Rob Brett has one of the leading jobs in horticulture and he is revelling in it. As curator of RHS Garden Wisley – appointed in March 2025 – he is responsible for a 240-acre site that houses one of the largest cultivated plant collections in the world, with a mind-boggling 24,000 taxa (different plant species or cultivars) to look after and a team of 120 horticultural staff, students and apprentices, plus 145 volunteers. Isn’t he daunted?
If he is, he doesn’t show it. Having given himself a year to observe the rhythms of the garden, he has already identified four key objectives – more on those later – and describes himself as “chomping at the bit, wanting to get on with it all”.
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"This is the most exciting time of my career,” he says, “and Wisley is giving me that.” At 58, he feels he has another ten years to make his mark, although ‘fame’ is emphatically not what he is after. “It’s about being incredibly excited about what you do and getting other people to come on that journey with you. If there’s one legacy I would hope to leave, it would be that my enthusiasm is infectious.”
Rob has held senior posts at several of the country’s leading horticultural institutions, from the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew and Cambridge University Botanic Garden to the Eden Project and latterly as curator at RHS Hyde Hall, and it is the many threads of his varied career, as well as his extensive professional qualifications, that have brought him to this point. But as a lad he never envisaged a future in horticulture.
It’s about being incredibly excited about what you do and getting other people to come on that journey with you
Instead, he recalls long boring Sundays stuck at home helping his dad grow vegetables while all his mates were out having fun. He concedes, however, that something must have rubbed off, because by the time he left school he was adamant that he wanted to work outside rather than be stuck in an office. Farming came first, with a spell on a pick-your-own farm, which piqued his interest sufficiently to enrol for a course in commercial horticulture in north Wales. Work in a garden centre and in landscaping came next, where he discovered a thirst for knowledge. “The great thing about horticulturists is that they are givers. If you ask questions, you’ll always get answers,” he says.
What changed his world was taking the three-year Kew Diploma in Horticulture. “I became fascinated with orchids and ended up staying on as orchid specialist after my diploma. I also honed in on the community and educational aspects of horticulture, so that led me to do a master’s degree in environment and development education. Botanic gardens have a huge opportunity to influence and educate and I wanted to change the world.”
A highlight in Rob’s career came during his next post as glasshouse supervisor at Cambridge University Botanic Garden, when he and his team managed to coax the mighty Amorphophallus titanum (titan arum) into flower in 2004 – only the third botanic garden in the UK to manage it. A photograph of it sits on his desk. As the inflorescence is only perfect for one night, it was quite an event that had visitors, including kids in pyjamas, queueing round the block to see it and experience its pungent corpse-like odour. “That experience will always live with me. The pulling power of plants can be absolutely amazing.”
I think that museums and zoos are way ahead of us horticulturists in the way they engage with visitors
That effect is something he wants to foster at RHS Garden Wisley. “Everyone is a gardener and our aim is to encourage, nurture and inspire continuing gardening. I think that museums and zoos are way ahead of us horticulturists in the way they engage with visitors,” he says. “It’s not all about interpretation boards – although they have their place. I’d like us to introduce elements of drama and excitement with performance and art to get our message across. I was temperate curator at the Eden Project for three years after Cambridge, and we had people called ‘pollinators’ there who went round communicating with the public, taking ideas from one person to another, and promoting understanding. The Eden Project led the way in how we should be looking at interpretation.”
The four key objectives Rob is prioritising now are: climate change; water resilience; addressing the skills gap, particularly in propagation; and revisiting the masterplan for Wisley’s future. He is passionate about education – both for the public and within the team, where he welcomes new ideas from young team members and is never afraid to push boundaries in the way things are done.
Most of the recent ‘big ticket’ landscape projects, such as the Oudolf garden and RHS Hilltop, Home of Gardening Science, had already been completed under the leadership of previous curators, including Matthew Pottage, who left in June 2024. While Rob doesn’t foresee great changes to the historic landscape, he predicts changes to the collections, in order to ensure that they are climate resilient. Telling the story and taking everyone – staff, volunteers and visitors alike – on that journey is something he relishes.
Find out more about RHS Garden Wisley and the other four RHS gardens at rhs.org.uk
