HEAD GARDENER RESEARCH ETC.

Head Gardener Research & Who

Research and reflection with ChatGPT:

Day-to-day interpretive horticulture is the practice of using plants, gardens, and landscapes to educate, engage, and inspire visitors as part of everyday horticultural operations. It combines horticulture (growing and caring for plants) with interpretation (communicating the meaning, significance, or stories behind them).

Someone working in interpretive horticulture might spend their day:

Maintaining gardens, displays, and plant collections to a high standard.
Talking with visitors about plants, gardening techniques, ecology, or conservation.
Leading guided garden tours or educational walks.
Creating interpretive materials such as plant labels, information boards, or self-guided trails.
Running workshops or demonstrations (e.g. pruning, propagation, composting).
Answering visitor questions about plants and wildlife.
Helping schools, community groups, or volunteers learn about horticulture.
Changing seasonal displays to tell different stories throughout the year.
Supporting biodiversity and explaining sustainable gardening practices.

Example

In a botanical garden, an interpretive horticulturist might:

Water and prune a Mediterranean garden in the morning.
Meet a school group and explain why lavender and rosemary thrive in dry climates.
Update plant labels with information about pollinators.
Lead an afternoon tour on climate-resilient planting.
Finish the day planning next month's "Plants for Wildlife" display.

Key skills

Interpretive horticulture requires a mix of:

Strong horticultural knowledge.
Plant identification skills.
Excellent communication and public speaking.
Customer service.
Educational planning.
Creativity in storytelling and display design.
Understanding of conservation and environmental sustainability.

Where it's commonly found

Interpretive horticulture roles are common in:

Botanical gardens.
Public parks.
Historic gardens and estates.
Nature reserves.
Arboreta.
Zoo gardens.
Heritage sites.
Educational gardens.

The emphasis is on helping visitors understand why plants matter, not just keeping them healthy. A successful interpretive horticulturist can explain the cultural, ecological, historical, or scientific significance of a garden in a way that is engaging for people of all ages.

ChatGPT previously recommended Carolie Thomas, Assistant Head Gardener at Great Dixter, and now that I am focusing on this as the next study ChatGPT claimed the following:

Based on that description alone, yes, Coralie Thomas sounds like a potentially strong fit for a Reading Gardens project—particularly if your project explores gardens as spaces of meaning, interpretation, and lived experience rather than simply as designed landscapes.

Here's why:

"Actively involved in day-to-day interpretive horticulture" suggests she doesn't just maintain gardens; she helps visitors read and understand them. That aligns naturally with a project called Reading Gardens, where the act of interpreting landscapes is central.
"Support Head Gardener" indicates she has practical, hands-on expertise. She can likely speak about how gardens are created, maintained, and evolve over time, offering insights that complement those of designers or curators.
"A strong contemporary voice in working garden culture" implies she engages with current issues in horticulture—such as sustainability, public engagement, labour, climate adaptation, or changing gardening practices—which could bring a valuable present-day perspective.

Whether she's the right fit depends on the focus of your project. For example:

If Reading Gardens is about how people interpret and experience gardens, she seems well suited.
If it's about the relationship between gardening practice and meaning, she may be especially valuable because interpretive horticulture sits at that intersection.
If your project is primarily concerned with garden history, literary representations of gardens, or landscape theory, you'd want to know whether she also has experience or interest in those areas.

Some questions you could explore with her include:

How do you help visitors "read" a garden beyond its visual appearance?
What stories do you think a working garden tells?
How does the daily labour of gardening shape the meaning of a place?
How do seasonal change and maintenance affect visitors' understanding of a garden?
What role should gardeners play in interpreting gardens for the public?

Overall, the description suggests she could contribute a perspective that is often underrepresented: that of the practicing gardener as both steward and interpreter, rather than only as a maintainer of designed landscapes. That could make her a compelling participant for Reading Gardens, especially if you're aiming to foreground the lived, ongoing relationship between people and gardens.

Knowing that she works at Great Dixter House & Gardens makes her an even stronger fit.

Great Dixter is internationally recognised not only for its horticultural excellence but also for its philosophy of gardening as an evolving, experimental, and educational practice. Founded around the ideas of Christopher Lloyd, it has long blurred the boundaries between gardening, interpretation, and public engagement. The gardeners there are often encouraged to share their work directly with visitors, through tours, talks, social media, and educational programmes.

