After three years at Kew, Tom became head gardener at Rydal Hall where he oversaw the restoration of the Thomas Mawson gardens and developed a community vegetable garden. Next, he worked with Arabella Lennox-Boyd at Gresgarth Hall before two years lecturing at Newton Rigg College.

Visit to Gresgarth

Samantha initially trained and worked as a Geologist working on research projects at The University of Birmingham. Her passion was Geological mapping, which soon found her distracted by the plants growing on and around the rocks, more than the rocks themselves!
​Following this growing interest, she became a student at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, studying at Pershore College in the evenings.
​The following year her training moved on to the RHS Garden Wisley, where she specialised in Rock and Alpine plants. While there she also worked for short stints at Kew and Great Dixter.
​After graduating she went to work alongside John Massey, looking after his Hepatica collection at Ashwood Nurseries. This became one of her passions, alongside specialist alpines and a new breading program with Roscoeas. She left Ashwoods in 2016 to look after their baby boy.
​Alongside Nigel, she has thrown herself into creating and building their own garden, propagating and growing a range of unusual plants at home to sell at their talks. The pair created their own nursery, Hopes Garden Plants, at Halesowen in the West Midlands.