Biography

Roger Platts, Garden Designer and Horticultural Expert

From his early days growing up on a Derbyshire farm, Roger’s love of plants and gardens started at the age of 13. He started formal training in horticulture at Dartington Hall Gardens in South Devon, moving on to a commercial horticulture course at Hadlow College of Horticulture in Kent, before working on several nurseries in the UK and Denmark.

During this time Roger developed an interest in garden design and plant combinations, which led him to set up his own garden design business in 1989.

His sundries exhibits at the Chelsea Flower Show during the early nineties were much admired and the RHS offered him a site for a garden at the 1995 show where he won Silver Gilt for his creation ‘A Country Retreat’. Subsequently, ‘Living Rooms’ in 1996 and ‘The Spout Garden’ in 1997, won Chelsea Gold Medals.

Following a five-year break, his much acclaimed ‘Garden Open’ at Chelsea, which celebrated the National Garden Schemes 75th Anniversary, won a Gold Medal and Best Show Garden Award. Although commitments to clients and running his business have not allowed him to exhibit since 2002, his friends and clients persistently ask: ‘Are you doing Chelsea this year?’

Since September 1996, Roger has been developing a flourishing retail nurseries at Edenbridge, a seven-acre site in the Kent countryside bordering Surrey and Sussex, with easy access from London and the M25. The nurseries are open to the public every day. Stock and display beds contain an ever-increasing range of plants at the nurseries, which have the atmosphere of an English country garden. Adjoining are his three-acre wildflower meadow and bluebell woodland. Roger’s private garden acts as a base for the popular National Gardens Scheme ‘Garden Open’ events held twice a year during the summer months. Dates can be sourced in the Yellow Book.

Roger’s popularity has seen him on television, radio and in print media. In 2004 he published his first book ‘Traditional Gardens’, which was short listed for Practical Book of the Year at the Writer’s Guild Awards also in 2004. He regularly gives talks to local groups with subjects that include ‘Using Plants to Best Effect’ and ‘Exhibiting Gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show’. Roger is a member of the Gardens Judging Panel for the RHS shows and is involved on several RHS committees.

Roger Platts is one of the most respected and demanded plantsmen in the UK.