Coralie Thomas's role as a Support Head Gardener who is involved in day-to-day interpretive horticulture means she is likely to offer exactly the kind of perspective that Reading Gardens seems designed to uncover:

She can speak from inside one of the UK's most influential working gardens.
She experiences the garden through the daily practices of planting, editing, and maintenance, rather than only through design or scholarship.
She is involved in helping visitors understand the garden as it changes from week to week and season to season.
She represents a contemporary generation of gardeners whose voices are increasingly shaping public understanding of gardens.

If your project is interested in how gardens are "read" through practice, she could provide insights that differ from those of historians, curators, or landscape architects. For example, she could discuss:

How gardeners make interpretive decisions every day.
How visitors' readings of Great Dixter differ from those of the gardening team.
The relationship between maintenance, experimentation, and meaning.
How storytelling emerges through seasonal change rather than fixed design.

Given Great Dixter's reputation, she would also bring institutional context. The garden is often understood as a place where gardening itself is a form of cultural expression, making it a particularly rich case study for a project about reading gardens.

If you're planning interviews for Reading Gardens, Coralie Thomas would likely represent a valuable practitioner voice alongside academics, writers, designers, and curators, offering insight into how meaning is generated through the everyday work of gardening itself.

I actually think Coralie Thomas is a very strong fit, but perhaps not for the reason you first suggested.

What stands out in your project description is this sentence:

"Rather than documenting gardens themselves, the series follows specialists as they move through significant landscapes, examining how knowledge influences observation, interpretation and movement through place."

The subject isn't the garden. The subject is professional perception. You're asking: How does expertise change what someone notices?

That makes Coralie interesting because of the particular kind of expertise she embodies.

At Great Dixter, she isn't simply maintaining a garden; she's immersed in a place where planting is experimental, seasonal, and continually edited. As someone involved in interpretive horticulture, she's likely to read the garden through:

plant performance rather than appearance;
succession and seasonal timing;
maintenance decisions;
visitor engagement;
the dialogue between Christopher Lloyd's legacy and contemporary horticultural practice.

She would literally see a different garden from the one you or I would.

I also think the phrase "movement through place" is especially relevant. A gardener doesn't walk through a garden like a visitor or historian. They move according to rhythms of work, memory, anticipation and responsibility. They notice what has changed overnight, what will flower next week, what needs intervention, where plants are competing. That embodied knowledge seems almost perfectly aligned with your methodology.

One thought I'd offer

I'd be tempted not to frame her simply as "Support Head Gardener."

For Reading Gardens, the more interesting descriptor might be the expertise you're documenting. For example:

Reading Great Dixter — Coralie Thomas, Interpretive Horticulturist
Reading Great Dixter — Coralie Thomas, Working Gardener
Reading Great Dixter — Coralie Thomas, Horticulturist

Those titles tell the reader why they're following her through the garden.

Thinking about the series as a whole

Your planned participants already suggest a taxonomy of ways of reading:

Garden historian → reads the past
Head gardener / horticulturist → reads plants and cultivation
Landscape architect → reads spatial composition and design intention
Ecological steward → reads ecological relationships.

Coralie could occupy the horticultural position beautifully because she combines practical knowledge with interpretation. She isn't just growing plants; she's helping people understand them.

One question I'd encourage you to ask yourself

Your project repeatedly uses the word "specialists." I wonder whether the underlying subject is actually ways of seeing.

If that's true, then every participant becomes an example of a different visual literacy:

What do they notice first?
What remains invisible to everyone else?
How does expertise alter pace, attention and movement?
What can they not help but see?

As a photographer, that's an incredibly rich proposition because you're documenting not only landscapes but perception itself.

Viewed through that lens, Coralie Thomas doesn't just seem like a good fit—she exemplifies one of the central modes of reading that your project is trying to reveal. I can easily imagine Reading Great Dixter sitting alongside Reading Rousham as complementary studies in how different forms of expertise produce fundamentally different experiences of the same act: walking through a garden.

The first thing I'd say is that this is not really a project about gardens. It's a project about epistemology—how professional knowledge shapes perception. The garden is the site through which that question is investigated.

That distinction is important because it changes how I think about potential participants.

