I have noticed that I am increasingly
referred to in newspapers, online and, for all I know, in conversation, as a ‘horticulturist’. This grates. Not so much because it is wrong – I will come to that in a moment – but because I absolutely do not think of myself as anything but a gardener.
It is a word that I had not come across until five years ago when I was filming gardens in America. We were about to interview a brilliant and charismatic man who ran a magnificent 30-acre garden in South Carolina, and asked what job title he would like us to use. “Senior Horticulturist”, came the reply. The result was immediate consternation. None of us had come across the expression before. The director politely pointed that ‘Head Gardener’ would have much more immediate resonance with a British audience? He did mind. So Senior Horticulturist it was.