The Gardener's Royal Plot

This is Adams's forte, says Andrew Bunting, curator of the Scott Arboretum. "A cottagey feeling but having tidy maintenance, which if you can pull it off makes for a very effective garden, and that's sort of the hardest type of gardening," says Bunting, who hired Adams as a curatorial intern in 1993.

Adams is not so much panicked by the royal visit as energized by it. "Jim feeds on that," says Bunting. "I don't think he's ever daunted."

In fact, the preparations are merely a blip in a much grander five-year plan that Adams has forged for the revitalization of a sprawling landscape. He takes pains not to criticize the work of his predecessors. Bunting says that "pre-Jim, it's a complete hodgepodge of not very well-executed gardens. You put them all together and it makes for an even more disjointed garden."

Adams spent much of his early tenure clearing out overgrown vegetation, including a far end of the property featuring a bamboo screen that had grown to cover a quarter of an acre. He has proven, if nothing else, that both running bamboo and ivy that is smothering old trees can be conquered if you have the will.

There is something ironic about Adams asking the Mannings if he can rid them of their English ivy, but this dull and old-fashioned ground cover has morphed into a monster in the mid-Atlantic region, as the birds spread the seeds into woodland where the vine becomes a serious weed. "The ambassador and his wife are very supportive of not displaying plants that are invasive," says Adams, who has also weaned the garden off its chemical dependencies. The ivy took over a secluded corner of the grounds dominated by four tulip poplars, now relieved of their ivy mantles. Adams waits for the severed, dead vines to fall on their own as he plans the creation of a natural-looking woodland glade of bulbs and perennials. Nearby, beneath a row of old yews, he plans a planting of snowdrops, cyclamen and other spring ephemerals.

On the west side of the residence, a formal path ends in a rose garden that Adams intends to replace with a decorative herb and vegetable garden. Everywhere he looks, he sees new opportunities. The dogwood allee needs freshening with a ground cover, a path needs to be established around the periphery of the property to bring some coherent circulation, a fishpond needs major reworking.

You get a sense that if Adams had a fairy-tale choice between being a prince and a gardener, the decision would be easy. At the arboretum he worked for the federal government; now he works for the British government and, by extension, for the queen. "I guess I have the best job in that government," he said. "I get to garden."

Sometimes with the boss.