WHAT is the most constant activity at Adventure Island? Screaming? Licking ice creams? Health and safety checks?

All close - but it’s the man who said “dead heading the plants’ who should get the cigar.

Many visitors have eyes only for the roller-coasters. Yet it is possible to be a fun-hating, vertigo-suffering Scrooge and still enjoy the Southend fun park.

All you need is a passing interest in either horticulture or free bargains. It is quite possible to view Adventure Island as a garden with some rides attached.

Tucked in a microclimate within a microclimate, the park is a lush plant kingdom that is getting lusher by the year as new specimens are added and older ones continue bustin’ out all over.

Plants romp everywhere, as if they too have come to Adventure island for a bit of action-packed fun - which, to all intents and purposes, they have.

The man who is largely responsible for this floral fairground is Marc Miller, 35, the fun park’s operations director and the third generation of the Miller family to work here.

“Gardening is my hobby, my passion and my relaxation,” Marc says. “I garden at home and I garden at work.”

Adventure Island devotes a big chunk of its operating budget to plants. It employs two more or less full-time gardeners, and also buys in 320 hanging-baskets a year, 160 each for summer and winter seasons.

There is a good practical and business reason for this outlay. Without the plants and trees, Adventure Island would present an almost industrial appearance.

“We have a concrete base running through the park and metal rides. The plants soften things up. They help to stop it being too cold, too stark,” Marc says.

He adds: “Not everyone stops to look at the plants, but they still appreciate them indirectly. The pleasant environment adds to the feelgood effect. And we mix herbs with the display plants, so everyone enjoys the scents.”

There is also a particular concentration of plants around the queuing areas, “so that waiting to get on a ride becomes a positive experience.”

Plants offer all sorts of unexpected benefits. The Archelon ride swings its riders laterally in a dizzying, soaring circuit. This ride is surrounded by trees. “They catch the trainers which get hurled off people’s feet by the force of the ride,” says Marc. “We could use netting, but trees look more natural and work just as well.”

Every plant earns its keep. Yet the dedication poured into gardening the rides goes far beyond any hard-headed drive to keep visitors feeling comfortable and happy.

There is enthusiasm and horticultural inventiveness on display at every turn.

Gardening may be a quieter activity than roller-coasting, but you sense that Marc and his team get as much fun from digging the soil as screaming customers do from hurtling towards it vertically at 50mph.

Seen from this point of view, roller-coasters are just big trellises.

The Green Scream roller coaster is a case in point. Each of the metal support-columns is encased in a different type of climber, with ivies and jasmines predominating.

While humans go up and down on the coaster, the plants merely go up.

“We aim for the top,” says Marc, stating Adventure Island’s broader philosophy as well as the theme of its gardening. Eventually the climbing plants will reach the level of the rails and the whole framework of the ride will be encased in greenery. An informal race seems to be afoot, with different members of the staff supporting different plants.

Many of the plants are common or garden domestic varieties, but there are also exotics, such as the Australian trees that flower several times in the course of the year.

Every growing thing benefits from the surroundings. Southend has a benign meteorological climate all its own, and Adventure Island adds an extra level of hospitality to plants.

It sits in a bowl created by the old boating lake. Facing south across the estuary as it does, it catches the full force of the sun, while the high rides act as windbreaks.

The best way to view the effects of this microclimate is often to look at the simplest plants, such as the red geraniums (strictly, pelargoniums).

One especially spectacular example close to the pier crossover grew from a simple pot-plant.

“The flowers are always getting picked visitors and it always seems to be by an old lady who then puts it in her handbag,” Marc says. “But it’s robust. The more it gets picked, the better it seems to grow.”

The plants also benefit from an unusual source of compost - the used coffee grounds discarded by Adventure Island’s cafes.

“As a business we are environmentally minded and we recycle where we can,” Marc says. “The plants love it.” The coffee grounds become part of a special loam recipe, specially tailored for Adventure Island, comprising sand, peat, chicken feed and bonemeal.

Nature smiles on Adventure Island, but human input also counts. “The first art of true gardening is constant dead-heading of everything,” Marc says. “It keeps the plants vigorous and in bloom.”

He has roped everyone into this activity. Management, engineers, office, cleaning and security staff all remove dead growth as they perambulate the park.

“We want everyone to be proud of and involved in the gardening,” Marc says.

This sense of pride is apparent as soon as you enter the offices building. Framed certificates for gardening awards won over the years, line the walls.

Adventure Island is run from these offices. But there is also a second, alternative nerve centre, invisible even to those who have been visiting the park all their lives.

A gap alongside the water splash takes you along a high-walled path to a narrow courtyard and cluster of outbuildings. This secret place contains the greenhouses.

Here the plants are raised, here they overwinter, and here Marc Miller comes to do a spot of potting and pruning. “If I’ve got a few minutes to spare, I can nip in here, and it’s instantly relaxing,’ he says.

On the other side of the wall you can hear the screams and the sound of sluicing water, regular as the seasons, as visitors descend the water-splash Tidal Wave.

It is the sound of theme parks the world over.

Yet this hidden greenhouse is also crucial to putting the adventure into Adventure Island. All the effort put into greenery is not wasted, as feedback proves.

Marc says: “We get comments all the time on our questionnaires about how great the gardens are. The thing is, people expect to enjoy the rides when they come to a fun park.

They’re pleasantly surprised to find they’ve visited a garden as well.”