Unlike the majority of their forebears, gardeners today are much more likely to be university educated and have a sideline in Latin verse or academic publishing. Indeed, many come from a career in one of the professions — law, accountancy or teaching — but some of the brightest high-flyers are so fired by a love of plants and gardens that they pick up a trowel as soon as they graduate from their academic studies, sometimes before.
The three young gardeners we will celebrate in the coming weeks have all taken slightly different routes to the jobs they now hold, but all give thanks for the encouragement they received when training and working within a large professional organisation. Gardening is a discipline that combines rarified botany with plunging the hands into the soil. This is why horticultural knowledge is best disseminated by word of mouth from one generation to the next, the experience of a lifetime distilled into conversations and demonstrations in the garden and potting shed.
As such, the educational training schemes and bursaries offered by bodies such as the National Trust and the RHS — and by private gardens, such as Great Dixter in East Sussex — are essential to finding and nurturing future talent.
These three gardeners have been entrusted with significant responsibility at a young age. All have an instinct for good management, ready to muck in and work with their colleagues, encourage them and show how things can be done. Young they may be, but they stand to be counted among the great gardeners of the future. Our gardens are safe in their hands.
When Sam Hickmott married his fiancée last year, he decided to take her surname. The gesture was typical of the man: he defers to those he considers better than himself and his instinct is always to collaborate. Sam Hickmott is now Sam Finch, although some who remember him as the National Trust’s youngest ever head gardener occasionally forget his change of surname.
Sam’s journey towards celebrity had a confused beginning. He bunked out of his A-level course when he decided, at the age of 17, that academic study was incompatible with the outdoor life that he really enjoyed. He signed up for the RHS’s Level 2 Course and gained excellent all-round experience with a garden-maintenance firm in Bath. Then, he scooped a temporary management job at Prior Park, the National Trust’s landscape garden on the edge of the city, which stimulated an academic interest in garden history.
His next opportunity came late in 2021, when he applied to manage and improve two of the Trust’s Arts-and-Crafts gardens in Somerset: Tintinhull and Lytes Cary. The challenge was to rescue them from two seasons of neglect caused by the pandemic, manage a team of three employees, plus some 20 volunteers, and work with the property manager to develop the gardens.
'Gardening is a science, an art and a vocation combined'
Those who remember the ups and down of both gardens know how successfully he has changed their fortunes. On his own initiative, he set his team to create a system of collecting rainwater at both properties to make automatic irrigation possible in hot summer weather.
Sam values the structure and discipline of the Trust — the long-term management plans, the study of a garden’s history and his access to the experiences of other head gardeners. He works diligently on budgets, compliance and liaising with colleagues in other departments. He says his career has given him ‘both a creative and intellectual outlet, and a means to continue learning and experimenting’. Earlier this year, he was runner-up in the UK’s Young Horticulturist of the Year competition, which he hopes to win before he is 30 in 2028.
‘Horticulture is not famously well paid,’ he points out. ‘Nor is it regarded as a skilled profession for ambitious, career-driven people. But gardening is a science, an art and a vocation combined.’ Sam reads widely and thinks deeply. One day, he will be a superb and inspiring manager of gardens at the highest level.
-
Fit for a queen: The story of Queen Victoria's state bed at Arundel CastleA state bed commissioned to receive Queen Victoria at Arundel Castle has just undergone a transformative restoration, as Annabel Westman explains. Photographs by Paul Highnam for Country Life.
-
A billionaire's thatched cottage is for sale in Surrey, once owned by the oil magnate J. Paul GettyChestnut Cottage is a joyous little home — albeit one with the most unusual bedrooms to acreage to price balances we've ever seen. Toby Keel takes a look inside.
-
What Britain's top garden designers are planting now to create dazzling spring meadows around their homesNon Morris reveals the techniques behind the contemporary take on William Robinson’s original idea of naturalising bulbs in long grass, creating an effect even more dazzling than a meadow.
-
'The best bulbs are those that give maximum pleasure for minimum effort — and these are the ones which will keep delivering for years'Now is the time to decide what bulbs to plant to make the most of next spring. Charles Quest-Ritson offers his advice.
-
This restoration of a Cliveden garden honours the original vision of Norah Lindsay’s 1930s designA biodiverse climate-friendly planting scheme replaces the annual bedding displays at this National Trust garden in Buckinghamshire.
-
'Why do I allow the fuchsias in my garden to live on? Because, despite their visual shortcomings, I am a fool for edible pleasure' -
The best flower borders in Britain, and how they work their magicWe may have invented the flower border, but planting them remains one of the trickiest things to get right. Charles Quest-Ritson looks at the secrets behind the very best.
-
The enchanting world of Christian Dior’s gardensChristian Dior’s love of gardens and gardening is celebrated in a new book and exhibition at his family home.
-
Inverewe: The making of 'The Oasis of the North' in a wind-battered corner of north-west ScotlandInnovative 21st-century composting and mulching techniques combined with a 19th-century shelterbelt ensure that the famous gardens of Inverewe in Wester Ross continue to thrive. Caroline Donald explains more; photographs by Andrea Jones.
-
Alan Titchmarsh: 'I am so weary of seeing Lutyens-style benches and chairs absolutely everywhere'A strategically placed chair doubles as a focal point and a spot to rest — but we need to move on from Lutyens-style ones says our regular garden columnist.
