Author(s): Tom Hart Dyke

Biographies & Memoirs

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent are currently being documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts ("Save Lullingstone Castle") were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes ("Return to Lullingstone Castle") will go out in spring 2007 to coincide with publication. Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. For example, you might imagine that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden, which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging.