Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture
Tony Hall
Kew’s Head of Arboretum & Temperate Collections on how gardens’ winter scent and colour inspired his most recent book
My arrival at Kew in 1999 was a moment of pure fate. My late wife and I had three children, and when our fourth arrived my wife was desperate to go back to work. So we decided that I would look after our son.
A job came up at Kew for a paper picker. I lived just down the road so I thought it would be brilliant to gain access to their beautiful grounds. I got a letter back saying I was overqualified, which I’d expected, but surprisingly they offered me the job as a part-time gardener. I leapt at the chance and have been there for 25 years.
I’m now head of the arboretum, where I manage two-thirds of the outside garden and the temperate collections. It’s a varied role and I have my finger in many pies. I work with students on our courses, I trial new electric alternatives as we move away from petrol and diesel, and I oversee propagation in the temperate nursery.
A passion for Mediterranean plants inspired my third book, Gardening with Drought-Friendly Plants. I spent 15 years travelling around the Med, collecting plants and seeds. I was once told that everyone has at least one book in them, so after a decade building up knowledge of these plants, I wrote a guide: my first book, Wild Plants of Southern Spain.
When I finished, I realised there was this gaping hole in my life where a book needed to be, and so I thought, ‘I’ll write another one!’ Gardening with Winter Plants is my seventh book. It came about because of a very old, very small and tired winter garden at Kew. When I took over its management, I thought the area was too good not to do something really brilliant with.
My visits to o
