I got on well in school, but I never liked it. I was there because I had to be there. When I turned 17, I thought, I want to do something. The head gardener at Birr Castle lived down the road and I said to him: “Is there anything going in the garden? I love gardening.”
He said, we run a student programme, you get a few bob every week. When 12 months were up, they gave me another 12. Tree surgery was what I actually wanted to do, so I did a course in Scotland. I became chargehand at Birr Castle after that. In 2001 they offered me the job as head gardener – I was only in my 20s.
There are more than 4,000 different species of tree here and I got really interested in trying to learn about them all. Back then, Lord Rosse was after going on an expedition to China for wild seed that we were in the middle of growing. I started to get into all of the things his father had collected too.
My interest is in things I can plant that will grow for years. I look back at the things I have planted in the last 34 years and the height of those things now. I get to see what Lord Rosse planted and what his father planted – his father didn’t get to see it grow, but I’m getting to see it. Over the past 10 years, we are seeing more and more of the things planted by Lord Rosse’s father. Lord Rosse is getting to see it and he’s 88.
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We started a big Chilean collection 30 years ago, and some of that flowered for the first time last year. One that was planted in 1909 flowered after 90 years. Some of them might never flower. The things I’ve planted, in another 20 years, they’re going to look absolutely stunning. The heartbreak is, I’m probably not going to see it, that’s at the back of my mind the whole time.
When I plant something, I think about who might see it in the future. Someone is going to reap the rewards of it, and I’d say my name will be mentioned. I’ve spent 25 years tackling every tree in every corner of the place. Until then, they wouldn’t have had a lot of maintenance. The older trees date from the 1820s, but there are oak trees here that are 500 years old.
Ninety-nine per cent of gardeners you’ll meet are happy people. I’ve never met a grumpy one
I treat Birr Castle like my own back garden. I spend more time here anyway. I can control the trees, the shrubs and lawns in the 50 hectares (125 acres) of Birr Castle.
When I came here first, we always had what I would consider a summer. Now we have our summer months, but we don’t exactly have our summer weather. Things we planted many moons ago are sitting in wet ground. We are prone to flooding a lot more. We see rivers flooding in the month of June. We would never have seen that before.
The weather has changed big time. The winters are milder. I think that’s why things are staying in leaf for longer. It’s probably the reason why, after all these years, things are starting to flower. We see trees holding their leaves here well into winter. Years ago, there were no leaves to be seen. We see leaves now coming out of things in December; that is totally not normal.
When I took over as head gardener in 2002, I kind of said no the first time I was offered the job. The head gardener used to be dressed in a shirt and tie, that wasn’t going to be me. So we had an agreement that I would remain as a working head gardener. I’m happy when I’m out and I’m going.
I’ll be 34 years here in October and I’ve never missed a day, never been late. I hope to keep that record. I’m still finding plants in the demesne that I never even knew were here. I’ve been walking by them for 30-odd years and yet I have never seen them. You say to yourself: have I not opened my eyes?
I absolutely love the Chilean collection. It’s so rare; a lot of those species were endangered. They survived, we propagated them and a second generation is absolutely thriving. It drives us on. With the good you have the bad. We had an absolutely fantastic collection from South Africa but the bad winter in 2010 and the bad spring in 2011 wiped out most of it. It’s heartbreaking and you kind of say to yourself: I’ll try again. But the years are flying by and you actually might not get to try again. Trees are like people; they have a lifespan. But with something dying, there is always something growing, there is always something producing seed.
I definitely found the right job for me. Ninety-nine per cent of gardeners you’ll meet are happy people. I’ve never met a grumpy one. The outside life is hard, you get cold and wet, but you will be happy. You are in the middle of nature, you are working with people who love the same thing as yourself. If I was to do it all again, would I do it any different? Honestly, no, I wouldn’t. I’m happy in what I do.
In conversation with Joanne Hunt
