How a ‘Barnsley lad’ set his sights on Chelsea Flower Show gold

When seven-year-old Steven Hickman was given cacti to look after over the summer holidays, little did he know it would spark a life-long passion for plants, one that would eventually see him become a RHS master grower.

Born into a mining community in Barnsley, his route to the “haute-couture” of the international gardening scene, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, was perhaps not the most obvious.

Educated at Askham Bryan College in York and Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Mr Hickman spent years abroad in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Fiji to perfect his craft.

“I started it as a hobby and by accident found out you could make a decent living through growing plants,” he said.

Now aged 68, he has been running Hoyland Plant Centre with his wife and children for nearly 40 years and holds National Collections of Clivia, Tulbaghia and Agapanthus.

In the early days Mr Hickman had not yet turned his attention to the Amaryllidaceae family, focusing instead on cultivating conifers, shrubs and alpines.

It was when a friend gave him several agapanthus plants, commonly known as African lily, that he realised their potential.

“We started growing them and saw that Agapanthus sold really quickly, quicker than the other stuff we were growing,” he said.

“We eventually packed in doing all the other varieties and just specialised in Agapanthus and that’s what we’ve done ever since.”

Hoyland Plant Centre has since been specialising in cultivating Agapanthus, Clivia and Tulbaghis plants and produces over 50 varieties.

Some of their treasured cultivars are Agapanthus Hoyland Blue, Hoyland Chelsea Blue, Margaret, Silver Anniversary and Yorkshire Rose.

“I love producing new varieties and to see plants flower for the first time ever and you know you are the only one in the world ever to see it – it gives you a buzz,” he said.

One of their first, a large leaf variegated Agapanthus called “Yorkshire Dream”, was displayed at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2007.

“[Our] first ever Chelsea was very nerve-wracking,” Mr Hickman recalled.

“I don’t think we slept well for a few weeks before we went.”

Since then, Hoyland Plant Centre has won countless silver and gold medals and has firmly established itself at the very top of the horticultural world.

“I think we are the only exhibitors in Chelsea to get four double golds in a row,” he said, hoping for similar success at this year’s show, which opens to the public on Tuesday.

Their displays have drawn royal interest in the past, with King Charles known to engage the growers in conversation.

“What is really unusual, when you end a conversation with him, he remembers the following year exactly where you left off the year before,” said Mr Hickman.

“For such a busy man who meets all the people in the world, it’s unique.”

This year’s display at Chelsea and the upcoming RHS Wentworth Flower Show will once again pay homage to miners such as his father, who worked at Elsecar Main Colliery for 45 years.

Nerines and Agapanthus will bloom from the bells of brass instruments, previously used in the colliery band, which Mr Hickman fondly remembers playing in as a child.

Having potted tomatoes and geraniums as a little boy alongside his father, he said being able to share his passion and business with his children Colin and Heather felt “special”.

Coincidentally, this year marks both the family’s 40th year in business and Mr and Mrs Hickman’s 40th wedding anniversary.

“It’s a bit surreal,” he said.

“When we first started, when it was just a field of nothing to what we have got today and where we are today.

“I wish my father and my mother were alive to see it, they’d be dead chuffed.”

When asked what became of the cacti he was looking after all these years ago, he laughed: “They never got took back to school – I kept them.”