The Gardener

Make sure your volume is on: "You never know what the season will bring"

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I think the skills are quite numerable, you can't achieve anything without a team. And I think people skills, forming partnerships, liaising, and getting the most out of people is imperative, not just within your own team, but sort of a multidisciplinary approach.
I think a magic word I'll throw in there is flexibility - a flexible attitude. And particularly with horticulture. Every season… you really can't predict what you're going to get. A drought! We've had periods where we haven't had the hosepipes out for a single day in the season. You try to put that into a design context, to build in a certain resilience.
It's quite a small, humble team. I think we've already said that Staunton had 16 gardeners. That must've been an amazing, an amazing fact in which to maintain things. As I say, there's myself and two other full time members. So resilience and design and flexibility are crucial to tailor the resources to the needs of our visitors and the management of the site.