Tom Hart-Dyke

Job Title:

Head Gardener

Organisation:

Lullingstone Castle

 

 

About Tom....

The amazing World Garden at Lullingstone Castle was created by Tom Hart-Dyke. The idea for the gardens was conceived in the heat of the jungle in an area known as the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia whilst Tom was being held as a hostage following a kidnap on a plant hunting trip that went disastrously wrong.

On a positive note, the experience gave him the impetus to look at life a bit differently and the seed of an idea sown in the jungle is now the World Garden containing nearly 8,000 different species and variety of plants.

Laid out and planted as a map of the world with plants located in their respective countries of origin, the World Garden is a wonderful horticultural journey. Year on year rare and important botanical plants are added to the collection such as the Dinosaur Tree (Wollemi Pine) the oldest tree in the world and the rare and beautiful Eucalyptus Silver Princess which flowered for the first time ever in the UK in the World Garden in 2006.

Lullingstone is also now home to the National Collection of Eucalyptus as the Garden now contains some 100 species, hybrids and varieties with a large proportion of these being collected by Tom himself.

Tom's father is the 19th generation of the family to live at Lullingstone so Tom is truly Kent born and bred with a long family history associated with Kent.

See Tom's work at Lullingstone Castle - www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk

Do you have your own Kentish story to tell? Download our form and you could become a Face of Kent!