I was fortunate enough to have our intern working with me today again on the Cottage Garden, so the two of us managed to go through a lot of weeding and we took up two bigger tasks that had revealed themselves by spending more time in the area: tender Pelargonium needed lifting and the existing patch of raspberries (Rubus idaeus) considerable downsizing (and possibly moving).

As this time of the year is just late for propagation, we set to work on the numerous specimen of Pelargonium without delay, even if some of them were still trying to flower. All the tender Pelargonium planted in the area (and some of the hardy ones too) have scented foliage, from citrussy to rose scented through a minty aroma: quite a riot of scent, it was, digging them out!

We got cultivars:

• ‘Citronella’
• ‘Attar of Roses’
• ‘Lady Plymouth’
• ‘Blandfordianum’
• ‘Frensham’
• ‘Sweet Mimosa’
• ‘Lord Bude’

The options were either potting them up for overwintering and take cuttings in the spring, or risking with cuttings straight away, given that the season has been mild and Pelargonium take easily. The Prop Department – which are going to take care of them – suggested that we go for an intermediate solution: taking cuttings straight away, while overwintering some plants in case they won’t take.

Of the seven cultivars we digged out, next year I will need five plants each for six of them, and ten plants of the other one, P. ‘Lord Bude’, the only one with darker flowers. So we took in two-three plants of each cultivar, a couple more of ‘Lord Bude’, and composted the rest. My lovely colleague in the Prop Department helped me with the paperwork required, and now it’s just a matter for me to wait for spring.

Before the day came to an end, we also managed to remove half the raspberries (I will later move the other half, I think I will train them on a post and wire frame) and to tidy up the whole area, thanks also to the help of the manager that joined us later in the day. A good day’s work.

After tidying up

PS And it was perfect timing as we got frost overnight!

The frosty morning after

Today it was the first time I ever managed to work in the veg garden and I was so excited!

In the flurry of activities that the start of our traineeship was, combined with Garden events, staff leave and who knows what else (time flies here!) I never managed to get to work in the veg garden. I had heard so much about it and the specialist colleague that works there and how the area is popular with the public.

The reason why I was specially excited was because I’m so keen to learn about vegetable growing, my passion. I am the first trainee in the Fruit, Veg and Herbs Department that is not just working on Fruit and I am determined to make the most of it, so much so I’m planning to carry out my Horticultural Management project on veg growing (I’ll write more on this later on).

And the public is as excited as I am, it would appear, to learn more about growing veg, in fact the staff and volunteers in the area receive some 30-50 questions a day, from spring to autumn when most of the crops are growing!

The bright seed of runner bean ‘Hestia’

I was there just clearing spent crops (namely beans and brassicas) yet received my fair share of questions, on the unusual plants they could spot (for example achocha – Cyclanthera sp, a crop I know very well as I’ve been growing and eating it for last three years) and on our plans for the beds that I was clearing.

Most of my colleagues do love to interact with the public and talk to people about crops and cultivation details: the specialist in the veg garden is particularly well endowed for the role as he used to be in catering in a previous career, so he can not only answer horticultural question, but culinary ones too!

But that is a very special brand of gardener that they are here, as in my experience there is a huge gap between those that like interaction and those that find it uncomfortable to receive questions on biocultural information. Some may well like to write about growing plants, but answering live questions is a totally different matter – I was reading about that just recently, as someone published a case study on their dissertation about growing and sharing information about new crops.

I have received a range of questions myself since I joined the garden, and it is quite an art to abstract yourself from whatever activity you might be busy on and figure out – off the cuff – what a question thrown at you is really aimed at knowing, putting it into context with counterquestions, and finding a suitable answer. I have done it in the past when – as a student – I worked in a customer service role, so I can see how it becomes easier with experience. But, as the relatively novice gardener I am, sometimes I am still thrown off. But it feels really good when you can provide helpful information, it does add to the job’s pride.

One question that made me feel like that was about lichens on apple trees: are they a problem? I  knew the answer as we had discussed this last year when restoring orchards. Lichens cause no problem to the tree, but they are an indication that the plant is not growing fast, as they take time to establish. Apple trees that do not have some good vegetative growth tend to produce worse fruit with time, so if you see lichens on your apple trees when you want them to fruit, it’s time for a good pruning session!

