People

Sue worked for BBC television for over 20 years on daily news as one of the main presenters of Midlands Today. She subsequently worked as a media consultant and trainer in the UK and abroad. She is a former Chair of Governors of a Birmingham Primary school, and a past Chair of the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the Midlands and East (England), as well as holding other non-exec roles in health and arts organisations. She is the current Chair of Birmingham Botanical Gardens that was recently awarded £9M from the National Lottery Heritage Fund towards a £20 million project to restore the historic glass houses.

Stephanie is a Chartered Accountant and spent most of her career working internationally for General Electric serving as a CFO across different industries ranging from IT, financial services, media and then healthcare, in the US, France and UK. Her passion has always been plants and gardens (despite having grown up in central Paris and read Chemistry at university!) and she retrained in 2012 as a garden designer at The English Gardening School in Chelsea. She is now joint owner of a historic garden in Devon, The Italian Garden at Great Ambrook, and her energy is focused on sensitively restoring and preserving this important garden thanks to National Lottery funding and a very dedicated team of volunteers.

Born in East Africa, Peter’s earliest memories are of gardens in the Kenya highlands. He grew up in Wiltshire and read Natural Sciences at Durham. An educationalist, he spent his career at Harrow. The African continent has always been a major attraction, and the adaptations of the many species to the arid Karoo ecosystem a particular interest. He taught Biology but was also very focused on pastoral care. He oversaw the team managing the 400-acre estate, giving him an insight into the lives of the horticulturalists involved. Settled in the South Hams he is enjoying developing his own gardening skills and discovering more of Devon. He is particularly interested in the welfare of those working alone in remote gardens around the county.

Hugo Bugg is an award-winning garden and landscape designer and co-founder of Harris Bugg Studio, with studios in Devon and London. A graduate of Falmouth University, he first gained recognition as RHS Young Designer of the Year in 2010 and was the youngest ever Gold Medal winner at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2014. Since then, Hugo has led significant projects across the UK and internationally, from botanic gardens in Sweden and Jordan to major UK public landscapes such as RHS Garden Bridgewater. He and Charlotte Harris most recently won Gold and Best in Show at Chelsea 2023 for Horatio’s Garden. He leads Harris Bugg Studio’s sustainability work group and is currently leading on a number of ecologically sensitive rural projects across Devon.

Paul qualified as a gardener at Writtle College in the mid 1970s and spent the early part of his career with the National Trust, becoming a head gardener in East Anglia, whilst also undertaking research into the historical development of the landscapes he was working in. This included a Capability Brown landscape in Suffolk, implementing a complimentary tree planting scheme by Sylvia Crowe, and a 500 year old moated manor house in Norfolk. He then spent some years in the East Midlands as a Landscape Manager of a wide range of landscapes for the (then) Department of the Environment. Thirty years ago he moved to Devon to eventually become Exeter City Council’s Head of Parks and Open Spaces, which included the formal parks, sports fields, play areas, valley parks, cemeteries, and trees and woodlands in the city.

Jane is a chartered landscape architect who has worked on high profile projects in the UK, USA, Australia and Hong Kong. For more than 20 years, Jane worked at Eden Project with responsibility for the landscape design and development of the garden in Cornwall as well as Eden’s social outreach projects, international consultancy and potential ‘new Edens’; work which took her from prisons and flower shows, to dramatic mine sites around the world. She now works freelance, teaches and is an active Design West review panel member. Jane has been a member of DGT since 2022 and is keen to learn more about gardens and landscapes closer to her Devon home, and to pursue her interest in the pioneering women landscape designers of the late 19th century.

Ian is an accomplished garden designer, horticultural advisor, and head gardener based in North Devon, with over 20 years of experience in horticulture. Holding diverse roles in practical, creative, and educational settings, including 11 years as a lecturer at Bicton College, where he delivered RHS Level 2 and 3 courses. Ian also teaches adult learning courses and is a freelance horticultural adviser for the RHS. Ian previously worked as an engineering project manager, overseeing international projects in the design and manufacture of process equipment for the food, brewing and pharmaceutical industries. In 2015, Ian earned the RHS MHort qualification, researching the history of a walled garden in Fremington. He remains committed to helping gardeners develop the skills needed to preserve Devon’s historic gardens for future generations.