Two Tayside garden gurus are hanging up their hats. Gayle Ritchie chats to Jim Jermyn and Trevor Whyte about the legacies they’ve left behind.
Enchanting Branklyn Garden, on the side of Kinnoull Hill, overlooking Perth, is a place of pilgrimage for plant lovers.
The two-acre hillside haven is celebrating its centenary year in 2022, having begun in 1922 using seeds collected by plant hunters.
At the National Trust for Scotland site, visitors can enjoy stunning alpine flowers, dog’s tooth violet, Himalayan blue poppies, feathery Japanese maple and snowdrops, depending on the season.
Thanks to current head gardener and property manager Jim Jermyn and his wife, Alison, visitors have also been able to sample fresh scones and cakes since they started working there and opened a tearoom in 2017.
Certainly, Branklyn has benefited from Jim’s exceptional talent over the past six years, but as 2022 draws to a close, he’s preparing to retire – although it won’t be a pipe and slippers sort of retirement.
Mixed emotions
“There are mixed emotions!” says Jim. “We’ll really miss the garden, we’ll miss all our lovely visitors and team of staff and volunteers. I look upon us all as family; we’re such a close-knit team.
“We’ll probably celebrate with mince pies and mulled wine towards the end of the season.”
The couple are moving back to Haddington in East Lothian, and Jim plans to volunteer at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden.
“We’re going to keep active!” he says. “Our daughter and family live in Barcelona, and our son and his family live in Munich, so we’ll be busy visiting them all.”
Centenary
Jim was glad to be able to mark Branklyn’s centenary earlier in the year, but he says modestly that his role has been “extremely straightforward” over his six-year tenure.
“My job has been to look after and preserve the legacy of Mr and Mrs Renton, who created the garden 100 years ago,” he explains.
“I share the vision that Mrs Renton had when she was laying out the garden using her husband’s money and obtaining some very exciting seeds and plants from Himalaya, from various plant collectors in the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, and it’s quite an emotional experience – looking at plants that she planted 100 years ago.
“Maintaining her vision and theme throughout the garden – it’s only a small, two-acre garden – is not difficult. We’ve got the bare bones and the structure of the garden created by her.”
Making his mark
Of course, Jim has made his own mark on Branklyn in myriad ways. One of his most memorable additions has been to plant more than 200 cultivars of snowdrop, which he brought from his garden in East Lothian. That led to the launch of a snowdrop festival.
“People are really captivated by snowdrops,” he says.
“Although Mrs Renton didn’t have all these named cultivars of snowdrops, she would certainly have enjoyed having a snowdrop festival in February!”
Spectacular blue poppies
Jim’s also brought in a whole raft of meconopsis (blue poppies), primulas, roscoeas – plants from his garden in East Linton that “fitted in admirably” at Branklyn.
“The Himalayan blue poppies are one of three national collections we hold here and probably the most exciting,” he adds.
“Mrs Renton was the first person in the UK to successfully master cultivation of Himalayan blue poppies.
“They were introduced in 1922 by Frank Kingdon-Ward and the seed was sent to London and to Kew Gardens, where the plants were raised from seed and exhibited at Chelsea Flower Show in the early 1920s.
“Not long after that, because the conditions weren’t ideal for cultivating such poppies in the south of England, mercifully the seed got up to Scotland, to Dorothy Renton.
“She was able to grow them very successfully, and the seed was further disseminated to Jake Drake’s Inshriach Nursery near Aviemore, where I did my apprenticeship.
“They’ve been a feature here from the 1930s to where we are today and, from April to the first week of June, there are blue poppies in flower here.
“They are the main draw for visitors during that period.”
Tearoom treats
The tearoom, introduced by Jim and Alison, has become a major feature of Branklyn Garden.
“It made sense for us, when we came here, to open a tearoom, with Alison, a confectioner, baking delicious fresh scones and cakes, and everything, from coffee beans to jam, sourced locally,” says Jim.
“Most NTS properties run as a major deficit, so I set out a business plan to knock out that deficit at Branklyn. We did that quite easily in four years; the tearoom is highly profitable.
“And it’s why we call it ‘The Branklyn Experience’. People used to come here and specifically look at the exciting plants and the garden.
“Now they come and, of course, still enjoy and buy plants, but they stay longer because of the tearoom.”
