Trustees are elected for a period of three years, renewable by Council approval for a further six years after which time Trustees must stand down for at least one year.
There can be a maximum of fifteen Trustees, six are elected by virtue of being a National Garden Scheme Regional Chairman, the others are selected by Council on merit with the aim of fulfilling specific skills requirements. Meet our current Trustees below.
Chairman
Rupert Tyler is National Director at Brewin Dolphin. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Securities Institute. He graduated from Oxford with Honours in Classics and Modern Languages. He is a Trustee of the Jerwood Charitable Trust on whose Finance Committee he sits, and he chairs the Finance and General Purposes Committee at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. He sits on the Investment Advisory Panel of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Rupert is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners and an Assistant at Court. He has opened his garden in London for the National Garden Scheme since 2009.
Deputy Chairman
Sue spent 30 years working in magazine publishing, initially on the advertising side and later as publisher on a range of women’s and lifestyle magazines including Sainsbury’s Magazine and The English Garden. Sue has spent much of her time working for charities in the gardening, education and HIV fields and she has been involved with the National Garden Scheme since 2000 when she first opened her garden in Clapham. She now lives in Clapham and Wiltshire.
Honorary Treasurer
Andrew is the Honorary Treasurer of The National Garden Scheme and is also a trustee of a number of other charities. He is a chartered accountant and a past president of his professional body, ICAEW, having spent his career with PwC. He and his wife open their garden in East Sussex for the National Garden Scheme.
John is a public health physician and epidemiologist working at the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care. He is also Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Exeter, an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester, Garden Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians in London, and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the French public health agency.
His past achievements include setting up the UK Biobank study, leading the national public health intelligence functions in England and being responsible for the health improvement functions of Public Health England. During the pandemic he was the national clinical co-ordinator for coronavirus testing, helped to design and report the ONS survey, and had oversight of the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
In Exeter John works at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health and is an Associate of the Eden Project in Cornwall. He has been a keen amateur gardener in Oxfordshire for many years where he engages in a long-standing strategic battle with the local wild deer.
Debbie took on the position of East Regional Chair, covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Trustee in October 2023.
A marketer by profession, Debbie has over 30 years’ experience working in professional services, charity, construction and the healthcare sectors. She has been a freelance copywriter since 2018 and a volunteer publicity coordinator for the National Garden Scheme since 2017. Debbie started volunteering for the charity because of the opportunity it offered to become involved in the work of this significant national charity using her professional skills and life-long interest in gardening.
In her new role Debbie looks forward to working with the seven counties in the East, using her skills in marketing communication to develop a joint approach to publicity across the region to help widen awareness of the National Garden Scheme across the region.
Lucy is an editor, journalist, presenter and broadcaster, most recently Editor of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. Over her 10 years in the role, her aims have always been to demystify gardening and champion the connections between gardens and wellbeing, because she knows these are tangible and should be accessible to all.
Stepping down from the editorship in late 2022, Lucy is now a writer, editor, presenter and content consultant, a host of events, both live on stage and online, radio broadcaster and podcaster.
A passionate gardener, Lucy is currently creating a small cottage garden in the Cotswolds and is part of her Gloucestershire village team running its bi-annual open day for the National Garden Scheme.
Arit spent 25 years working in the dynamic industries of retail fashion and creative events before her joy of having her own garden enabled Arit to diversify her creative experiences. She found that the visual nature of fashion and the healing properties of her therapies could beautifully meld in the garden.
After just one season, Arit knew she wanted horticulture to become her work as well as her pleasure. She studied gardening at Capel Manor College and whilst there had success at RHS Chelsea 2013 winning the Fresh Talent category for a student design collaboration with two other students. After attaining a diploma in garden design, she won a Gold Medal for her own design at RHS Hampton Court in 2016 in the conceptual category.
In her designs for both private and commercial clients her ethos includes simplicity and environmental sensitivity – affecting her choice of products and plants at source, with regard to their future setting.
Working as presenter for Gardeners’ World and writing for national publications has enabled Arit to publicise issues about the future of gardening in an ever-changing climate, and promote solutions to the wider public.
In January 2019, Ali took on the position of South West Regional Chairman and Trustee covering all counties in the South West from Gloucestershire to the tip of Cornwall. Ali is delighted to have taken on this role and hopes to bring some fresh thinking to the position, along with a strong business mind and accompanied by a hard work ethic. Her priority will be ensuring that as a team of volunteers across the region we all work effectively together to continue to raise awareness of the National Garden Scheme, whilst also continuing to recruit new quality gardens into the scheme which should ultimately result in helping to raise more money for our beneficiaries.
