Meet the Environmental Horticulture team

Our team addresses challenges driven by a changing climate and a growing population, which are impacting gardening and the ornamental horticulture sector. With a focus on the interacting roles that soils, plants, water and people can play in a gardening context, we are researching practical interventions to garden sustainably and improve environmental health and human wellbeing

Dr Mark Gush |  Head of Environmental Horticulture

Dr Mark Gush leads the Environmental Horticulture team conducting scientific research into practical interventions that gardeners can apply to reduce their gardening footprint and improve environmental health and human wellbeing.

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Dr Tijana Blanusa |  Principal Horticultural Scientist

Dr Tijana Blanusa leads the Ecosystem Services Research Programme, identifying the structural and functional traits of plants that can be isolated, optimised and employed to benefit the wider environment.

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Dr Marc Redmile-Gordon |  Senior Scientist for Soil and Climate Change

Dr Marc Redmile-Gordon leads research in soil biology and ecosystem nutrient cycling to highlight sustainable ways gardeners can improve their soil and deliver climate mitigations.

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Dr Nicholas Cryer |  Senior Water Scientist

Nicholas leads research on the application of sustainable water management techniques within domestic and public gardens, and the UK horticultural and landscape industry.

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Dr Lauriane Chalmin-Pui |  Wellbeing Fellow

Dr Lauriane Chalmin-Pui leads an interdisciplinary research programme on the influence of gardens and gardening on health and wellbeing. She is working in partnership with the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape Architecture.

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Dr Elisabeth Larsen |  Ecosystem Services Fellow

Dr Elisabeth Larsen investigates ecosystem services provided by garden trees and is particularly interested in traits related to flood mitigation, cooling and pollution capture.

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Dr Chloe Sutcliffe |  Sustainability Fellow

Dr Chloe Sutcliffe’s research quantifies the positive and negative impacts of gardening on the environment. A key output will be an online tool that gardeners can use to calculate their environmental impacts.

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Dr Raghavendra Prasad |  Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr Raghavendra Prasad leads our Transition to Peat-Free project, researching sustainable peat alternatives to accelerate the horticultural industry’s transition to peat-free growing media.

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Meet our other RHS Science teams

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The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.