison was fussy about his garden

Friar Park’s extensive acreage was home to many gardens and lakes dotted with rowboats. When Simon visited Harrison at his home, he said he was struck by its beauty.

“I’d never been to Friar Park before, but the rhythm of the wind in the leaves and the cluster chords of autumn’s orange, gold and evergreen made it easy to understand why he’d chosen to spend the last thirty years gradually planting, pruning, editing and reshaping the land while at the time recasting himself from pop-culture icon to master gardener,” he wrote for “Remembering George,” a special edition of Rolling Stone.

Simon also noted how particular Harrison was about the way the gardens looked.

“The grounds, he had a lot of, he had a lot of acreage,” Simon told Conan O’Brien on CONAN, “and he was really very fussy about it himself, you know. I mean, we’d cross a pond, and if there was something stopping the flow of some little creek into it, he’d get in there and pull it out. He loved it. He’d design and things.”

Harrison’s fussiness about his garden evidently paid off. Another visitor to his estate, Tom Petty, said Harrison had the best garden he’d ever seen. 

“The best I’ve ever seen. [Laughs] Yeah. He really worked on those gardens,” Petty said in the book Conversations With Tom Petty by Paul Zollo. “He loved his gardens. English gardens, traditionally, are pretty beautiful things. This was no exception. Really quite a place.”

Paul Simon said George Harrison was an ‘amazing person’

Though Simon had problems with other members of The Beatles, he enjoyed his friendship with Harrison. They had similar taste in music, but he also just enjoyed Harrison’s company.

“He was an extraordinary guy; everybody knows that,” he said. “Amazing person, not just a musician but really brave, open, kind. Just a certain percentage of him Beatles but the rest, he was just regular. Just interested in life, interested in the world, interested in the mind. A pleasure to hang out with him.”

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