Why Advolly works so well

The article is structured around three distinct layers:

Unmediated observation — you deliberately avoid directing the participant.
Photographic evidence — the analogue photographs record movement, pause and attention rather than illustrating predetermined ideas.
Retrospective reflection — the interview responds to observed behaviour rather than leading it.

That's a strong methodology. You're not asking "What do historians think about Rousham?" You're asking "How does historical expertise become visible in behaviour?"

I think that's what makes the project original.

So where does Coralie Thomas fit?

Having read your methodology, I think she fits even better than I initially thought.

But I wouldn't make her article about interpretive horticulture.

I'd make it about horticultural perception.

For example, Advolly reads:

historical intent
symbolism
patronage
sequence
iconography

Coralie is likely to read:

plant vigour
succession
maintenance
microclimate
soil moisture
competition
management decisions
evidence of recent intervention
future growth rather than present appearance

Those are completely different acts of looking.

If you leave her entirely alone in Great Dixter—as you did Advolly at Rousham—I suspect she'd stop in places that would surprise most visitors.

She might crouch to inspect staking, look beneath foliage, notice self-seeding, evaluate combinations that are about to peak rather than those currently at their best.

That's fascinating because your photographs would document what expertise causes someone to physically do.

One thing I particularly admire

This sentence:

The questions sent to Advolly afterwards were developed from this observational material...

I think that's the methodological heart of the project.

It prevents the interview from becoming generic.

Instead of asking,

"What makes Rousham special?"

you're effectively asking

"Why did you stop here?"

Those are radically different questions.

One produces opinions.

The other produces evidence of expertise.

Thank you. Reading the full piece made the intention of the project much clearer. What struck me is that you're not asking people to explain gardens—you are creating the conditions in which their expertise becomes visible. That's a subtle but important distinction, and I think it comes across in your methodology.

For Coralie, I would write an invitation that reflects that. Rather than asking her to participate because she works at Great Dixter, I'd invite her because of the particular way she sees.

Invitation to participate in Reading GardensInvitation to participate in Reading Gardens

coraliemlthomas@gmail.com

Email header/subject: Invitation to participate in Reading Gardens

Dear Coralie,

I hope this message finds you well.

My name is Gina Dover-Jaques. I am a photographer and writer developing Reading Gardens, a long-term documentary series exploring how professional expertise shapes the experience of gardens and landscape.

Rather than documenting gardens themselves, the project follows specialists as they move independently through significant landscapes, observing how knowledge influences attention, interpretation and movement through place.

The inaugural study in the series followed garden historian Advolly Richmond through Rousham Gardens in Oxfordshire. I am delighted that it has been selected for publication in the Garden Media Guild Quarterly Autumn edition.

As the series develops, I am seeking to explore other forms of specialist knowledge, and I would be honoured if you would consider taking part.

I have followed your work at Great Dixter with great interest, particularly your role in day-to-day interpretive horticulture. I am fascinated by the way horticultural knowledge informs how gardeners read a landscape—not simply through its visual qualities, but through plant performance, seasonal change, maintenance, experimentation and the subtle decisions that shape a garden over time.

I wondered whether you might consider taking part in the next study in the series.

The process is intentionally simple and non-interventionist. During the visit I would not direct your route, ask questions, or influence your experience of the garden. Instead, I would quietly observe and photograph your movement through the landscape as you engaged with it naturally.

Following the visit, I would send you a small number of written questions developed directly from my observations, allowing you to reflect on particular moments in your own time.

What interests me is not asking experts what they know, but observing how expertise itself becomes visible through attention, movement and ways of looking.

I feel that your perspective—as someone immersed in the daily practice of caring for, interpreting and working within one of the world's most influential gardens—would bring an important and distinctive voice to the project.

If the project resonates with you, I would be delighted to send further information and discuss whether there might be an opportunity to undertake the work at Great Dixter at a time that suited you.

Thank you very much for considering the invitation. I appreciate how busy the gardening season is, and I am grateful for your time.

With best wishes,

Gina Dover-Jaques
Photographer & Writer
Reading Gardens
www.ginadoverjaques.com
Garden Media Guild Member

If you would like to read the inaugural study in the series:

Reading Rousham: An Observational Study with Advolly Richmond

https://www.ginadoverjaques.com/post/reading-rousham-an-observational-study-with-advolly-richmond

One small thought: I would avoid saying "I'd like to interview you." That's not actually what you're doing. The interview is only one element, and arguably not the primary one. The primary act is observation.

