If you work in hort

[SamphireAndSeaGlass]

What's your job title and what is your role like? 🌱🌱🌱

Are you considering making the move, @SamphireAndSeaGlass ?

I'm a professional gardener and self-employed. Always been very keen so got a qualification and started gardening as a job in 2010. I got some business cards done up then looked on Google Earth and, in spring, put cards through the doors of properties I liked the look of. People started to call surprisingly quickly and I never looked back. I now have a main client - country house, huge garden - and a number of smaller ones in the town where I live and in surrounding villages.

I love what I do and enjoy tending the gardens of the people I work for. Many are elderly and they like a woman as a gardener, partly because I'm a woman, but also because they can talk to me, which they do a great deal of. We'll often work side by side, talking as we go, about plants and life. I've worked for a lot of women who are widows and they used to garden with their husbands but are now finding it all too much. Most of them have been lovely and it's unlikely our paths would have crossed was it not for their gardens. They've told me so many amazing stories of life, love and sorrow.

Working with older people, or those who live alone, there's also a sort of pastoral care role, people tell me their big news and sometimes their secrets, they might ask for help to get assisted bin collections or picking up prescriptions. There have been times when, instead of gardening, I've been paid to pick someone up from hospital or take them to an appointment. Sometimes people just want company as much as a gardener.

All in all it's a Dream World and one I'm happy to be in.

Another thing about the job is that, whilst you follow the lead of the plants, there are often random things that you get asked to do, like cleaning out 25 nesting boxes, moving worms and caterpillars to a safer place, checking if there's a barn owl in that shed with a missing pane of glass (long story, that one), sorting 200 terracotta pots into sizes, or a sudden request that you create a willow arch. It's all good.

Your job sounds dreamy!

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast sounds great. Which qualification did you take? I keep mulling over whether I could do similar but am not sure which qualification would be best?

FACTS and BASIS are usually the two most talked about.

Ah. I was thinking more City & Guilds or RHS?!

I did the RHS one but that was a long time ago now and I don't know what it's like these days.

Eh? For horticulture? FACTS and BASIS are for agronomists, farm managers and suchlike. I suppose you might get those quals if you work in large scale commercial/production horticulture. Most people interested in becoming a professional gardener, either employed or self-employed, will start with RHS level 2 or 3 and maybe go on to a foundation degree, maybe the MHort if you want to get into management.

Hello! I'm in horticulture. I don't have a job title as such. A couple of years ago I hit a real mental health low patch, and I was struggling with my previous career. My brother is a gardener and suggested I go ask the local nursery for a temporary job to give me something I could focus on. So I stumbled in (with my four-year-old daughter holding my hand). I had shopped there for years and knew the owner by sight. He offered me a job on the spot (and only remembered to ask salient details like my name, and why I wanted to work there, afterwards!).

At first I did three short days but now I am full time and quite often clock up a 40+ hour week. There is a large-ish team (three men and 8 women regulars, plus occasional staff, though most of us don't work full time). We do everything from weeding polytunnels, planting seeds or pricking out seedlings, to potting up rootball stock, planting hedges or pruning trees. It can be very heavy work and I am usually covered in mud and shattered, but I absolutely love it and find it really rewarding. It's amazing seeing stock through from the early stages to sale, and seeing the same people coming in to talk about their gardens, and so on.

I thought about qualifications, but I think I learn so much on the job, it's not really worth it for me (I'd only want the qualification in order to say I had one, if you see what I mean).

I'm sure it would depend on what nurseries are near you, but I'd really advocate for going and asking if you can do some work (NB: probably rocking up with a child, cheerfully admitting you're in the throws of a MH breakdown and want a temp job, not the best approach ...). It's so useful getting contacts and you will find you could easily pick up gardening jobs just from talking to people. I don't, but most of my colleagues do - having the nursery to use as a base is invaluable.

@SarahAndQuack I think my mental health was at its best when I was gardening - yes, the job had its challenges but being out in fresh air and seeing your plants thriving is good for the soul. I still get outside regularly in my current role but it’s not a practical gardening job, so not quite the same. I think your advice is spot on; quals are good if you want to work in a botanic garden or for the RHS, but learning on the job is best.

Interesting that the OP hasn’t been back though. Gathering data for an article perhaps?

