Dartington roots for tree specialist in gardens gambit 

A company best known for its work in tree surgery and land maintenance is being lined up by Dartington to take over the work of its highly rated gardens team.

Plymouth-based Arborcure says on its website its main expertise is in “tree services, landscaping, commercial grounds maintenance, school grounds maintenance, fencing [and] hedging“.

While the company says it is “passionate about the environment and vigilant in offering a quality service“, the website makes minimal reference to plants and flowers.

The 26-acre Dartington gardens have evolved over the several hundred years the estate has existed but were laid out in their current form mainly in the 1930s under the leadership of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, the wealthy benefactors who bought the medieval hall and surrounding area in 1925. In 2022 the Dartington gardens became a “partner garden” of the Royal Horticultural Society, denoting their special status.

The gardens are run by the Dartington Hall Trust, which is replacing its inhouse gardening team with an outside contractor to cut costs. In recent months, all seven members of the full-time gardening team at Dartington have quit after being told their hours were being cut as part of financial pruning.

The biggest name among the departures is Neville Evans, who until mid-August was Dartington’s head gardener, in overall charge of “land and landscapes”. With a diploma in botanical horticulture from Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Evans arrived at the estate in 2022 with a glowing reputation, having worked at other top gardens including Oxford Botanic Gardens and Bicton Park in Devon.

Dartington has said it has “identified” a “reputed partner contractor” to take over work on the gardens. The trust has declined to divulge its name.

Two people with close knowledge of the matter said Arborcure has been involved with detailed discussions in recent weeks with members of the inhouse team about taking over responsibility for the gardens, and was being lined up by the trust to start the work. Arborcure declined to comment.

Dartington has said choosing a contractor to take over the jobs of the gardens team was its “favoured solution” for meeting the trust’s objectives for the gardens of “maintain[ing] quality, staff retention and cost efficiency”.

The trust said the contractor had initially hoped to move “the entire [Dartington] garden team over [to its employment] as part of their capacity“. Now that the full-time members of the team have left Dartington’s employment, with no indication that any of them have joined the Plymouth company, the trust has refrained from further comment, beyond re-iterating that “we expect no reduction in the quality of the gardens”. It added: “Our review of potential external support has considered horticultural expertise.”  The in-house gardening team has been supplemented over several years with the work of local volunteers. The trust is keen for this collaboration to continue, with the local people liaising not with Evans and his team but with the new contractor.

Under its chair Lord David Triesman Dartington is making a big effort to curtail expenses and increase income after announcing in 2023 that outgoings were out of control and that it was close to bankruptcy.

In a discussion of its partner gardens on its website, the RHS stresses Dartington’s historical significance, referring to the “nationally and internationally renowned landscape architects and designers Henry Avray Tipping, Beatrix Farrand and Percy Cane” who have contributed to its appearance. “The …grounds blend a sense of natural wilderness with stunning features, beautiful vistas and impressive sculptures,” the society says.

In its own publicity, Dartington highlights the gardens’ “ancient trees and impressive plant species” and extols their “sense of tranquillity”. It mentions how its “gardens team has been working hard to bring some of the hidden secrets of the gardens to life”.

A particular attraction is an 80-metre stretch known as “Dorothy’s sunny border”, where Dartington says “great efforts have been made to maintain the colour scheme of blues, yellows, and whites which was chosen by Dorothy [Elmhirst] and [which] visitors have long admired”.  The gardens are also known for their array of a herbaceous perennial called the snake’s head fritillary, categorised as a vulnerable species.

Under the terms of the RHS’s partner gardens scheme – which involves more than 200 gardens in the UK and overseas – the society maintains only a light control over the quality of each garden. The society’s next assessment of Dartington’s  gardens is due in 2027.  Arborcure on its website says it is a “a reliable tree surgery company” with “vast experience” over more than 15 years and with customers across Devon and Cornwall from government departments to private households. The company says it specialises in areas of tree maintenance including removal, felling and “tree crown reduction or crown lifting“. Apart from working with trees, Arborcure points to its capabilities in specialist machines including “spider mowers” for trimming grass on slopes. Other areas of expertise cover “preparing grounds for events…., hedge cutting and trimming, weed control, landscaping, grass cutting [and] seasonal gritting”.

In a small section of its website mentioning plants and flowers, featuring a photo of a man pulling weeds out of the grass on his lawn, Arborcure provides tips on how to “prepare your garden for autumn and winter” including the need to “plant any spring-flowering plants before autumn sets in“.

Regarding recruitment, the website says it is seeking two sort of employee: “ground maintenance operatives“, for duties including grass cutting, planting and hedge trimming, and tree specialists for roles in areas such as “crosscutting and felling” together with “climbing and aerial rescue”.