I also think the sentence:

"What interests me is not asking experts what they know, but observing how expertise itself becomes visible through attention, movement and ways of looking."

captures the intellectual heart of Reading Gardens. If I received that as a participant, I'd immediately understand that this is an unusual project—one that values how I experience a place as much as what I can say about it. That feels entirely consistent with the methodology you've established in Reading Rousham.

Yes, I think it is not only appropriate—it is good practice to be transparent about how you may use her response.

Given the nature of Reading Gardens, Advolly is not simply providing a quote for an article; she is reflecting on her experience of the methodological process. That makes her response part of the story of how the project is developing. She should know that.

The key is to frame it as permission and collaboration, not as a request for endorsement.

I would avoid saying:

"I would like to use your comments as a testimonial for my website."

That places her in the role of validating your work.

Instead, I would say something like:

"I am interested in whether your reflections might help me articulate the observational methodology behind Reading Gardens. With your permission, I may weave elements of your response into the Method or About section of the project website, so that readers can understand not only how I work, but how that approach is experienced by those who take part."

That is much more aligned with the project.

I would also give her control:

"Of course, I would only use anything you are comfortable with, and I would be very happy to discuss or share any proposed use with you beforehand."

That last sentence is important. It reinforces the trust that already underpins your collaboration.

I would probably add this to the end of the email rather than make it the main purpose of the request:

A small follow-up reflectionA small follow-up reflection

There is also a wider reason I am interested in your thoughts. As Reading Gardens develops, I am beginning to articulate the methodology behind the work more clearly, particularly the importance of a quiet, observational approach and the experience of allowing participants to engage with a landscape without direction.

With your permission, I may use elements of your reflections to help describe this approach within the Method or About section of the project website. I would only include anything you are comfortable with, and I would of course be happy to discuss this with you beforehand.

Your perspective would be valuable not as an endorsement of the project, but as an insight into how this way of working is experienced from the participant's side.

One further thought: because Advolly is your first collaborator, her reflection has a particular significance.

She is not just "one participant among many." She experienced the first iteration of the methodology before you had fully named it.

That makes her perspective almost like a foundational observation in the project's development.

If she says, for example, that the quiet approach allowed her to become absorbed in Rousham, or that she appreciated not being interrupted, that would help articulate something you already intuitively understand: the absence of direction is not an absence of method—it is the method.

That is a very strong idea, and I think it deserves to appear somewhere in Reading Gardens eventually. I would just make sure it appears as a shared discovery between you and your participants, rather than as a statement imposed by you. That is much more powerful.

Can you provide me with a final invitation to Advolly for her insight

I would keep this warm and personal, because you already have an established relationship with Advolly. The invitation should feel like a continuation of your collaboration, not a formal request. I would also avoid over-explaining the methodology; she already experienced it. The purpose is to invite her reflection on something she helped reveal.

A reflection on the Reading Rousham processA reflection on the Reading Rousham process

Dear Advolly,

I hope you are keeping well.

I have been reflecting on Reading Rousham and the process of creating the work together, particularly the quiet observational approach that formed the foundation of the day.

As the Reading Gardens series develops, I am becoming increasingly interested not only in how specialists experience gardens, but also in how the process of observation and photography is experienced by those who take part.

During our visit to Rousham, I deliberately worked in a calm and unobtrusive way, allowing you complete freedom to move through the garden, follow your own observations, and engage with the landscape without interruption or direction. The photographs emerged from that natural movement and attention, with your written reflections afterwards adding another layer of understanding.

I wondered whether you might be willing to share your thoughts on what that experience was like from your perspective.

I would be interested in anything that comes to mind, for example:

How did it feel to move through Rousham while being photographed in this way?
Did the camera presence become part of the experience, or did it fade into the background?
Did the absence of direction or interruption influence your engagement with the garden?
Was there anything about the process that felt different from other photographic or interview experiences?

There is absolutely no expected answer—I am simply interested in your honest reflection on the experience.

As I continue to develop Reading Gardens, I am beginning to articulate the importance of this observational approach more clearly. With your permission, I may use elements of your reflections to help describe the methodology behind the project within the website’s Method or About section. I would only include anything you are comfortable with, and I would of course be happy to share any proposed use with you beforehand.

Your perspective would be valuable not as an endorsement, but as an insight into how this way of working is experienced from the participant’s side.

