Tags
botanic gardens, career, Chatsworth House, HBGBS, horticultural, horticulture, Tresco Abbey Gardens, WFGA
How to become a gardener for a living - pipe optional.
I was listening to a radio programme a while ago that was discussing careers with people looking to retrain and in their research it seemed most people’s dream job would involve working outside, with gardening being at the top of the list. Oddly though, horticulture doesn’t seem to appeal as a career to school leavers whether it is the practical route or studying it academically. Did you know that there are now no British universities offering botany as a degree course?
Maybe it is because the industry is known for not being well-paid. Maybe it is the working outdoors in all weathers. One of the most common routes into horticulture used to be through the parks’ departments of the local councils but a lot of what my local council does that classes as horticulture involves butchering trees and shrubs. Why spend time pruning a plant properly when a piece of machinery can reduce it’s size in seconds? I did know someone who worked for a council in the parks department and he said very few of those he worked with had a love of plants. It was just another job and purely about keeping things tidy.
However, in the last 10 – 15 years 30, 40 and 50 somethings have been leaving their jobs for a life in horticulture. Fed up of commuting and being stuck in an office staring at a computer screen many have turned to gardening for a new, more fulfilling career.
It’s not so easy moving from one career to another though, later in life when you are more likely to have commitments such as a family and mortgage but there are organisations out there that can help if you are thinking that a gardener’s life might be for you.
The Historic and Botanic Garden Bursary Scheme otherwise known as the Hee bee gee bees offers placements at a range of historic and botanic gardens, giving people the opportunity to gain practical skills, as well as theoretical knowledge. The placement lasts a year and during this time participants are expected to keep a diary recording the tasks they carry out, taking photos and making drawings so that you can use it for reference in the future. There are plant identification tests over the course of the placement, along with 4 projects relating to the particular garden you are working in. The placement is paid but this and other terms and conditions are specific to the individual host gardens.
There are 19 participating gardens for the current year 2011-2012 which include Tresco Abbey Gardens, Chatsworth House, Crathes Castle and the National Botanic Gardens of Wales. It is possible to read case studies on the HBGBS website of current and past students.
There is also the Women’s Farm and Garden Association which offers a Women Returners to Amenity Gardening scheme (WRAGS). Aimed at women seeking a career in horticulture it was established in 1990 by the association to bridge the gap between the high numbers taking theoretical horticultural courses and the small number able to access practical training. The scheme offers 15 hours a week in a selected garden supervised by the owner or head gardener. An allowance is paid to the trainee but transport costs, tax and NI contributions must be met by the trainee.
The HBGBS will shortly be announcing the host gardens for the next round of placements starting later this year, so for more information go to HBGBS.
More info on WRAGS can be found at WFGA.
It’s a shame that more school leavers aren’t interested in horticulture. I think it’s probably down to the fact that kids these days don’t see their parents garden like they used to. Nowadays, front gardens are paved to allow more drive space and back gardens are laid to shingle to keep the work down. Most gardens are the size of a postage stamp too. When my daughter started secondary school, she put her name down to go to Gardening Club, but it was cancelled before it even got going as there were only two kids who were interested out of two year groups, each year group consisting of 300 students. Kids don’t even know where their food comes from nowadays. When my daughter was at junior school, she was taken to a commercial organic farm which run school visits. They had four trips over the course of the growing season so that they could witness the seeds they had sown on their first visit grow and be harvested on their last visit. More trips like these should be offered to school children. It’s the same with anything, you have to catch them young, but there isn’t enough education given to them at a young age.
I completely agree Jo, my school had a greenhouse built onto the school and a space given over to growing plants. In the whole 7 years I was there I never once got to go in the greenhouse and I never saw anyone else use it and the only plants that ever grew in garden were weeds. It was very sad.
There does seem to be a lot of people studying garden design rather than horticulture although the two go hand in hand. Garden Design is potentially better paid and anyone can call themselves a garden designer but not all have a horticultural qualification. Gardeners are poorly paid on the whole and have to be fit. Not all my professional gardening friends get sick pay. One even had a terrible struggle to get a loo and hot water installed. Historically gardeners were part of the servant class and many are still treated as such….
But in the right place and the right circumstances I would think it would be hard to beat for job satisfaction.
I do like a post that is food for thought!
You’re right about the career-changers – I’m studying for a Level 3 RHS Certificate and at 38 am in the younger half of the class. It’s definitely a quality of life decision in a lot of cases. Horticulture is quite a specialist course – as a school leaver you’d have to be lucky to live near a college that offers it.
Hi Jules,
I did my RHS level 3 a couple of years ago when I was in my early thirties and I was the youngest in the class. Good luck with the course.