Ali joined the National Garden Scheme in 2015, as an Assistant County Organiser in West Dorset looking after 10 local gardens. In 2016 she took over as County Organiser for Dorset, a position that she has held over the last two years. In this time, Dorset has continued to grow in the amount of funding raised from open gardens and also in the number of new gardens recruited. In 2018 Ali opened her garden for the National Garden Scheme for the first time.
Susan’s professional life has been entrepreneurial and varied. Early years were based in London working in fashion. Seeking a change in lifestyle there was a move to the West Country creating a new career as restaurateur.
In more recent times Susan’s interests have been in the arts, working as curator and artist’s agent. Susan is a trustee of Live4Music a charity working mainly in Myanmar helping blind and marginalised children through the medium of music with programmes in teaching, concerts and exchange schemes.
Now living in rural Wales her lifelong passion for all things horticultural has been afforded the freedom to flourish. In 2011 she joined the North Powys team and in 2015 became County Organiser. Using her broad experience and skills she has been able to develop new initiatives in fundraising. During her first four years tenure she and her team have more than doubled the county’s income. The work goes on! November 2019 Susan was appointed Regional Chair for Wales and the Marches.
Following a long and successful career in IT, Mark is now an RHS Vice President and Trustee of the National Garden Scheme.
Mark is also the Hampshire County Organiser and has opened his own garden and vineyard under the scheme for the past nine years. He is Chairman of the Itchen Valley Garden Society in Hampshire and gives lectures on designing winter gardens, establishing a vineyard and winemaking and also judging at RHS Show gardens.
Mark developed a passion for gardening since he grew vegetables on his first allotment in the 1970s.
Maureen is Regional Chairman for the North of England and has been County Organiser for Northumberland and Tyne and Wear since 2010. She has opened her garden for the National Garden Scheme for the last 5 years.
Maureen trained as a solicitor and retired in 2008 as Strategic Director, Legal and Corporate Services, for Gateshead Council and Deputy Chief Executive of Northumbria Police Authority. Her career also included appointments as a part-time chairman of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, and a member of the Bar Standards Board Complaints Committee. She is currently Vice Chairman of Citizens Advice Gateshead, and a trustee of Maji Salama, a charity working to provide clean water in Kenya.
Richard Barley is Director of Horticulture for The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
Born in the Western District of Victoria, in Australia, Richard Barley pursued various roles in the agriculture sector before joining the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne in 1980. From 1992 he moved into the role of manager and then director of the Royal Botanic Garden’s Melbourne garden site. He held this position until 2010, when he was appointed CEO of Open Gardens Australia.
In 2013 he moved to the UK to taking up the new position of Director of Horticulture for The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew with responsibility for overseeing the management of Kew’s botanic garden and arboretum, display glasshouses, nurseries and the School of Horticulture. His role was expanded in 2015 to include Kew’s Learning and Participation, and Visitor Operations activities. Richard has had responsibility for various improvement projects at Kew since arriving, including the major restoration of the Temperate House, development of the Great Broad Walk Borders, the Children’s Garden and the Agius Evolution Garden (both opened in 2019).
After studying at the Royal Agriculture College, Cirencester and training as a land agent on the Bathurst estate near Cirencester, Atty enjoyed a long career at Knight Frank LLP for 34 years from 1984-2018, during which time he was the leading light of the firm’s country house sales working in the London office and more recently from Cirencester when he was Regional Chairman of the firm’s central region. He was an equity partner in the firm from 2002-18. Atty’s long career has given him an extensive knowledge of country houses and their gardens throughout much of Britain.
Atty is Chairman of the Maggie’s Centre in Cheltenham which opened in 2010. He is also a Governor of Summerfields School in Oxford and a Trustee to a number of family trusts, with involvement in the management of their residential, commercial and agricultural affairs. He and his wife Celia are keen gardeners at their Cotswold home in Hampnett, near Northleach.
Vernon is a Civil Servant and has spent many years working across Government in the law enforcement sector. He is also seconded as a subject matter expert to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), to travel to other countries to share expertise and experience.
Having initially trained in accountancy, during a varied career he has worked for the World Bank in developing countries, been a policy advisor to Ministers, represented the UK Government at various European Union bodies and managed all the legal, logistical and HR issues arising from running a complex operational environment.
Vernon is trained and well experienced in giving media interviews and public relations and has represented the National Garden Scheme at the major RHS shows.
He is Chair of Governors at Barlborough primary school as well as being a Governor at Netherthorpe secondary school, an academy with over 1200 pupils. He is also a Churchwarden and sits on the Deanery Synod.
Vernon and his wife Christine, both Assistant County Organisers for Derbyshire have opened their garden for the National Garden Scheme since 2012. They have also recently taken on the challenge of renting an allotment in a nearby Community Garden where they hope to increase their supply of fruit and veg from which they produce a range of jams and chutneys that are sold to raise funds for the National Garden Scheme.
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