Professor Stephen Hopper, a UWA Botanist, has been appointed as the new Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. The largest botanical garden in the world harbouring more than 30,000 different living plants and more than 7 million preserved in the garden's herbarium. It also employs more than 650 scientists and many other staff needed to attend to its daily requirements.

His appointment is the next step of a very distinguished career including the foundation professor of plant conservation biology at the University of WA and also the CEO of the WA Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority.

I'm just reporting this because he's an Aussie - and even more than that he's West Aussie. Good to see we're showing the world how to garden and here's another man that wouldn't approve of gnomes. So I hope Kew dosn't have any - they won't last.

You can read the detail here.