Who are we?
President
President
Roy Lancaster
Roy Lancaster is most widely known for his work on the long running BBC TV programme, Gardeners’ World. He has also regularly appeared on the BBC Radio show Gardeners’ Question Time and is also a freelance writer and lecturer.
Formerly the first Curator of the Hillier Arboretum (now the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens), he has travelled the world on plant finding expeditions. He has been a member of the Royal Horticultural Society for almost 40 years, and is vice-chairman of the society’s Floral Committee B and a member of several other committees.
Biography taken with permission from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lancaster
Vice President
Vice President
Val Bourne
Val Bourne is an award-winning garden writer, organic gardener and lecturer and she gardens on the wind-swept Cotswolds at Spring Cottage – high above Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire. Her third of an acre garden is managed without using chemicals – something Val has always believed in. She is a hands on gardener and a committed plantaholic.
Ambassadors
Ambassador
Matthew Wilson
Matthew Wilson is Head Designer and Managing Director at Matthew Wilson Gardens. He has almost 30 years experience in the horticulture and garden design industry, with a decade spent in senior roles at the Royal Horticultural Society. He is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4s Gardeners’ Question Time.
Ambassador
Matthew Biggs
Gardener, writer and broadcaster, best known for his appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time. He has been a television researcher, presenter and director, written or contributed to over ten books on subjects ranging from houseplants to unusual vegetables and on historic subjects including ‘Secrets of Great Botanists’. Matthew’s most recent book was RHS A Nation in Bloom: Celebrating the People, Plants & Places of the Royal Horticultural Society. He also presents a one-man show, ‘One Man, Two Plant Hunters’, telling the stories of George Forrest and Ernest Wilson and lectures on a range of historic and plant-related subjects.
Profile from https://www.gardenmediaguild.co.uk/guild-members/directory/profile/Matthew-Biggs/563
Ambassador
Carol Klein (VMH)
Carol Klein is a well known gardening expert. You can find Carol on-line here:
- https://www.instagram.com/the_carol_klein/
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/4FHlsdWbLnKcVKvj3XHKBwX/carol-klein
Carol holds a Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) from the RHS.
Officers
Pamela Clark - Chair
Pamela has served as the speaker organiser of the Norfolk and Suffolk Group and was part of the local team organising the Annual Lecture Day in March 2017
Stuart Senior - Treasurer
Stuart Senior has been our Honorary Treasurer since 2016. He is a member of the Somerset Group. His horticultural interests are at the woody end of the hardy plant spectrum and he is assembling a modest collection of ornamental and edible trees in Somerset. He is also a trustee, and Treasurer, of the Somerset Gardens Trust.
Helen Curtis - Honorary Secretary
Helen joined the Society in 2017. She works with the Malvern Show Team and is a reader for the Kenneth Black Bursary Scheme. She is a member of the Western Counties Group, The hardy Geranium, Galanthus & Pulmonaria Special Interest Groups.
Linda Hall - Honorary Secretary (Trustees)
Linda joined Norfolk & Suffolk Group in 2005. Served as group chair 2007-2012 and again 2017 – 2022, organises speakers and was on the sub-committee organising the Annual Lecture Day in 2017. Has been a Seed Receiver for the HPS Seed Distribution Scheme since 2019.
Trustees
Graham Farquhar - Trustee
Graham is a past Chair of the Lincolnshire Group and with his wife Heather are currently members of the Nottinghamshire Group and the Shade and Woodland Group. Both are active participants in the team which puts together the HPS display at Malvern Show, after helping with the Worcestershire Group’s earlier stand and also helping build the revolving stand at RHS Chelsea 2017. In 2019 they designed and built the HPS stand at RHS Chatsworth.
Heather Farquhar - Trustee
Heather is a member of the Nottinghamshire Group and a past member of the Lincolnshire Group where she has acted as Publicity Officer and Conservation Coordinator. She believes that the HPS has a lot to offer gardeners and deserves to be more widely known. With her husband Graham their garden has several mature trees creating many shady areas.
Jaime Blake - Trustee
I am the Head Gardener and Curator of Alan Bloom’s Garden in Bressingham. I’ve been such for the past 30 years or so and a member of HPS for a similar amount of time. When not at work, I enjoy gardening at home…with Hardy Perennials. I’m a simple soul!
Keith Scott - Trustee & Postholder (Group Secretaries' Liaison)
Keith is an active and enthusiastic member of the East Yorkshire Group. He is a firm believer that HPS should be a learning society embracing and enabling the full range of Hardy Planters to develop their enthusiasms. He also holds the post of Group Secretaries’ Liaison.
Lynne Hackett - Trustee
Lynne is a member of the West Yorkshire Group.
