Gardening is about patience and love

Describe the garden

Tatton is a well loved and well visited garden, not just regionally but nationally. we receive 150,000 visitor a year.

That's a lot of feet. I hope everyone get a bit of inspiration from a visit.

We are a garden of mixed and eclectic styles reflecting all the previous owners’ tastes and wishes and fashions of the last 200 years, so there is something for everybody.

You can walk through lots of different climates, such as the steamy heat of the Caribbean,where we grow pineapples to the New Zealand rainforest full of tree ferns and back past a garden that would not be out of place by a temple in Kyoto.

Think of an art gallery but made of gardens.

What are your plans for the garden?

As the new head gardener, with a team of gardeners with more than 150 years experience between them our plans are to maintain the gardens owned by the National Trust for future generations.

To give them the joy and wonder that past owners and visitors have had for more than 250 years.

We plan to keep restoring areas of garden to interpret our shared horticultural past and in doing so shed light on other areas of our history.

The garden at Tatton was used by the Egerton family for lots of things, but one thing in particular really inspires me.

The family with their children used to put on plays and performances, dance and poetry and theatre and with this in mind I would love to see Tatton's garden come alive with music and performance in the coming years.

How did you get into gardening?

Growing mint and potatoes as a kid, watching my dad and uncle growing thing and having a mum with green fingers.

A love of nature and the outdoors certainly helped.

My chemistry teacher constantly looking and seeing me staring at the Pennine Hills, the light and rain constantly changing over them.

He said I will make a terrible chemist but a good mountaineer.

I think gardening is in us all, to nurture and grow is instinctual, but to be a gardener it helps by being rubbish at everything else.

What is your favourite feature and why?

It would be obvious to say the Japanese garden.

I love it for lots of reasons but my heart is in the fruit and veg garden, the horticultural equivalent of a blackboard.

Get it wrong, just do it again - a place to cultivate hope and dreams of summer, of great food and family, a laboratory of mad gardening ideas.

How much is spent on the garden?

A tricky question as, any garden lover will know, Samuel Egerton had grand designs for his garden.

After taking the grand tour he returned with fancy ideas from France and Italy and had to modify his ambitions for the mansion to afford his garden. The balancing act continues today.

We work for Cheshire East Council who are great supporters of our work.

However, it’s more important we make money than spend it, so we have to be the best at what we do with the resources we have.

Why do you enjoy gardening?

I think it is something all of us have in common. We may hate doing our own garden, seeing it as another job to do, but everybody loves to relax in a garden, to see order, to see nature perfected.

Have you suffered any garden catastrophes?

Gardening never make catastrophes, only lessons. Nature is generally a kind and loving teacher if you are willing to learn and show resilience.

Top gardening tips?

The secret is in the soil, feed it with homegrown compost, add what it asks for.

Sand loves water and muck, clay loves hard work, check its temperature like you would your child and you can then sow what you want.

Gardening is really about cultivating patience and hope.