My Life in Plants
The first plant I ever grew
I was born and raised in Liverpool in the 1960s and our house didn’t have a garden. I had to wait for one until I was 10, when my family moved. I was given a few bags of mustard and cress seed by my nan, which I grew on my bedroom windowsill. It was my first gardening success and gave me the growing bug. At school I declared I wanted to be a gardener and earned the nickname Percy Thrower. As I knew he didn’t play for Liverpool, I realised he must be a gardener!
The plant that shaped the gardener I am today
Starting work at Liverpool Botanic Gardens opened my eyes to the huge variation in the world of plants. During that time my training for a City and Guilds in horticulture was very thorough and I learned so much from many of the head gardeners I came across.
My favourite plant in the world
It has to be the amazing jade vine, Strongylodon macrobotrys. It’s a spectacular plant with unreal flower colour and I saw it flowering for the first time in the botanic garden.
The plant that makes me work hardest
After trying for five years to propagate a tree peony plant, which thrives still at Croxteth Country Park, near Liverpool, I finally succeeded using a propagation technique called serpentine layering.
The plant I am in human form Guzmania lingulata ‘Brimstone’, because I’m a Red, (Liverpool football supporter), through and through. It’s also durable, longlasting and stunning to look at!
The plant I would like to grow more of This has got to be a race of bromeliads called neoregelia, already a popular indoor plant in the UK. They always look great with the different coloured foliage all year round. There are many varieties being produced and some are particularly stunning.
The plant that helped shape my life The pineapple family Bromeliaceae is so diverse. The genus tillandsia, commonly called air plants, are becoming more popular now due to their adaptability to grow happily in a variety of ways. It’s a family of plants with so much to offer and there’s never a point when you can say ‘I know all I need to know about them’. The plant that I’d always give as a gift This would be the urn plant, Aechmea fasciata, with a rosette of beautiful grey-green leaves and a long-lasting pink flower spike. Very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s once again becoming warmly appreciated.