A Dedicated Gardener

You may remember this photo, which I posted here early last summer after visiting the walled garden of Mottisfont Abbey.

I’ve just discovered the name of the rose. It happened that, yesterday, I was catching up with some reading while sitting on the throne. In my National Trust magazine I suddenly came across a very similar photo that was unmistakably the same rose. It’s called ‘Graham Thomas’ after the consultant gardener who set up the rose collection there when the Trust took over the care of the walled garden in 1972.

The magazine ran a feature about the remarkable work of this man who died in 2003 at the ripe old age of 94. He became the first gardens adviser to the NT early in 1955 and twenty years later the Queen recognised his service by awarding him an OBE. He worked tirelessly at a wide variety of properties to restore, develop and conserve the gardens as they were meant to be viewed.

Thomas also wrote many horticultural books and illustrated them with his own drawings and paintings. Wikipaedia lists 13 of them. His work was his life and he told a colleague that he had never had time to marry (according to the magazine feature).

I’m actually quite proud of my photo. I think it’s just as good as the ones in the magazine and on Wikipaedia. But Shutterstock turned it down for having no commercial value.

PS I'll be away for the next few days and don't know if I will be able to post or drop my EC card. Back to normal next week.