‘Gloriously gnarly’: what professional botanists plant at home

While Stuart Worboys saves rare plants at work, his home garden is planted to appeal to birds and insects. Photograph: Brian Cassey/The Guardian

Walking through London’s Kew Gardens on a winter’s day, the botanist Prof Tim Entwisle was struck by the sight of a Persian ironwood tree. The tree was leafless but not lifeless. While others in the gardens were bare-branched and stark, the ironwood’s vibrant red blossoms stood out against the snow.

The image stayed with Entwisle. It prompted him to plant a Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica) at his home in Melbourne, where it thrives, out of place, in the heart of an orderly garden.