CULTIVATING A LIVING CANVAS: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH PAIGNTON ZOO’S GARDENS TEAM 

“People come for the animals, but it’s the plants that tell the story.”

As the sun rises over Paignton Zoo, Catherine Mortimer is already at work, checking on new growth and planning the day ahead. As our Curator of Gardens, she leads a dedicated team that visitors might not notice – after all, most eyes are drawn to our lions and tigers – but whose green-thumbed magic transforms our Devon zoo from a collection of enclosures into a living, breathing world of natural habitats. 

“People come for the animals, but it’s the plants that tell the story,” Mortimer explains, inspecting a glossy, newly unfurling leaf in our Tropical Trails section. “Without the right botanical setting, you’re just looking at animals in enclosures. With it, you’re transported to their natural habitat.” 

After winning a prestigious Britain in Bloom Gold Award last year, our botanical gardens have been recognised as an attraction in their own right. As spring unfolds across our 80-acre site, our dedicated gardening team is witnessing the fruits of months of careful planning and hard work. 

A LIVING CANVAS FOR CONSERVATION 

Penny Brice, our Team Leader of Gardens, gestures toward a still-bare hillside overlooking the ocean, opposite our giraffe enclosure, where a flower meadow is being established. “It doesn’t look like much now, but when this meadow blooms, it will transform the space,” she says. “This isn’t just about aesthetics. These flowers will support our local pollinators, which are just as endangered as some of the exotic species we house.” 

Our team’s work extends far beyond mere decoration. Each planted area serves multiple purposes – creating appropriate habitats, supporting biodiversity, educating our visitors, and contributing to our broader conservation mission. 

Around our main lake, which last year dazzled visitors with annual displays, the team is now implementing a longer-term vision. “We’re propagating herbaceous perennials and shrubs for establishing a permanent planting,” Brice explains. “It’s part of our sustainability strategy – plants that will return year after year with less intensive management, while providing year-round interest and wildlife value.” 

FROM CROCODILE SWAMP TO ARID LANDS 

Walking through our Crocodile Swamp, the humid air thick with the scent of rich earth and vegetation, it’s easy to imagine you’re in a tropical rainforest rather than Devon. Towering palms and broad-leaved tree species create a verdant canopy, while ground-level plants along the edges of the Pools create cover where our Sunda gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii) glides silently beneath the surface. 

“These plants can carve out a niche in some of the most extreme global environments… Their adaptations to survive create some truly mind-blowing, captivating plant forms.”

In our nearby Tropical Trails, visitors can experience a carefully cultivated slice of rainforest, while at the opposite environmental extreme, our Arid Lands exhibit showcases the remarkable adaptations of desert flora. 

“These plants can carve out a niche in some of the most extreme global environments. Coping with extreme heat, minimal rainfall, and sometimes extreme cold, they make other life possible by providing sources of food and shelter to animals that share this harsh environment,” explains Mortimer. “Their adaptations to survive this environment are just as fascinating—swollen water storage tissues, reduced leaf surfaces, and protective spines create some truly mind-blowing, captivating plant forms.” 

THE BROWSE MASTERS: FEEDING OUR ZOO 

“The bongos are our food critics… they’re incredibly selective.”

While our main gardening team focuses on habitat creation and visitor experience, another vital botanical operation runs in parallel. Our Estates team, consisting of Jay Knight and Leigh Riggs, has the specialised role of growing “browse” – the fresh plant material that feeds many of our residents. 

“Many people don’t realize how much of our animals’ diet comes directly from plants we grow on site,” explains Knight. “It’s not just more nutritious and natural for the animals – it reduces our carbon footprint and provides enrichment as they forage and feed as they would in the wild.” 

With winter supplies of cotoneaster (Cotoneaster spp.) nearly depleted, Knight and Riggs have moved to harvesting hazel (Corylus avellana) and hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), which form a significant part of the diet for a range of our species from gorillas to giraffes. Some of our residents prove particularly discerning in their tastes. 

“The bongos are our food critics,” Riggs laughs, referring to our rare forest antelopes. “They’re incredibly selective, so we prioritise maintaining consistent supplies of their winter browse favourites like Lacebark Trees (Hoheria sexstylosa). They don’t care for buddleja at all. Soon we’ll transition to seasonal browse like sycamore, hazel, and other deciduous leaf trees. We’ve also just tried Aristotelia chilensis with positive results.” 

This carefully managed rotation of browse is critical to both animal welfare and sustainable plant management. “We can’t just harvest everything at once,” Knight explains. “We need to give plants time to regenerate, which means constantly planning seasons ahead.” 

PERSONAL FAVOURITES: OUR GLOBAL GARDEN 

Ask our team about their favourite plants, and their answers reveal both the global nature of our collection and their personal passions for horticulture. 

For Catherine Mortimer, it’s the remarkable “lithops” or “living stones” (Lithops spp.) in our Arid Lands desert house that capture her imagination. “They’re unlike any other plants,” she enthuses. “They’ve evolved to look exactly like pebbles to avoid being eaten, and they thrive in the harshest conditions imaginable. They remind me that life finds a way, even in the most challenging environments.” 

Penny Brice’s choice reflects her practical approach to garden management. “The June Berry, or Amelanchier lamarckii, is my favourite,” she says. “It looks good all year round and stays a nice compact size for easy management. In spring it has beautiful white blossom, in summer it produces edible berries that ripen in June, hence the name, and in autumn the leaves turn a spectacular red before falling.” 

For Leigh Riggs from our Estates team, the answer is surprisingly humble. “Rubus fruticosus – the common bramble. Proper West Country plant, that is,” he says, exaggerating his distinctly thick Devon drawl. “In all seriousness, though, it supports so many native ecosystems. The flowers feed pollinators, the berries feed birds and mammals, and the thorny structure provides nesting sites. It’s not showy, but it’s ecologically invaluable. And quintessentially British.” 

Jay Knight found it harder to choose. “It’s between the magnificent tree fern, Dicksonia antarctica, which creates that prehistoric feel in our tropical areas, and the paperbark maple (Acer griseum), which has multiple seasons of interest and is particularly endangered in the wild. Unlike most trees that are endangered, this one’s challenge is that it doesn’t produce many viable seeds – they’re like sycamore ‘keys’ but rarely germinate. I’ve actually figured out a special technique to propagate them, but that’s my secret,” he says with a wink. “Both plants remind me why conservation of plant species is just as important as saving animals.” 

Quite coincidentally, our team have selected plants representing major continents: Africa’s living stones, North America’s June berry, Europe’s bramble, and Asia’s paper bark maple. It’s a microcosm of our global conservation mission, reflected in the personal choices of our gardening team. 

SEASONAL RHYTHMS 

As magnolias (Magnolia spp.) bloom along our pathways and hibiscus (Hibiscus spp.) flowers open in our tropical houses, colour is rapidly returning to our zoo after winter’s muted palette. This cycle of seasonal change is something our gardening team works with rather than against. 

“We want visitors to experience something different each time they come,” Mortimer says. “The rhythm of the seasons reminds us that conservation is about preserving not just individual species but entire dynamic ecosystems.” 

For our dedicated team, their work is far more than horticulture – it’s about creating living, breathing educational exhibits that inspire the next generation of conservationists.  As the morning progresses and visitors begin to arrive, our gardeners retreat into the background, moving on to the next project, the next planting. But their legacy surrounds every animal and visitor – in the carefully curated landscapes that make our zoo not just a collection of rare species, but a window into the complex, beautiful and threatened natural world they represent. 

“The rhythm of the seasons reminds us that conservation is about preserving not just individual species, but entire dynamic ecosystems.”