Who’s who

The tiny wind-lashed island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly seems an improbable home for a world-class subtropical garden, and its gregarious globe-trotting curator, Mike Nelhams

Island life for curator Mike Nelhams at Tresco Abbey Gardens on the Isles of Scilly means a lot more than just heading up a world-class exotics garden

THE GREAT FREEZE OF 1987 REDUCED THE GARDEN TO SOMETHING VERY LIKE STEWED RHUBARB. I HAD TO SEE IT AS AN OPPORTUNITY

When I pitch up at Tresco’s celebrated Abbey Garden, established in the 19th century around the ruins of a Benedictine abbey, curator Mike Nelhams is not at his desk. Nor can he be found among the labyrinthine paths that wind among the countless botanical treasures of this subtropical garden, or even up a tree. Mike’s first permanent job here was as an arborist, though these days he leaves the tree work to his long-serving head gardener Andrew Lawson. As helicopter blades rattle and roar, sending red squirrels scattering, it becomes apparent that Mike is engaged in one of his many other jobs, as reserve air traffic controller, landing a naval rotorcraft on a square of green by the garden gate. Multi-tasking, he explains, is an essential part of island life. Mike is also fire officer, local councillor and port facilities security officer for the many cruise ships that dock at Tresco. These are essential for the survival of the garden, as only the most determined domestic visitors seem to venture the 30 miles beyond the tip of Cornwall to explore the Scilly Isles. Mike has refined group visits to a fine art, so that as many as 200 visitors at a time can be led through the myriad enclosures and terraces of the garden without any sense of overcrowding.

He has also taken to life on the ocean wave himself, spending most winters lecturing on cruise ships or leading garden tours. ( Spring sees annual exchange visits with La Mortola, the famous botanical garden on the Italian Riviera, while in summer he is busy judging for the RHS.) He also travels to California, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand, spreading the word about Tresco, and visiting the countries where many of his plants originate and observing them in their natural habitats, Mike enhances his knowledge of their needs, makes invaluable contacts with other gardens, and finds new ways of developing the collection.

Mike credits garden writer Ursula Buchan with bringing him to Tresco. They were students at Wisley, and Ursula, worried that she might not make the grade for a placement at Kew, numbered Tresco among her options for a Plan B. The more she talked about it, the more Mike became convinced it should be his Plan A. He had fond memories of the island from family holidays, recollecting with particular warmth the beautiful daughter of the island shopkeeper. Isobel has now been his wife for 37 years.

Mike loved his student year on the island, despite rudimentary accommodation in an old potato store adjoining the island’s generator. “My soup had ripples in it,” recalls Mike, “because the table would shake so hard.” After a week he no longer heard it, and he stayed on for another year and a half.

He then spent five years at High Beeches in Sussex, but in 1984 was invited to return to Tresco as head gardener. He was just 26, and didn’t expect to stay forever. Island life isn’t for everyone. There’s only one shop, one pub, and a couple of restaurants geared to high-end tourists. There are no cars on the island, and the ferry to Penzance (and the nearest supermarket) takes three hours. In winter the population dwindles to around 150 people, and those winters are long and drear. You have to be able to rub along with other people and make your own entertainment. ( That helicopter landing pad doubles as a driving range: Mike is a keen golfer.) Above all, you have to be resourceful. Living out in the Atlantic is an elemental existence, at the mercy of the weather in a way that most of us never experience. Mike still remembers the great freeze of January 1987. “Nearly the entire garden was reduced to something very like stewed rhubarb.” For three years he laboured to recover the garden, only for the 1990 hurricane to bring down the 100-year-old shelter belt and lay waste to his new plantings. Fortunately, he is a resolutely cheerful person: “I don’t do depressed and demoralised and miserable – it’s not in my nature. I had to see it as an opportunity, not a disaster.”

Ever since, he has set about futureproofing the garden. He has planned a succession of shelter belts, and has built more variety into the collections – Tresco’s display of plants from all Mediterranean regions is unique. And he is trying to put the garden on a sound financial footing without sacrificing its strong sense of identity and individuality – it’s still very much a family garden.

He is also starting to plan for his retirement. It will be a wrench to leave the island, but he is not down-hearted: there will be all the more time for travel. And, of course, a few extra rounds of golf.

USEFUL INFORMATION Tresco Abbey Garden, Tresco, Isles of Scilly, TR24 0QQ. Tel 01720 422849, tresco.co.uk

In January Mike, head gardener Andrew and garden students complete the annual Tresco Abbey New Year flower count, a tradition dating back 150 years, to see what flowers are in bloom.

NEXT MONTH Adam White, president of the Landscape Institute.