George Plumptre to retire as Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme
After 15 years George Plumptre EMH, will retire from his role as Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme at the end of the summer 2025.
In his time as Chief Executive, George has led the charity – the most significant charitable funder of nursing in the UK – to record levels of donations and a new profile as a supporter of nursing and health, with his unique combination of personal skills and knowledge of gardens.
George initiated the charity’s promotion of the health and wellbeing benefits of gardens and gardening and he was responsible for the charity commissioning a new report from The King’s Fund, Gardens and Health: Implications for Policy and Practise, which was published in May 2016. The charity’s Gardens and Health Programme, which has donated over £3.7 million to gardens and health related projects alone, continues to go from strength to strength as does the more recent Community Garden Grants Programme which he also introduced.
George says, “The opportunity to lead this unique charity for 15 years has been the great privilege of my working life and I have loved every minute of it. However, the National Garden Scheme will celebrate its centenary in 2027 and I feel strongly that the person leading the charity at that time must also be the person who will be leading it for the years thereafter, not someone who is about to retire. The centenary is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the charity and a new Chief Executive will maximise this. I am delighted that the Trustees have asked me to stay on in a part-time role managing some particular centenary projects that I have initiated, which I will be delighted to do until the centenary year. After that I will enjoy exploring new opportunities and challenges.”
Commenting on the news Chair of Trustees Rupert Tyler said: “George has had a transformative effect on the National Garden Scheme over the years that he has led the charity. He has embraced and inspired our wonderful volunteers and broadened the types of gardens that open for us. He has widened the range of our beneficiary charities and greatly increased the amount we can donate to them each year. His personal leadership qualities really shone out during the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic when, as well as providing constant reassurance to everyone, he masterminded our response so that despite everything we were able to give normal donations during both 2020 and 2021. His dedication to the National Garden Scheme to our beneficiary charities and to the wider horticultural world is unparalleled and we are all immensely grateful for everything he has given as our Chief Executive. I am delighted he will continue to have a part-time input up to our centenary.”
The charity, which donated a record £3.5 million in 2024, will launch its search for a new Chief Executive early in the new year.
More about George Plumptre:
In 2024 George was awarded The Royal Horticultural Society’s Elizabeth Medal of Honour (EMH), one of the Society’s two most prestigious awards. It was established in 2023 with the gracious assent of King Charles III in perpetual remembrance of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s glorious reign. The EMH enables the RHS Council to confer conspicuous honour on international horticulturists and UK non-horticulturists that have significantly impacted the advancement of the science, art or practice of horticulture for the benefit of all generations and the environment. In recognition of the duration of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, only 70 medals will be held at any one time.
George read history at Jesus College, Cambridge and has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a gardens author and journalist. He has published over ten books on gardens, including The English Country House Garden (2014) which won the Garden Media Guild award for ‘Inspirational Book of the Year’. His work as a journalist involved a spell as gardening correspondent of The Times during the 1990s and writing for many magazines, in particular Country Life to which he has contributed annually for 40 years. He has also written an acclaimed biography of Edward VII and worked for many years as a director in the art world, first at Sotheby’s and subsequently at Bonhams. He became Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme in 2010.
For more information please contact:
Vicky Flynn, Communications Manager, [email protected] tel: 01483 213908