The trouble with being a professional gardener is that it would spoil my enjoyment of gardening at home. After doing it all day, the last thing you want to do is start all over again at home. It is like the painter and decorator whose own house badly needs painting. But it is good that for those who want too that there are plenty of opportunities now.
I do know what you mean Elaine. There were times when I was doing my RHS courses and felt like it was sucking the enjoyment out of gardening.
I’d heard of the WRAGS but not the HBGBS. I must admit I quite fancy being outdoors gardening for 2 days of the week as an antidote to the day job. I have no idea what gardeners are paid; it’s probably not much when compared to what some people earn in London – but who has the more stressful life? As the grow-your-own trend continues, and farmer’s markets gain in popularity, I think more people are beginning to appreciate the pleasures of a simpler life. (And not before time, in my humble opinion!) I’m very pleased to have read this post, it just keeps these wonderful opportunities at the forefront of my mind. Nice one, Welly!
Would this training be what Bertie is doing at Hidcote?
I don’t think Hidcote was one of the places offering a placement this year. It is a National Trust property and they have their own trainee schemes so maybe it is one of those.
I think it is a sign of the times that schools these days are so frightened of failing that they stick rigidly to the curriculum and there is no time for the children to learn gardening, unless it is at playtime or after school. Although now that I think about it, there is a school that has its own Orchid Society that exhibit at Chelsea! I agree with the others that wages have a lot to do with it, as we get older we realise that money isn’t everything, quality of life is far more important, hence so many retraining in horticulture. Good post WW!
The Hee Bee Gee Bees made me chuckle :) On a serious note having worked with school leavers for years providing careers advice, I would say that young people are often interested in horticulture, once they are made aware of such opportunities. Sadly for some of them especially in city/urban environments there is sometimes limited scope for them to enter related further education/ training. Our school leavers had a 30 mile plus journey to the nearest college offering horticultural courses and there was no available assistance with travel expenses. Many families could simply not afford the cost. I could bat for England on this subject but will refrain! A most thoughtful post WW.
Anna, My local horticulture college stopped offering a lot of courses. The nearest other places were in west or north Wales. They had also let all the glasshouses fall into disrepair. It had had a small garden centre but this closed down too. It was a very sad place when I left, a place with huge potential but nobody willing to breathe life back into it. It’s not just horticulture that is suffering though, I know someone who would like to study animal care but the college fees are very expensive, prohibitively so. It is very sad that a generation of young people are being increasingly excluded from education opportunities because of lack of funds.
I wonder what the long term effects are going to be of the changes in Parks Departments and Councils and the attendant reduction in proper practical hands-on horticultural training. Not good, I imagine. Great though the hee bee gee bee (what a great nickname!) and WRAGS schemes are, they are quite small, and it seems so wrong that young people can go off and study media studies and massage at University really easily but horticultural college places are so limited. A couple of friends of mine used to run a gardening business, and found that people were extremely reluctant to pay as much to have their gardens sorted and managed as they would to have their house decorated. How many jobs for gardeners are there out there currently, I wonder? There are only so many large private gardens and National Trust properties, and since Councils do indeed tend to employ people to wield heavy machinery rather than gardeners (my friends had council contracts too, and had stories to make your hair curl), it is hard to see how things are going to change other than for the few motivated older people who want to switch lifestyle. Sorry, it all seems rather depressing to me.
I started my own gardening business and I have found plenty of work, however I in a fairly affluent part of England. I trained in Agriculture so I do not have much knowledge of horticulture. This does not seem to matter to most people, I tend to mow lawns, and cut hedges and do weeding and planting.
I’ve been doing it 2 years but I have to say I am already getting fed up of the weather as well as some of the monotonous jobs. I can earn good money but you have to remember that I will only earn a good living for a good 7 months of the year. While working outside suits me, even when its freezing cold, there are some less appealing aspects to the job. Several of my customers have dogs, so I often have to shovel their mess before mowing. I also have a customer with several cats, that is even worse as they use the flower beds as a toilet. So you can be weeding and suddenly find a nasty surprise in the flower bed.
I also often have to work against my principles, I am interested in organic practices as well as permaculture and wildlife friendly gardening. Sometimes people want their garden so neat and tidy and it goes against what I know is more beneficial for insects and birds. But I have to keep my opinions to myself as they are paying customers.
Hi Peter, I sympathise with the more mundane aspects of your job and the downright disgusting. I think I’d have to ask the client to pick up the dog mess. It really is disgusting that you should have to do that. As for cat mess. I have 3 or 4 neighbours’ cats using my garden as a toilet and it’s awful. I agree it must be difficult having to put your own principles on hold. I garden organically and would hate to have to use chemicals.