My Life in Plants
The first plant that I ever grew
I discovered a native violet in the spinney of a wood close to the village where I lived. The village children picked the flowers and sold them for a penny for a 10-flower bunch.
My favourite plant is
Always the one I’m looking at at that moment! I love the flowers of the European Alps, but when the 48 species and varieties of rhododendron in my garden are in flower they always take my breath away. Being a plantsman I love nature, especially trees. There are 18 trees growing in my quarter-acre garden, the tallest being a 9m (30ft) tall Ginkgo biloba ‘Fastigiata’.
The plant that made me work the hardest
When I started work as a gardener’s boy in 1942, there was a box hedge around half the vegetable garden which needed clipping twice a year. The head gardener would stretch a line along the hedge and while clipping, if I didn’t keep the top level, he would swipe me across the backside with a piece of cane!
The plant I’d like to grow more of
It would have to be silver-leaf saxifrages. I already have around 50 species and varieties, and am constantly creating more screes, crevices and troughs to contain them.
The plant I am in human form
When I look at the 350-year-old oak tree in Goscote Nurseries showground in Leicester, I think that’s just like me, knocking on in years, but still putting on a good show!
The plant that helped shape my life
During 1946 I was a soldier, first in the south of France and then in Egypt. It was there I came across numerous plants I’d only ever seen in books. This inspired me to try growing many of them. Most died but some did succeed, especially the hardier ones obtained from Southern France, such as the trachycarpus palm and olives.
The plant I’d always give as a gift
I grow thousands of Cyclamen hederifolium and give many away to those who want them. I also use them in the ornamental borders at my local train station, where they compete with the native violets I’ve planted as ground cover.