Nick Macer

A school dropout, bright but bored, Nick departed at not even 16 years old.
A few years of unpressured ‘finding his feet’ allowed him to realise that a life
outside working with plants seemed a very good idea. A deep obsession with
trees soon followed at the age of 21 which became all consuming and resulted
in a three year diploma course in arboriculture at Merrist Wood College, Surrey.
Ideally, he was far more suited to something botanical or horticultural,
but had yet to discover that.

His middle year at college was spent working at The Hillier arboretum (now Sir
Harold Hillier Gardens) and Westonbirt arboretum and all free time was used
searching for ancient or huge specimen trees across the Southern UK and visiting
gardens, botanic gardens and arboreta. The obsession was only deepening…
After leaving college he found employment at a large property in the Cotswolds
with extensive grounds where he started to create a small arboretum. But when
that garden project imploded and redundancy followed, with two young sons at
home something needed to happen. He already grew hundreds of young trees
from seed and cuttings at home, so the logical progression seemed obvious and
Pan Global Plants was born in spring 1997.
‘PGP’ soon got a reputation for offering rarities and desirables and over the years
picked up a lot of press attention. Now it is one of the most celebrated specialist
nurseries in the UK and, pre-Brexit, sold to all corners of Europe, introducing
many new plants never offered before.
Nick has travelled extensively to botanise across the temperate world, having
visited at least 25 countries or biogeographic zones, some many times.
The obsession continues…