| Tom Hart Dyke | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 12, 1976 |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Horticulturist, author |
Thomas Guy Hart Dyke (born April 12,1976) is an English horticulturist and plant hunter. He is the son and heir of Guy and Sarah Hart Dyke at the family seat of Lullingstone Castle, Eynsford, Kent.[1] He is the designer of the World Garden of Plants located on the property. The World Garden contains over 10,000 species of plants, many collected by Hart Dyke from their native environments.
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Hart Dyke attended a state primary school in Eynsford and then transferred to St. Michael's School in Otford. He attended Stanbridge Earls in Hampshire until age seventeen and then entered Sparsholt College Hampshire, near Winchester, where he studied tree surgery and forestry.[1]
In an interview in 2006, Hart Dyke credits his grandmother (Gran) as having first interested him in plants at age three.[1]
Tom Hart Dyke is first cousin of the British comedian Miranda Hart.
Hart Dyke follows a tradition of Victorian and Edwardian British plant hunters, such as Francis Masson, who risked life and limb to acquire rare species of plant. In 2000, Hart Dyke was kidnapped by suspected FARC guerillas in the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia while hunting for rare orchids, a plant for which he has a particular passion. He and his travel companion, Paul Winder, were held captive for nine months and threatened with death. He kept himself going by creating a design for a garden containing plants collected on his trips, laid out in the shape of a world map according to their continent of origin.[2] Tom wrote about his experiences in Colombia in the book, The Cloud Garden.
On his return home, Hart Dyke put his design into practice within the walls of the family's Victorian herb garden. The story of the creation of The World Garden of Plants was the subject of a BBC2 series, "Save Lullingstone Castle" (KEO Films). This was followed by a second series, "Return To Lullingstone Castle". In May 2006, Hart Dyke managed to get an Australian Eucalyptus caesia plant (common name Silver Princess) to flower for the first time in the UK.[3] He was inspired by orchids at his first school, St. Michaels, Otford, Kent.
Hart Dyke featured in the PBS Nova program in 2002, Orchid Hunter that documented his return to hunting rare orchids in dangerous terrain in another politically unstable area in Irian Jaya in the rainforests of Western New Guinea.[4]