Modern heroes of horticulture - Tom Leonard aka The Drag Queen Gardener
What do you get when you combine horticulture, six-inch heels, a generous helping of sequins and a determination to make gardening feel like it belongs to absolutely everyone? You get Tom Leonard – better known to many as Daisy Desire, The Drag Queen Gardener.
Tom has carved out a space in horticulture that quite simply didn’t exist before him. By bringing together two seemingly very different worlds – gardening and drag – he has challenged some of the traditional perceptions around who gardening is for, while introducing plants and the outdoors to audiences who might never previously have considered themselves gardeners.
But behind the heels, humour and fabulous outfits is a serious horticulturist whose own relationship with gardening began at a difficult point in his life – and ultimately changed its direction completely.
A late bloomer
Unlike many of our Modern Heroes, Tom didn’t grow up surrounded by plants or with ambitions of working in horticulture. In fact, he describes himself as a “late bloomer”.
His curiosity began on his daily commute into Birmingham, where he would look out of the train window and notice allotments nestled amongst the grey of the city. There was something about these little patches of cultivated green space that fascinated him.
Then, following the end of a long-term relationship in 2019, curiosity became action. Tom took on an allotment. He arrived to find brambles and bindweed and, by his own admission, had very little idea where to begin. He bought some gardening gloves and got stuck in. It proved to be far more significant than simply picking up a new hobby.
Around this period, Tom had also experienced bereavements within his family. The allotment became somewhere he could switch off, step away from technology and concentrate on the simple physical tasks in front of him.
Tom has spoken openly about the clarity he found through gardening and the contrast between experiencing loss in his personal life and watching new life emerge from the soil. Plants grew, flowers opened and wildlife arrived because of something he had created. As Tom has said of the relationship between gardener and garden: “As much as you're helping your garden, your garden is helping you.”
That experience continues to underpin much of his work today – particularly his advocacy for the mental wellbeing benefits of gardening.
Enter Daisy Desire
Then came lockdown. With people stuck at home and in need of some light relief, Tom decided to combine another of his interests with his newfound love of gardening: drag.
Initially, it was simply meant to be fun. He dressed in drag, took gardening onto social media and the response was almost immediate. Within weeks he was visiting a garden centre in full drag and sharing it online. Daisy Desire – The Drag Queen Gardener – had arrived.
But what began as something to make people smile quickly revealed a much bigger opportunity.
Gardening can still be perceived as traditional, intimidating or something associated with a particular generation. Drag, meanwhile, has a significant younger audience. By putting the two together, Tom realised he could introduce gardening to people who might otherwise scroll straight past traditional horticultural content – while simultaneously introducing a very different character to established gardening audiences. It was unexpected. And that was precisely why it worked.
As Tom explained to the RHS, he loved being able to “shake up the gardening world” and, perhaps more importantly, give younger people permission to see that being different is something to celebrate. His message became bigger than gardening: gardens are for everybody.
From allotment beginner to professional horticulturist
It would have been easy for the character of Daisy to overshadow the gardening, but Tom was determined that it wouldn’t. He took his horticultural education seriously, undertaking RHS training and building a professional career alongside his increasingly public profile.
By 2023, Tom had achieved his RHS Level 2 Practical Gardening qualification and was working for award-winning garden design company Isola, maintaining and installing gardens across the Midlands, Warwickshire and the Cotswolds.
His career has continued to develop. Today, Tom is a professional horticulturist and Senior Gardener at Brownsover Hall Estate, where he has been involved in the restoration and redesign of its historic grounds, including a 19th-century walled garden, formal lawns and woodland. It's quite a progression from staring at allotments through a train window only a few years earlier.
And his approach to gardening remains refreshingly uncomplicated.
He loves the quintessential cottage garden – planting that is abundant, colourful and perhaps a little chaotic. He names Beth Chatto among his horticultural heroes for her pioneering approach to sustainable and drought-tolerant planting, alongside designer Manoj Malde for his bold use of colour.
Perhaps most tellingly, another of his heroes is simply John from his first allotment – the gardener who helped him when he didn't know what he was doing. Because Tom's story isn't really about knowing everything. It's about having the confidence to begin.
Taking Daisy to horticulture's biggest stages
It didn't take long for Daisy Desire to move from social media to some of the biggest stages in British horticulture. Tom has appeared as Daisy at RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Malvern, bringing a visibility to major gardening events that would once have been almost unimaginable.
He has also taken horticulture onto television, including appearances on BBC One's Gardeners' World, Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club and Channel 4's Steph's Packed Lunch, alongside radio, podcasts and public speaking. He has spoken at institutions including the University of Bristol and the V&A Dundee, where he has been involved with its Garden Futures exhibition. In 2025, Gardens Illustrated named him as a gardening talent to watch.
But some of the most important reactions haven't necessarily come from television appearances or prestigious flower shows. After appearing at RHS Hampton Court, Tom said people contacted him to thank him for challenging perceptions and showing that there was a place for them within gardening too.
That's where the real impact of Daisy becomes apparent.
Growing with Pride
Visibility matters. Tom has used his platform to champion LGBTQ+ visibility and rights, speaking openly about his experiences as a queer person and using Daisy to challenge assumptions within what can sometimes appear, from the outside at least, to be a fairly traditional industry. There is something powerful about a drag queen walking confidently through the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
For some it's fun. For others it's fabulous. But for someone who has rarely seen themselves represented within horticulture, it can mean considerably more. Tom has spoken about the number of LGBTQ+ people working within horticulture who historically haven't always been celebrated or visible. His presence helps to change that.
He has also worked with and supported charitable organisations, including horticultural therapy charity Thrive and Greenfingers Charity, while regularly using his platform to highlight gardening's impact on mental health and wellbeing. For Tom, getting more people gardening isn't simply about creating prettier spaces. It's about connection, confidence and giving people somewhere to escape.
Making gardening less intimidating
Perhaps one of Tom's greatest strengths as a communicator is that Daisy takes some of the seriousness out of gardening. Horticulture can be full of Latin names, rules and generations of accumulated knowledge. For someone standing in front of their first empty border – or an allotment filled with brambles and bindweed – that can feel daunting. Tom knows exactly what that feels like because he was that beginner himself.
His philosophy is that failure is simply part of gardening. Plants die. Things don't work. Even experienced gardeners get it wrong. And sometimes the most important piece of gardening advice isn't about pruning, propagation or planting at all. It's to put a chair somewhere with a good view, sit down and enjoy what you've created.
It's an ethos that feels increasingly relevant as gardening faces another challenge Tom frequently discusses: climate change. Changing weather patterns mean gardeners have to adapt, experiment and accept that what worked before may not always work tomorrow.
A Modern Hero of Horticulture
Tom Leonard's horticultural career may have started later than some, but perhaps that's exactly what makes his story so important. He remembers what it feels like to know nothing about gardening. He knows what it feels like to discover that plants can provide somewhere to retreat when life becomes difficult. And he understands what it means to walk into a space where you might not see many people who look, dress or live like you do. Rather than changing himself to fit horticulture, Tom brought all of himself into it.
Daisy Desire might bring the heels, wigs and sequins – or, as she puts it, “the couture to your manure” – but beneath the glamour is an important message. Gardening doesn't belong to one generation, one background, one sexuality or one type of person. It belongs to anyone willing to put their hands in the soil and give it a go. And by standing out rather than trying to fit in, Tom Leonard has helped a new audience see that there might just be a place for them in the garden too.
That's what makes Tom Leonard – and, of course, Daisy Desire – a true Modern Hero of Horticulture.