A big fan of the tearoom is Jackie Bird, the new president of the NTS. She popped along to Branklyn recently and revealed that her highlight was… scones and a cup of tea!
“Of course she loved the garden – but she preferred the scones!” laughs Jim.
Future’s looking bright
So what’s next for Branklyn? Jim has no idea who’ll be stepping into his boots – and they’re big boots to fill – but he hopes it will be someone equally enthusiastic.
“I’m not involved in the recruitment process and can only offer advice but I’d be looking for a passionate gardener, male or female, ideally living in the house so they’re on the spot,” he says.
“I’ve found it a great privilege to close up the shop at 5pm, sort out the money so we’re clear by 6pm, and then Alison and I have a gin and tonic in the garden and a meal.
“I’d then be out watering throughout the summer months to keep the garden looking absolutely super.”
What’s inspired Jim to retire now?
He laughs: “I’m an old fogey! I’m the same age as Tony Blair [he’s 69].
“I’d continue here quite happily for another 10 years! The thing about being a horticulturist – we had a nursery business and then managed Gardening Scotland [the national flower show held annually at Ingliston] – is that we’ve always been tied through the summer months and never been able to fulfil some of our dreams, in a way.
“I’m a very keen botanist and I can’t wait to travel up into the mountains. Having our daughter in Barcelona, it’s just a hop and a skip into the Spanish Pyrenees, so I’m excited about that.
“We’ve got a lot to look forward to.”
Five decades of green-fingered graft
Meanwhile, in Dundee, after five decades of green-fingered graft, Trevor Whyte has retired from his role as garden technician at the Botanic Garden.
Trevor played a key role in developing the university beauty spot, with his appointment in January 1972 as an apprentice to its first curator, Eddie Kemp, just a few months after the garden’s official opening.
Over the past 50 years, Trevor’s insight and innovation has proved integral to the success of the 9.5 hectare site.
Not only has he been involved in the physical construction of the garden’s landscape, designing and buildings walls, wells and waterfalls, he’s planted many of its collections and supported the huge array of events to be staged there.
“The Botanic Garden has been a huge part of my life,” says Trevor. “As I turned 66, on October 22 – the date the garden actually opened back in 1971 – it seemed the right time to retire.
“The garden’s main purpose is as a teaching establishment. It’s for any layman coming in who wants to learn about horticulture, whether they are students or members of the public and wherever in the world they come from.”
Family inspiration
Trevor was inspired to get into gardening by his mum, dad and grandfather.
“I was gardening in Charleston when I was nine years old!” he smiles.
“As a child, I’d spot flowers like peonies, dark green tulips and unique species of daffodils growing in garden dumps and pick them out and plant them.”
It was Trevor’s headmaster Sydney Dyer who suggested he go for an interview at Dundee Botanic Garden, aged 15.
“He knew I was keen on gardening and that I’d helped build things like dykes, ponds and an aviary at the old Camperdown Wildlife Centre,” he recalls.
“I soon started as an apprentice, putting in ponds, digging out waterways, fencing off the railway banks to keep out rabbits, building an arch, well and waterfalls and creating a hill and planting redwoods,” he says.
Evolving
The garden has evolved over the decades, with some of it being “wilded”.
“That’s the new way of thinking,” says Trevor. “If trees fall or die, they’re left, where possible, to offer habitat for wildife and insects.”
One of the strangest things Trevor has had to do, he says, is to fell trees he planted 50 years ago. “The redwoods were huge – I’d put them in five decades ago, so it was unusual to be felling them.”
While sad to retire, Trevor reckons he’ll still be a regular visitor to the garden, and no doubt called upon often to share his vast knowledge.
“It’s an amazing legacy – to be able to say I helped built the Botanic Garden,” he adds.
Kevin Frediani, current curator of the garden, says Trevor’s legacy is not only witnessed through the garden becoming a shared place with value throughout the Dundee community, but also through the many young garden staff and students with whom he has shared his skills and knowledge.
He adds: “His work connects the garden’s origins to the present, and is forever embodied in the ‘spirit of place’ that means our students, staff and visitors can enjoy a world-class Botanic Garden in the city of Dundee.”
- For more information on Branklyn Garden see nts.org.uk/visit/places/branklyn-garden
- For more on Dundee Botanic Garden see dundee.ac.uk/botanic
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