Meet the man who holds the keys to Britain's most beautiful gardens
George Plumptre with Mary Berry at the NGS stand, Chelsea, 2019 Credit: Andrew Crowlet There’s no heart-warming tale from George Plumptre’s boyhood about how he grew to love gardens from helping his mother plant lupins in the herbaceous borders of Goodnestone Park or from watching a broad bean sprout in a bottle. The chief executive of the National Garden Scheme struggles to remember a single moment of horticultural awakening. No. He and his four brothers were too busy rampaging through the neglected thickets of their family estate in Kent, climbing the ancient cedar of Lebanon or roller-...