Tom Hart Dyke

Tom Hart Dyke is a botanist and plant hunter whose enthusiasm for rare and unusual species took him deep into the Darien Gap in 2000, in search of orchids. It was there that he and Paul Winder were ambushed by FARC guerrillas and held hostage for nine months — an ordeal the two later told together in The Cloud Garden.

It was during those nine months, with nothing else to occupy him, that Tom first sketched out the idea for a garden in which plants would be arranged by continent of origin, mapping the world in miniature. On his release he returned home to Lullingstone Castle, his family's estate in Kent, and turned its old Victorian garden into exactly that: the World Garden, now home to some 8,000 plant species from six continents, including a ‘Hot & Spikey’ greenhouse of cacti, succulents and bromeliads.

He has since documented the castle's restoration in the BBC2 series Save Lullingstone Castle and Return to Lullingstone Castle, written a second book, An Englishman's Home, and continued plant hunting and speaking about his experience around the world.

Tom's own website →
Lullingstone Castle & the World Garden →
Tom's biography at The Soho Agency →