If you were looking to recruit for the role of executive director of gardens at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, how about someone who has been a head gardener and historic estate manager, launched a gardening magazine, written a best-selling book and been a garden and parks advisor for the National Trust?
Raoul Curtis-Machin, who took over the role in June 2025, has done all these and more, and even spent four years in charge of a battlefield – at Culloden. And that’s not even to mention his most recent post as director of horticulture and visitor experience at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. “In a sense, I feel very privileged that every job I have ever done has given me something for this one,” he says.
You probably wouldn’t build a botanic garden on this site if you had the chance to start again. “The soil is thin and very free-draining, and more than 50 per cent of the trees are unlikely to be here in 100 years’ time
With a calendar of back-to-back meetings, he covers a lot of ground, both physically and metaphorically, forever criss-crossing Kew Gardens or dashing over to Kew’s wild botanic garden Wakehurst in Sussex. But there are compensations. “I learn new plants along the way because there’s always something flowering that I don’t recognise, and I get to see the smiles on visitors’ faces firsthand. My job often requires me to focus on the negatives and the challenges, but ultimately, we are in the good-time business. People come to Kew for a great day out and a connection with nature, and that’s a thrill.”
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His own first visit to Kew was as a child. Growing up in Scotland, he came with his mother, a botanist, and his father, a history professor at Dundee University. “I have a mixture of horticulture and heritage running through my veins,” he says. By the age of ten, he was hooked on alpine plants, winning prizes for his auriculas at Scottish Rock Garden Club shows. He did a degree in landscape management, and then, running his own landscaping business in London in the 1990s, he gained glamorous commissions from the likes of Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and celebrity chef Anton Mosimann.
With a persuasive air of assurance and positivity, as well as a wry sense of humour, Raoul’s strength lies in a combination of diplomatic charm and sound financial acumen. His remit at Kew is broad. As well as Kew Gardens, where visitor numbers have risen from 1.5 million to 2.3 million a year in the past 15 years, it encompasses horticulture, learning and participation – areas in which he is well versed and has many new avenues to explore.
We don’t have the luxury of doing 100 per cent conservation work; we have to think of visitor engagement, events and all the other things that public gardens must do to boost income
Regarding education, he believes that horticulture deserves more respect and should be taught in schools as a stand-alone subject. He thinks that the Kew Diploma – although still the world-leading qualification for conservation horticulture – now needs modernising and that the introduction of an internet-based forum could help Kew’s expertise have far greater reach.
One of Kew’s stated main aims is ‘to ensure the excellent development and curation of its collections for global benefit’ but, as Raoul says: “We can’t stand still. Our government funding is set to reduce. We don’t have the luxury of doing 100 per cent conservation work; we have to think of visitor engagement, events and all the other things that public gardens must do to boost income.” He believes that horticulture delivers many environmental and social benefits but is clear that, in order to secure funding, it’s crucial to apply science to measure those benefits and prove that they have a monetary value to society.
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As well as severe budget cuts, Kew also faces the very real challenges of climate change. “You probably wouldn’t build a botanic garden on this site if you had the chance to start again,” he says. “The soil is thin and very free-draining, and more than 50 per cent of the trees are unlikely to be here in 100 years’ time. Like the rest of London, Kew will end up being semi-arid. We’re now beginning to source trees and plants from the Caucasus, from Georgia and parts of Romania, even as far as Iraq.”
We are blown away by the support we have received – we have almost reached the halfway point in philanthropic fundraising and public fundraising will now follow.
He’s motivated by the desire to encourage people to connect with plants and get behind Kew’s mission to rescue and conserve them. High on his current agenda is the complete renovation, over five years, of Kew’s iconic, Grade I-listed Palm House and Waterlily House, to transform them into the world’s first net-zero buildings of their kind, costing upwards of £66 million. “We are blown away by the support we have received – we have almost reached the halfway point in philanthropic fundraising and public fundraising will now follow.”
When not at work, Raoul gets back to Scotland regularly, not least because he is writing another book to follow up on his best-seller Garden Plants for Scotland, this one provisionally called The Great Gardens of Scotland. Also, as well as the Georgian home he rents in Kew Gardens, Raoul has a place in the Highlands, which he and his wife Gyll are renovating with their son Noah. “With our own garden, some semi-ancient woodland and a newly planted heritage apple orchard to play with, it’s my long-term delight,” he says. “My ambition is to produce a drinkable glass of Highland cider brandy before I’m 60.”