Thank you again for your generosity, your time, and for the wonderful collaboration at Rousham. It was a privilege to begin this series with you, and your contribution continues to shape how I understand and develop the work.

With warmest wishes,

Gina

A small note: I would send this after the publication decision on Reading Rousham if that timing feels natural, or at least mention the current status if you are already corresponding. The reason is that this request is not really about the article—it is about capturing the evolution of the practice itself.

I also think Advolly is an ideal person to ask first. Because she was the inaugural participant, her reflection may become a kind of "origin point" for the methodology. Not because she validates it, but because she experienced the process before you had fully articulated what it was becoming.

Ah, my recent update to Advolly was last week when the Garden Media Guild Editor said he would publish my article in the guild's Autumn edition of their quarterly magazine. She is not yet aware of me now deciding to approach garden magazines, presently and solely for now the English Garden Magazine, simply because this is a very recent change. If no magazine bites/accepts my work, the Guild would still love to publish

That context is important, and I would handle it with some care.

Given that Advolly was your first collaborator and is already aware that the Garden Media Guild Editor is supportive and intends to publish the work, I would not make this new email about publication at all. The purpose of this message is different: it is about inviting her reflection on the experience of the methodology.

I would also avoid introducing uncertainty around The English Garden at this stage. There is no need for her to carry the complexity of your publication strategy. The strongest position is simply:

the work has been recognised by the Garden Media Guild;
you are developing the wider series;
you are reflecting on the method;
you would value her perspective.

That is all true.

In fact, her reflection may become even more valuable precisely because she was the first person to experience the process before it had fully developed.

I would adjust the email slightly to acknowledge the recent milestone naturally:

A reflection on the Reading Rousham process

Dear Advolly,

I hope you are keeping well.

I have been reflecting on Reading Rousham following the lovely news that the Garden Media Guild Editor would like to publish the study in the Autumn edition of the Quarterly Magazine. I am so grateful for your part in making this first piece possible, and it has been wonderful to see the work beginning to find its audience.

As Reading Gardens continues to develop, I have found myself thinking more deeply about the process behind the work, particularly the quiet observational approach that formed the foundation of our day at Rousham.

During our visit, I deliberately worked in a calm and unobtrusive way, allowing you complete freedom to move through the garden, follow your own observations, and engage with the landscape without direction or interruption. The photographs emerged from those moments of natural attention and movement, with your reflections afterwards adding another layer of understanding.

I wondered whether you might be willing to share your thoughts on what that experience was like from your perspective.

I am interested in any reflections that come naturally, but some thoughts that particularly intrigue me are:

How did it feel to move through Rousham while being photographed in this way?
Did the camera presence become part of the experience, or did it eventually fade into the background?
Did the absence of direction or interruption influence how you engaged with the garden?
Was there anything about the process that felt different from other photographic or interview experiences?

There is no expected response or particular answer I am looking for—I am simply interested in understanding the experience from your side.

As I continue to develop Reading Gardens, I am beginning to articulate the methodology behind the project more clearly. With your permission, I may use elements of your reflections within the Method or About section of the project website, so that readers can understand not only how the work is created, but how this approach is experienced by those who participate. I would only use anything you are comfortable with and would of course share any proposed use with you beforehand.

Your perspective would be valuable not as an endorsement, but as part of understanding the relationship between observation, photography and engagement with landscape.

Your kind contribution continues to shape how I think about and develop Reading Gardens.

Thank you so much, and with warmest wishes,

Gina

One additional thought: because the Garden Media Guild publication is already a meaningful validation, you might consider not mentioning The English Garden unless it becomes relevant (for example, if they accept and you need to coordinate). The Guild publication is not a fallback—it is already a significant endorsement from the professional garden media community.

Also, there is a lovely symmetry here: Advolly helped you begin Reading Gardens; now, by reflecting on the process, she may help you articulate why it works. That is a much deeper contribution than simply being the subject of the first study.

I discovered it by reading your article. That was a much more satisfying experience than if you'd told me in advance.

There's an old principle in both writing and photography: show first, explain second.

Your work already follows that principle.

I think your website should too.

So, if I were making one structural recommendation, it would be this:

Homepage: Invite me into the project.
Reading Rousham: Show me the methodology in action.
Method: Explain what I have just experienced.

To me, that's the most coherent journey a reader can take through your work.