The garden has had another outstanding year, under Head Gardener Kate Jenrick’s skill and inspired leadership. In addition to the flow of praise and admiration that comes from members of and visitors to the Inn, it has been yet another award-winning year for Kate.
In October 2025, the Worshipful Company of Gardeners awarded the ‘best small garden’ trophy to Elm Court. The judging team described the courtyard garden as ‘of outstanding quality and very eye-catching’, acknowledging the quality and consistency of Kate’s work by observing that over their many visits the garden had been ‘at its usual immaculate best, showing wonderful care by [her] gardening team’.
In April 2026, the Worshipful Company announced another award for the Inn, the Cutlers’ Trophy for Winter 2026, citing ‘the wonderful garden at Middle Temple’, with the judging team also giving a special mention to Fountain Court.
These awards for the garden stem from a competition launched in 1949 by the Worshipful Company (established in 1345 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1605) to recognise Winter and Summer decorative contributions to the beauty of the City and to champion horticultural biodiversity, sustainability and innovation. Its declared purpose is ‘to enhance the City of London’s reputation as an enjoyable place to work and uplift the mood of the staff and visitors in participating firms’.
The Inn’s contribution to training future great gardeners
The livery company also supports educational programmes, including the Future Gardeners Scheme, which prompts a mention for the Inn’s own record of contribution to the training and development of great gardeners of the future, such as Fiona Packe, formerly Kate’s assistant gardener, and Thomas Silverman, Kate’s current assistant gardener.
Fiona Packe
Two years ago, this column profiled Kate’s then-new assistant, Fiona Packe, who joined the gardening team in September 2023, following several years as a self-employed gardener and a year’s sabbatical during which she worked in a number of high profile gardens. After a very happy two years working in the garden with Kate, Fiona landed the prestigious position of first Head Gardener of the new Queen Elizabeth II Garden in Regent’s Park. She left us in August 2025 as this new garden, to commemorate the life of the late Queen, was still under construction. The Royal Parks describe the garden on their website:
‘The garden has transformed a disused plant nursery into a beautiful tranquil two-acre garden, with significant benefits to nature. Where disused glasshouses once stood, a beautiful new garden now takes its place within one of London’s finest landscapes. It is a garden of colour and contemplation, of biodiversity and beauty, of memory and hope.’
Fiona hosted HRH Princess Anne in April 2026 for the royal opening of the garden, and her career as a TV star gardener was launched on Episode 6 of BBC Gardeners World for 2026, where she was interviewed by Monty Don. She can be seen in the BBC website listings for the episode, photographed standing with Monty during his tour of the garden on a chilly, but sunny, April day:
Thomas Silverman
As Fiona has moved onwards and upwards in her career, so has Thomas Silverman, who became Kate’s assistant gardener in September 2025. Like Fiona and many professional gardeners, he came to gardening as a career change, after 18 years in hairdressing. The idea ‘germinated’ when Covid interrupted his work as a hairdresser on photoshoots in Los Angeles. He occupied his lockdown days doing an online Level 3 diploma in Botany, and volunteering at the Los Angeles Botanical Garden. This prompted him to think more about a career switch to horticulture.
After three years as a volunteer, where he became immersed in the developing science and technical know-how around water conservation and planting for an arid environment, Thomas returned to the UK and, in a leap of faith, applied for and won a full-time paid one-year training placement at Hatfield House through the Historic and Botanical Garden Training Programme. Working under Andrew Turvey, Head of Parks and Gardens at Hatfield, Thomas’s learning covered the whole range of work across 40 acres, from formal topiary and parterres to kitchen and cut-flower gardening for the domestic household of Lord and Lady Salisbury, to meadows and parkland.
Thomas went on to win a traineeship at Cambridge University Botanic Garden, where he acquired his Level 4 certificate in gardening. Amongst other highlights, Thomas had a hand (quite literally, through precision hand pollination, assisted by tweezers) in the first attempted pollination at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden of a rare species of mountain Polystachya orchid, P. tsaratananae, which grows in the mountains of Madagascar. The Garden’s single small specimen, which it had been nurturing for over 20 years, is the only documented specimen of P. tsaratananae in cultivation throughout the Botanic Gardens Conservation International network; so is very possibly the only specimen in botanic garden cultivation in the world. Some of the seed pods that were the product of the delicate pollination work of Thomas and his colleagues at the Glasshouse Team have now been shared with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, thereby helping to assure the future of the species.
At the end of his placement at Cambridge, Thomas’s attention was drawn to the forthcoming vacancy caused by Fiona’s imminent departure. He came to the Middle Temple for an interview with Kate, prior to which Fiona gave him a garden tour. He fell in love with the garden instantly and his desire for the position was sealed by hearing from Fiona how much she had loved working with Kate.
So, happy outcomes for Fiona and Thomas as they progress their careers as true gardening professionals who have gained invaluable experience and developed their skills working in Middle Temple garden.
Biodiversity in Middle Temple garden
There is much more to the Middle Temple garden than its visual beauty and tranquillity. It is also a beneficiary of Kate’s own passion for biodiversity. Some readers may have seen the post on the Inn’s Facebook account on Friday 8 May 2026 in which Kate described her encounter, while pruning the shrubs at the top of the lawn, with a nest of blackbird chicks. Here is more from Kate on her work:
This year we have witnessed starlings, blackbirds, wrens, robins, great tits and even jays successfully raise young. That was after a shaky start as two nests were blown out of the Rosa banksiae early in the season. One wren family decided not to chance natural resources and established a nest in a corner under one of the access lifts.
We have observed our towering echiums, much visited by bees, being used for more sinister purposes by a crow as a vantage point to predate on young fledglings. The weight of the crow was more than the echiums could cope with as a distinct kink in the spike was left when it flew off.
A peregrine falcon has been heard on several occasions and was seen in the garden on Thursday 28 May 2026. A more regular visitor, using the roof top ledges to watch and wait is a kestrel. The kestrel is usually hunting mice. But on one occasion it settled for grubs or worms from the lawn.
London Pollinating Together continues to monitor bee populations. The diversity of bee species is promising which is perhaps not unsurprising as plant diversity is good. Habitats also play a part in determining bee survival. In urban areas, cavity nesting bees significantly outnumber those which are ground nesting. I am hoping to improve the number of ground nesting bees by allowing space (bare earth) between plants in the dedicated pollination patch outside Blackstone Chambers. Dragonflies seem to be regular in the garden (and happily always easier to capture in a photo).
Garden Photography Competition
In January, the Inn launched the Middle Temple garden photo competition, the results of which will have been announced by the time this issue of Middle Templar is published.
The entries are for photographs taken of Middle Temple and its courtyards and there is to be winner and a runner up in each of 6 categories: (1) Floral; (2) Fauna, including invertebrates and pets; (3) Landscape; (4) Seasons; (5) Contrasts, for example shapes, time and weather; (6) Behind the scenes – working, tools and equipment.
The entries will have been judged, in July 2026, by Lady (Judith) Judge, Fiona and me. We look forward to showcasing the winning entries.
Master Adrienne Page was elected a Bencher of Middle Temple in 2003 and is Master of the Garden. She has a specialist practice in media and communications law at 5RB, where she is joint Head of Chambers.
