"I don’t regret not studying law, although the salary prospects were attractive,” says Ann Steele, reflecting on her past career choices. However, the head of gardens and designed landscapes at the National Trust for Scotland feels that despite her early years at the sharp end of horticulture’s notoriously low pay scales, she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“I spent a lot of time in the outdoors with my mother as a child,” she says. “And while my heart was firmly in the West Highlands of Scotland, subconsciously I also learned to appreciate seasonal changes in the suburbs of Inverness where we lived. Even as a child, I noticed that people enjoy spending time in urban environments with plant diversity and well-designed green spaces. That awareness still informs my work at the Trust every single day. It’s a brilliant job for a curious person like me.”
In 1986, while preparing to take up a place to read law at Edinburgh University, Ann realised that an extended period of study in a city wasn’t for her. So, aged 19, she put an ad in a horticulture magazine asking for a year’s work experience. “I got around 20 amazing offers,” she says. But she ended up choosing the National Trust for Scotland garden Inverewe in northwest Scotland, without, she says, having any idea how special a garden it was. Her spell at Inverewe was followed by college, then work experience at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and a job in a nursery. But Ann was desperate to get back to the Trust, and when in 1992 she joined Arduaine Garden near Oban as assistant head gardener, it felt like coming home.
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It’s a home she’s never left, steadily climbing the Trust’s career ladder, until ten years ago she took on her current role leading the charity’s 135-strong horticultural workforce, across 38 gardens. Along the way she has used her position to encourage other female gardeners. “I was fortunate not to face gender discrimination in my career, and I want to help other women rise to the top, too. But wanting a family, or having to move to where the jobs are, can be real barriers, and it’s frustrating when I can’t do more to help.”
Where Ann has succeeded, however, is bringing in new green-fingered recruits. She instigated the Trust’s modern apprenticeships pilot scheme in 2018, giving 16 young people the chance to make a career out of gardening. “Five of them are still working at the Trust eight years later, which I think is pretty fantastic,” she says. She would love the charity to provide a full suite of training opportunities in future.
There are always tantalising opportunities just out of reach: a garden space that needs developing, or a plant collection that needs attention. And that makes my job fascinating and challenging in equal measure
Ann is a passionate advocate for all things plant-related and sits on the boards or committees of a number of industry-wide organisations, including PlantNetwork, while the Trust is a member partner of the Future of National Gardens Group, led by the RHS. “Currently, we’re focusing on green skills, climate-change resilience, and how we can improve perceptions of biodiversity value within cultivated landscapes,” she says. “The Scottish Government is currently developing its own biodiversity net gain metrics, and I’m hoping to help influence how garden spaces are measured and valued.”
In the meantime, every penny in the Trust’s gardening coffers must stretch that little bit further. “There are always tantalising opportunities just out of reach: a garden space that needs developing, or a plant collection that needs attention. And that makes my job fascinating and challenging in equal measure.”
I was fortunate not to face gender discrimination in my career, and I want to help other women rise to the top, too. But wanting a family, or having to move to where the jobs are, can be real barriers, and it’s frustrating when I can’t do more to help
A Trust garden that will soon undergo a transformation is Newhailes House & Gardens near Edinburgh, which recently received a large anonymous donation to help kickstart the project. “I’m hugely excited about our plans there,” says Ann. “We’ve been working with Harris Bugg Studio to develop a Centenary Garden for our celebrations in 2031. The design concept reflects two previous flower gardens for the site, using the evidence we have from images at the time and archaeological surveys, but giving it a modern spin.”
As always, balancing inspirational planting design with climate resilience and sound conservation principles will be a priority. “In recent years, I’ve tried to bring in more guidance around heritage impact assessments, and I’m also encouraging greater rigour in how we record change,” she says. “In future, I want people to know that we looked problems in the eye, and we understood the impact of any decisions or changes we made.”
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With such a wide remit, Ann seldom has the chance to get her hands in the soil at work – bar the odd bit of potting-on when a garden team is short-handed – but she does share an allotment with her sister, “although I have so little time to maintain it that I’m planning to turn my half into a mini orchard,” she says.
Ann will also continue to wear her Scottish Horticultural Medal with pride. It was awarded by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society in 2024, and came as a complete surprise. “I’d spent many years nominating other deserving horticulturists, so to be given the award myself was a lovely feeling,” she says. “There are only 50 medal holders at any one time, so I’m in incredible company.”
With special thanks to Cluny House Gardens in Perth and Kinross where this portrait was taken
