The government has awarded £2.3m in compensation to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) after roadworks affecting its premier garden in Wisley caused a “three-year traffic jam”.
The horticulture charity estimated it lost £13m due to disruption caused by the upgrade to the A3 and M25, with visits to the garden each year cut by 350,000. A campaign to reimburse the charity was led by the gardener and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh.
Clare Matterson, the RHS director general, said: “I think it’s fair to say that we had three years of a traffic jam outside what is our major garden.”
Calling the compensation process “exhausting”, she added: “I would have loved more. I would have pushed for more. It is what it is, and on we go. I’m grateful that we got something.”
Matterson said the government had ignored gardening despite the fact it has proven health benefits, reducing pressure on the NHS, while the surface area of UK gardens is three times greater than all of the country’s national nature reserves combined.
However, she said she had hope for the future, not least because Andy Burnham was a frequent visitor to RHS Garden Bridgewater before he became prime minister.
“We know he loves Bridgewater. He talked to me about going with his family, but particularly with his father to Bridgewater, and what an important place it was,” she said.
“Andy Burnham talks about pride in place and local people’s empowerment … So hopefully, Andy will think about gardening.”
The RHS runs Chelsea flower show, which came under scrutiny this year as it lost one of its biggest funders, and critics said it had gone “woke” with its focus on charities and eco-friendly gardens.
Speaking to the Guardian, Matterson issued a full-throated defence of the show for the first time. “Chelsea is our saviour,” she said. “Tickets sold out 10 days before we even opened this year. Chelsea is an extraordinary beast, and it’s become a very important sort of national moment for the country as well. It’s still watched by millions of people on the television every year.”
She added that Chelsea is “the Olympics of the horticultural world” and that it is “doing brilliantly” as the charity’s biggest fundraiser. “People, I guess, complain about anything popular, don’t they,” she said.
In the coming year, the RHS will be driving a massive push towards community gardening, getting local authorities to give pieces of unused land to residents who want to use them to grow vegetables and flowers.
“We did a survey and found about two–and-a -half – million people saying they are actively engaged in [community gardening], but something like 13 million said they would like to be, which is extraordinary,” Matterson said. “Access to land is one of the main barriers.”
Matterson is personally involved in a community garden near her home in Suffolk. “What I love about that is that not everybody that comes loves the physical act of gardening,” she said. “Some like making things, and so they’ll be making bird boxes. Some people just want to come and chat.”
She hopes Burnham’s push towards pride in local places will start a community gardening revolution. “Community gardening must be a big thing for this country,” she said. “It’s about health, wellbeing and the opportunity for localities to make a big difference for their communities. If we can take that seriously, it’s not a big investment across the country, but I think the benefits that flow out from it are absolutely enormous.”
Another project she is helming aims to get gardens into NHS hospitals to provide peace and respite for patients, their families and staff.
“The hospitals that have got those gardens are seeing higher retention rates among their staff, better morale and wellbeing,” she said. “For someone visiting a relative who’s really unwell, being able to go and sit in the garden makes a huge difference.”
With gardening societies such as the RHS having a historical reputation as elitist, Matterson says she is trying to make the RHS as inclusive as possible. The charity is hosting an urban show in Bristol next year, focused on pot plants, small spaces and balcony gardens.
“Who is gardening for in the 21st century?” she asked. “Is it for a small elite band of people, or is it for everybody? That was the conversation we had across the organisation. Our strategy now is: how do we get horticulture to as many people as possible?”
