People

George Plumptre to retire as Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme

After 15 years at the helm of the National Garden Scheme, George Plumptre EMH, has announced that he will retire from his role as Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme at the end of the summer 2025.

George Plumptre

In his time as Chief Executive, George Plumptre has led the National Garden Scheme (NGS) to record levels of donations and a new profile as an important supporter of nursing and health, with his unique combination of personal skills and knowledge of gardens.

Plumptre 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.

“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” said Plumptre.

Awarded The Royal Horticultural Society’s Elizabeth Medal of Honour (EMH) in 2024, Plumptre became Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme in 2010. He 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 writing for the The Times during the 1990s and for 40 years he contributed to Country Life magazine. 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.

NGS 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 NGS donated a record £3.5 million in 2024, will launch its search for a new Chief Executive early in the new year.