The Royal Cornwall Show will be a 40th birthday day out for one of Cornwall’s best-known gardeners.

Lanhydrock’s head gardener, Tommy Teagle, who started his job on a nine-month government job creation scheme for school leavers, is celebrating his 40th year working at the property in the lead-up to the show (June 8, 9 and 10), where he’ll be manning a stand for National Trust outdoor education.

There have been highs and lows over the last 40 years. A violent storm in January 1990 brought down more than 1,000 trees at Lanhydrock. The garden team helped with the massive clear-up operation. 

Tommy also manages the commercial plant nursery at Lanhydrock, which supplies 43 National Trust shops in the south west with plants grown in peat-free compost.

He was something of a trailblazer at the turn of the century, when in 1999, the National Trust passed a resolution to be peat-free at all the properties they looked after. Tommy worked with compost manufacturers and ADAS (Agricultural Development Advisory Service) to create a high-quality peat-free compost to use in the nursery – one of the first such products.