I'm also interested in this. DS is wanting to do the city & guilds horticulture level 3 qualification after he finishes GCSEs.
Anyone got any recent experience of what it's like?
His plan is to do that & then the city & guilds conservation level 3

He wants to go into conservation/ecology type jobs.

@fishfingersandtoes hopefully someone will point you in the right direction. Sorry I can't help.

Re gardening and mental health, goodness yes, what a difference it can make.

I've thought about this a lot. Gardening as a job gives you a great deal of thinking space and time to mull things over, which is a real blessing if you've got a lot of stuff roiling about in your head. For me, at any rate, I find that if something from the past is bothering me I can work off the angst by, for example, vigorously cutting back geraniums using a sickle or doing pruning jobs that require a good bit of energy. It's a 'safe space' where you can completely destroy something - rip out all the plants in one area - and then re-build it into something new and beautiful, and no one gets hurt. Then, come the new season, your work is revealed in all its glory. It's a kind of magic, isn't it. Compare being able to do that with being stuck in an office or a customer-facing role, where the work is narrow and very defined, and you realise just how liberating a job like gardening can be. It gives you a good measure of control in life and that can have a huge impact on mental health.

It also occurs to me that, given the length of human existence, it's not really that long since humans were wild and free, with the freedom to move about at will and just do what needs doing. Gardening, for me, as about as close as I can get to that, so I'll take it.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast - so agree with you!

@fishfingersandtoes - I've not got direct experience, but at work we have lots of students from the local FE college doing various qualifications including levels 1-3 horticulture and similar courses. They seem to do an awful lot about lawn care! Most if not all of them are looking to go into landscaping/working for landscapers; a few expect to set up as jobbing gardeners. But that may be to do with the way our specific college operates, or the kinds of students who come to us to do placements; I don't know.

@fishfingersandtoes I now work in ecology/conservation and I wouldn't say a horticulture qualification is particularly useful. He would be better looking at a land management qualification such as a national diploma which will give him those practical skills, and then look at being a live-in volunteer to put them into practice. The RSPB and some wildlife trusts offer residential volunteer opportunities on their reserves - have a look at their websites and the Countryside Jobs Service and Environment Jobs to get an idea of what's available and what they are looking for. It's a great way to learn about surveying and monitoring wildlife, learning botanical skills and so on as well as the land management stuff like fencing and scrub clearance etc, and the reserves are often in beautiful places. There are always non-residential opportunities too.

This is the kind of course I am thinking of (lots of agricultural colleges offer this type of course):
www.sparsholt.ac.uk/courses/land-and-wildlife-management-level-3/

Thanks @twobluechickens & @SarahAndQuack I'll chat more about this with him. The reason for beginning with horticulture rather than the conservation qualification is because the conservation one is quite far away and he'll need to learn to drive to get there.
@twobluechickens that's really interesting about the live in volunteer work. I'll look into that with him.
Currently trying to get him through GCSEs which is like wafting a feather, he's bright but not keen to revise!

Depending on where you are, some of the bigger gardens RHS, various botanic gardens etc) and places like the National Trust offer apprenticeships. Worth looking into those too, you can definitely do it post-GCSE, it's not just over 18s.

Ooh, yes! There was a fascinating NT apprenticeship near me a few months ago - working on a historic site and creating a period garden. It looked amazing. Definitely worth a look.

I'm very similar to @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast.

I did an rhs qualification and then set out on my own. Been doing it for about 5 years now. I work about 15 hours per week, which is perfect for me. I predominantly have weekly / fortnightly clients, and occasional one offs. Most clients are elderly, and without fail, all of them love their gardens. It's definitely an advantage being female, and I would say I've made some lovely friends. I never, ever advertise. Word of mouth is sufficient.

Best thing about my job - people
Worst thing about my job - weather

@TaaLaa how refreshing to read of someone else who has chosen the same road, I rarely come across other women gardeners like me. Not that surprising given that we're self-employed and out there working, but pleasing nonetheless.

Agree about the best/worst things, especially the weather. That's the biggest challenge. We've gone from endless rain to everything being frozen solid in short order and that doesn't make for easy work.

Thank you so much for all of your answers. Fascinating 💚

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast looking on google earth is genius.
Yes I'm considering making a change.

@SarahAndQuack sounds like a great place to learn!

@TaaLaa was wondering about the weather. There's something really enticing about being out in all seasons to me though after being stuck on a screen for years. I guess you just invest in good warm layers?!