Matt Orme

What's the best part of your job as Head Gardener of The Montagu Arms hotel?

There are so many parts of my jobs that I love, but if I had to pick just one I would say that it’s spending every day outside surrounded by nature. Experiencing each season, watching the plants bloom in spring and summer, putting on their final display in autumn before going into rest for winter. Also getting to know the various birds that nest within the garden and even befriending the robins. It’s incredibly grounding and quite fascinating to experience it all so close up.

What one piece of advice would you give someone trying to create a better garden at home?

Stay away from pesticides and allow all of nature in. Diversity is key. Have a variety of flowers, shrubs, trees, grasses and even weeds. Create piles of branches, logs and leaves; eventually you’ll find that everything will balance itself out naturally. We use zero pesticides here and our plants go untouched by ‘pests’.

What's your favourite plant?

I don’t know if I’ve ever given that question a thought. Is it possible to choose just one?!

My top 10 would include:

• Lily
• Fatsia Japonica
• Laburnum (golden chain tree)
• Passion flower
• Poppies
• Sweet peas
• Banana plant
• Jade Vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys. Isn’t that the best name ever!)
• Acer
• Echium Pininana

There’s plenty more I could add to this list. Plants are all so fascinating in their own individual ways.

The things you do most for the environment

I try my best to continually add flowers into the garden. Aiming to have flowers from January right through to the end of December, providing for pollinators all year round, particularly bumblebees which seriously need our help, by using a mixture of bulbs, annuals, vegetables, shrubs etc. Also creating spaces for creatures to hibernate in over the cold winter months by piling up leaves, grass cuttings and branches. Animals such as hedgehogs are getting scarily close to extinction and providing spaces like this is a life line for them. We really need them in our gardens. This is a really simple way to help them out, and what’s great is just about anyone can do this.