Thomas Guy "Tom" Hart Dyke (born 12 April 1976) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

horticulturist Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and plant hunter from the Hart Dyke family. He is the son and heir of Guy and Sarah Hart Dyke at the

family seat A family seat or sometimes just called seat is the principal residence of the landed gentry and aristocracy. The residence usually denotes the social, economic, political, or historic connection of the family within a given area. Some families to ...

Lullingstone Castle Lullingstone Castle is a historic manor house, set in an estate in the village of Lullingstone and the civil parish of Eynsford in the English county of Kent. It has been inhabited by members of the Hart Dyke family for twenty generations inclu ...

Eynsford Eynsford ( or ) is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located south east of Swanley, south of Dartford. The village including its farmland and woods occupies the northern half of the triangle formed b ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. He is the designer of the World Garden of Plants located on the property. The World Garden contains approximately 8,000 species of plants, many collected by Hart Dyke from their native environments. He presented an episode of ''

Great British Garden Revival ''Great British Garden Revival'' is a British documentary television series that was first broadcast on BBC Two on 9 December 2013. The series was presented by Monty Don, Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Rachel De Thame, James Wong, Tom Hart Dyke, Chr ...

'' in 2013. Tom Hart Dyke is a patron of the charity the

British Cactus & Succulent Society The British Cactus & Succulent Society (BCSS) was founded in 1983 by the coalition of The National Cactus and Succulent Society (founded 23 August 1945 as The Yorkshire Cactus Society) and The Cactus and Succulent Society of Great Britain (offici ...

Early life

Hart Dyke attended Anthony Roper County Primary School in

and then transferred to St Michael's School in

Otford Otford is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It lies on the River Darent, north of Sevenoaks. Otford's four churches are the Anglican Church of St Bartholomew in the village centre, the Otford Methodist Churc ...

. He attended

Stanbridge Earls Stanbridge Earls School was a coeducational independent special school located near Romsey, Hampshire, England. Students ranged in age from 10–19. The school catered for both boarding and day pupils. The school specialized in teaching and help ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

until age seventeen and then entered

Sparsholt College Hampshire Sparsholt College is a Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) college located at Sparsholt near Winchester, with a secondary campus in Andover, both in Hampshire in the south of England. The college provides courses from sixth form to ...

, near

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

, where he studied

tree surgery Arboriculture () is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their environmen ...

and

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...

. In an interview in 2006, Hart Dyke credits his grandmother as having first interested him in plants, at age three. Tom Hart Dyke is first cousin of the English comedian

Miranda Hart Miranda Katherine Hart Dyke (born 14 December 1972) is an English actress and writer. Following drama training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Hart began writing material for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and making appearances in va ...

and nephew of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

David Hart Dyke Captain David Hart Dyke (born 3 October 1938) is a retired Royal Navy officer, former aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II, and former commanding officer of , which was sunk during the Falklands War. Background and education Hart Dyke, a member ...

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

LVO The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...

RN,

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

of when it was sunk by the Argentinians in the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Kidnapping

Hart Dyke follows a tradition of Victorian and

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

British plant hunters, such as

Francis Masson Francis Masson (August 1741 – 23 December 1805) was a Scotland, Scottish botanist and gardener, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kew Gardens’ first Botanical expedition, plant hunter. Life Masson was born in Aberdeen. In the 1760s, he ...

, who undertook risks to acquire rare species of plant. In 2000, Hart Dyke was kidnapped by suspected

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflic ...

guerrillas in the

Darién Gap The Darién Gap (, , es, Tapón del Darién , ) is a geographic region between the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama's Darién Province and the norther ...

between

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

while hunting for rare

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

s, 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 occupied himself 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. Tom wrote about his experiences in Colombia in his book, ''The Cloud Garden''. The story of his kidnapping ordeal was dramatised in the

Sky1 Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non-terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

documentary series ''My Holiday Hostage Hell''.

World Garden of Plants

On his return home, Hart Dyke put his design into practice in the family's Victorian

herb garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

. The story of the creation of The World Garden of Plants was the subject of a

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

6-episode series, "Save Lullingstone Castle" (KEO Films) in 2006. This was followed by a second 6-episode series, "Return To Lullingstone Castle" on BBC2 in 2007. In May 2006, Hart Dyke brought an Australian '' Eucalyptus caesia'' plant, common name Silver Princess, to flower for the first time in the UK. He was inspired by orchids at his first school, St Michaels,

Otford, Kent Otford is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It lies on the River Darent, north of Sevenoaks. Otford's four churches are the Anglican Church of St Bartholomew in the village centre, the Otford Methodist Churc ...

. The garden features include the Hot & Spikey house which contains over 1,000 varieties of cacti, succulents & bromeliads from all over the world. Hart Dyke is a patron of the charity the British Cactus & Succulent Society. Hart Dyke was featured in the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

programme in 2002, ''Orchid Hunter'' that documented his return to hunting rare orchids in dangerous terrain in another politically unstable area in

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

in the

rainforests Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

of Western

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

* *

External links

Lullingstone Castle and the World Garden of Plants

Tom Hart Dyke's personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart Dyke, Tom 1976 births 2000s missing person cases English gardeners English horticulturists Formerly missing people Kidnapped English people Living people Missing person cases in North America People educated at Stanbridge Earls School People from Lullingstone