Nicholas Hales - Trustee
Delighted to be invited to join the HPS board as a trustee and look forward to hopefully being able to make a contribution to the future development of the society. As an observer at the last two board meetings, I have been able to witness firsthand the energy and enthusiasm of the Trustees and the Postholders to the task of ensuring the growth of the Society. HPS has a vital role to play in ensuring the place that gardens and plants play in today’s society.
Saul Walker - Trustee & Postholder (Shows and Events)
Saul is Head Gardener at Stonelands House, Dawlish. He is a National Trust & Kew trained horticulturist, a former shows manager at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a BBC Gardeners World Live Plant Expert and a member of the RHS Tender Ornamental Plant Committee
Postholders
Advice Team - Postholder (Plant advice)
The plant advice team is made up of:
- Margaret Mason
- Sue Lander
- Saul Walker
- Ruth Sands
Alan Lennox - Postholder (Image Library)
Alan’s passion for garden photography and his professional background as an IT management consultant working on large-scale technical projects prompted him to take on the role of Image Librarian. When he’s not photographing his own horticultural efforts in North Yorkshire and northern Spain as well as other gardens around the world, he can be found working on the Society’s extensive image library, organising the HPS annual photo competition or even doing a spot of weeding.
Ann Frank - Postholder (Publicity)
Ann was a Building Surveyor and Academic but since retiring has been able to spend more time in her garden which is where she is happiest. She loves white flowers, Hardy Perennials and Cottage style gardens. Ann is Vice Chair of the Derbyshire Group. She believes that gardening can bring joy to everyone’s lives.
Brian Hackett - Librarian / Archivist
Brian lives in Denby Dale, West Yorkshire, where he gardens on a north-facing, shady, steeply-sloping site, which the Society is teaching him to regard as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.
Clare Foggett - Postholder (Editor of Cornucopia)
Clare has worked in gardening publishing for the past 20 years after studying horticulture at Pershore College. She has worked on the RHS members magazine The Garden, was at the weekly title Garden News for 12 years and has been editor of The English Garden since 2015. She’s a member of the RHS Herbaceous Plant Committee and the Garden Media Guild, of which she’s a former chair.
Diane Puncheon - Postholder (Seed Distribution)
Diane joined the Lincolnshire Group of the Hardy Plant Society in 2014 and became Group Secretary and Programme Secretary. Despite initially only having superficial knowledge of plants she learnt a great deal from other members who inspired her and led to increased confidence.
Helen Brown - Postholder (Shows and Events)
Helen is a long standing HPS member. She is the secretary for the Devon Group and runs a very successful Summer Plant Fair for the group each year. She is a member of both the Shade and Woodland and Galanthus groups. She has a wealth of knowledge both about HPS but also the wider horticultural world, and has been opening her garden since 2008 for the NGS. Helen successfully promoted the Society at the Rosemoor Flower Show and was PR and Marketing officer at Bicton College for seven years.
Judy Hallett - Bursary's Coordinator
Judy Hallett is a member of Western Counties group. She is currently the chairperson of the group, and co-organised the Annual Lecture Day 2023.
Keith Scott - Trustee & Postholder (Group Secretaries' Liaison)
Keith is an active and enthusiastic member of the East Yorkshire Group. He is a firm believer that HPS should be a learning society embracing and enabling the full range of Hardy Planters to develop their enthusiasms. He also holds the post of Group Secretaries’ Liaison.
Mick Dunstan - Postholder (Editor of The Newsletter)
Mick, an HPS member since 2009, was chair, speaker secretary and newsletter editor of the Worcestershire group over several years. He was a journalist all his working life until retirement in 2009. He was part of the Worcestershire team that created the national HPS stand at Chelsea Flower Show in 2017, which celebrated the society’s 60th anniversary and which won a silver gilt medal. To help celebrate the Worcester group’s 25th anniversary, he organised a six-day tour of the gardens of County Wicklow, including the masterful Hunting Brook, the sumptuous Patthana and the inspirational Ardán.
Sally Adams - Postholder (Conservation Scheme)
Sally has been involved with the HPS Conservation Scheme for many years. Initially she developed an Access database to log all the plants and grower reports. When the post of National Co-ordinator for the scheme came up it seemed a natural fit, so she volunteered. She has grown many of the plants in the scheme in her small back garden, or on her allotment. She has also been Group Secretary for her local Essex group, and recently a Trustee.
Saul Walker - Trustee & Postholder (Shows and Events)
Saul is Head Gardener at Stonelands House, Dawlish. He is a National Trust & Kew trained horticulturist, a former shows manager at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a BBC Gardeners World Live Plant Expert and a member of the RHS Tender Ornamental Plant Committee
Souren Ala - Postholder (The Journal)
Since 2001 Souren has been involved more or less full-time in gardening and garden making. He was taught to respect all plants for the role which each plays in nature, but he is mainly a fan of herbaceous perennials. He succeeds Pam Ratcliffe as editor of the HPS Journal.