When the great storm of October 1987 swept through the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in Surrey, trees crashed down, precious specimens were uprooted and the labels on hundreds of plants were scattered.
Only when they came back into leaf and bloom could varieties be examined by experienced growers and their correct identities restored. One of the experts called in to help with the snowdrops — the galanthus family — was Douglas Gardiner, a pioneer of business consultancy.
From the early 1980s, Gardiner had amassed at least 3,000 blooms in his garden in Wimbledon. He photographed many at Wisley, where specimens were numbered rather than named to deter thieves, and had meticulously recorded their characteristics. With his assistance, staff at the horticultural society were able to restore the collection.
Douglas Gardiner was born in Murree in India, now Pakistan, in 1921, the son of Brigadier Richard Gardiner, who commanded a Sikh frontier regiment, and Amelia, the daughter of a major general. He won a scholarship to Stowe and went to King’s College, Cambridge in 1939. When war broke out, he was told he could have his degree in mechanical sciences if he could complete it within 21 months, which he did. He then joined the Royal Engineers and later the British military mission to Greece. While an instructor at an Officer Training Unit in Nottinghamshire, he met Nancy Sheppard, the daughter of a fellow instructor. They married in 1948 and had two daughters: Carina, who survives him, and Lucy, who died in 2011. Both went into business. Nancy, who died in 2014, was a wartime code-breaker. The couple insisted on completing The Times crossword every day before finishing breakfast.
After 1945, Gardiner worked with Ernest Button, founder of Personnel Administration; they flourished in the still relatively new field of management consultancy. He became a director as the company developed into PA Consulting Group and later set up the PA Technology Centre in Cambridge.
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He remained a keen gardener into his nineties; when he found himself unable to look after his snowdrops, he oversaw their transfer to his daughter’s garden in the Surrey Hills.
Douglas Gardiner, management consultant and galanthophile, was born on July 21, 1921. He died on September 2, 2015, aged 94