Some other questions result in you learning something new, like when I was asked: can one train peaches and apricots as cordons to have more space in the garden? Never had I thought about that, but luckily I had our fruit specialist on hand to ask: the answer was, unfortunately for the visitors’ plans, no. And the reason why, is that peaches do not fruit on spurs, so you need whole branches and they cannot be restricted much, hence the fan shape they are usually trained as. In the case of apricots, it’s the fact that there is no suitable dwarfing stock to grow them on, and as a plant they are too vigorous for cordons.

Today new staff from all the gardens (Wisley, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor and Harlow Carr) was brought together for induction day.

I have been through a good few induction days in my career, and that corporate self-congratulatory feel about a lot of them has made me less than excited to attend such events. But I did enjoy today: the atmosphere was genuinely friendly and pleasant, and, despite this being an exciting time for the Society, as £100 m of investment over the next 10 years has been approved by the board and the projects linked to it (more details of which are spelled out in the Annual Report) are underway already, I liked the way the Director General was rather down-to-earth about it.

I must say that to me as new entrant in horticulture, who’s finding it hard to be self-sufficient on the average salary, the RHS attempt to improve the conditions of horticulturists is particularly appealing. It’s rather appalling that we do not pay a living wage to people that produce our food, but the priviledge to make ends meet should extend to the competent gardeners that offer us the pleasure of beautiful gardens too! It is a complex and political issue to address, I know.

It is also very important for me that the RHS (of which I am a member as well as a trainee!) is investing in research and education, as we know still so relatively little about plants, and we definitely need to bring horticulture into an era where being kind to the environment we live in and that keeps us healthy is a priority, while pressures are strong in all sorts of contrary directions.
My hope is the Society will move towards establishing themselves as the world leaders of the new gardening that they started promoting back in 2007 with Matthew Wilson’s book, which I recently started reading. I have spotted signs of development: possibly a less complex, although certainly as highly political, issue to address…

There is a lot in the RHS mission statement and guiding principles that I share and feel strongly about, and I was really impressed by the genuine effort to give visitors a pleasant experience in the gardens, and to bring gardening to an increasingly wider audience, beyond the traditional Flower Shows’.

I myself first became familiar with the society at Hampton Court Flower Show years ago, when I visited as a tourist from Italy. Once my interest in horticulture developed, I decided to take advantage of the RHS qualifications, and finally applied for this traineeship, so my horticultural experience is tightly interwoven with the Society!  Curiously, though, I only visited the Wisley Garden for the first time in February 2013, on a spare afternoon after my RHS qualifications’ exams – that probably makes me an unusual member. That visit was however soon followed by one to Hyde Hall: I was hooked – I grew a thing for labelled gardens!

But there is so much more to the Society, for example the plentiful information available online on plants and their cultivation (which I always find myself consulting as a first point of reference, even though I might then disagree with it and not follow it). And a fantastic member service which I somehow never realised was available: the opportunity to contact the Society to identify plants, pests and diseases and ask for advice!

RHS numbers are of course impressive, and we were given some at our induction (but, as the RHS is a charity, all the information is public, and there’s a lot about numbers in the Annual Review). RHS Garden Wisley on its own is
a total of 600 acres in size, which gather together 27k taxa of
cultivated plants and 40 champion trees. 41k kids visit the Garden on
formal school visits every year, while the total visitors of RHS Gardens
across the country (which between them host 14 National Collections)
add up to 1.7 m.

Now, now look who’s sounding that tad self-congratulatory… 🙂

But there is indeed a lot to improve in the horticulture industry, in my opinion, not only in how manpower is valued (or not so much) but also in terms of :

• resources and waste (in a job I had over the summer I was shocked to experience how much goes into raising bedding plants)
• cultivation practices and, in particular, use and misuse of chemicals.

It will be fascinating for me to observe how – as it expands, acquiring new and urban gardens, widening its membership and the education opportunities it offers, grounded in its own scientific research – the Society is going to apply its influence for positive change … which, I am assuming, will offer me and other new entrants better prospects of making a decent living, with a light conscience and a lighter doctor’s bill, in a chemically wiser and environmentally sounder industry…