Chris Collins likes answering job adverts, particularly if they have a hint of the extraordinary about them; those where your roommates are chimps, for example, or your workplace is a Royal church. Few people can claim to have so varied or unconventional a CV. It’s driven in part by a sense of adventure, but Chris’s passion for his subject is so infectious and exuberant, it’s easy to see how he’s traversed the globe for his love of plants.
It all started back in 1984, in his home town of Brighton, where as a teenager he got an apprenticeship with the famous Brighton Parks. “I got to work with a lot of old boys, really good gardeners, who gave me a good standing,” he says. It was there where he saw a job advert in the back of Horticulture Week for the diploma at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and thought: “I’ll try for that.” The next thing he knew he was in Edinburgh loving every minute. “You were being taught by world authorities in this amazing garden,” he says.
It was in Cameroon that he ended up living with four rescue baby chimpanzees
After finishing at Edinburgh, eager for adventure, he went to work at the Limbe Botanic Garden in Cameroon. The garden was a window for the surrounding landscape and when he wasn’t gardening, he was collecting in the rainforest around it. It was here that he ended up living with four rescue baby chimpanzees in his house. “There was an animal sanctuary next door,” he says by way of explanation. “I was making a bed for plants from the Zingiberaceae family when a gorilla that had recently been rescued came and ate the whole bed in a morning.” He loved his time there, sleeping on the top of Mount Cameroon watching the Milky Way and fireflies, but after eight months he thought it was time to come home.
He was the first person to sell David Austin roses in Japan
He managed just six weeks in Edinburgh before he saw an advert in The Scotsman: ‘gardener wanted in Japan’. Six months later he was back on a plane, this time to Tokyo to work for Mitsukoshi, Japan’s oldest department store. His job was to sell the “concept of English gardening”. Here he specialised in container, balcony and roof-top gardens, all subjects perfect for this most cramped of cities. He was also the first person to sell David Austin roses in Japan. “It was exciting and full on; a brilliant experience to set up such a thing,” he says. But after four years or so, he was ready for home.
“Blue Peter was such a laugh. I got to do mad stuff that I loved"
He came back to a job at the South Arboretum at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and stayed for 14 months before another job advert caught his eye, this time as head gardener for ‘The Queen’s church’ or, as the rest of us might call it, Westminster Abbey. The gardens had been rather neglected, the soil was terrible and there was just a tiny lean-to greenhouse for propagation, but the job allowed Chris to flourish. He was able to combine all this previous knowledge and just “plant up loads of stuff” – everything from exotic container gardens to bedding from his parks days to planting trees.
But those job adverts, they just kept appearing. “Out the blue I saw an advert for a screen testing for TV,” he says. Of course, he had to answer it. This led to the series The Plantsman on BBC Two and from there to a slot on ITV’s This Morning, and eventually to the famous children’s series, Blue Peter, where Chris got the coveted gardener role, previously held by Percy Thrower. “Blue Peter was such a laugh. I got to do mad stuff that I loved, like meet Scooby-Doo and create a hedgehog garden. And the feedback from the kids was amazing, I got 5,000 letters for that hedgehog garden,” he says proudly. He spent a decade teaching children (and no doubt a few parents too) how to garden, but when the programme moved from London to Salford, he decided it was time to move on again.
"I am a people person as much as a plant person"
These days he divides his time between running his own education and consulting company, CM Collins Horticulture, and his role as head of horticulture for the organic gardening charity Garden Organic, where his role is also a largely educational one. It’s something he clearly enjoys, whether it’s giving talks or creating designs for housing associations and community gardens. “I am a people person as much as a plant person, and I love getting people through the door,” he says.
He spent a decade teaching children (and no doubt a few parents too) how to garden
He acknowledges that Garden Organic has been through hard periods. But with CEO, Fiona Taylor, Chris is confident Garden Organic has a bright future. “The pandemic gave us three million new gardeners,” he says. “How are we going to reach them? If I can pass on the knowledge about the social and environmental implications of gardening to as many people, including kids and university students, as I can – and show how organic gardening has a huge part to play in that –then that would be great.”
Useful information Garden Organic, Ryton Gardens, Wolston Lane, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire CV8 3LG. Tel 024 7630 3517, gardenorganic.org.uk