People are often rather funny, in a slightly odd sort of way-which isn’t always about bad thing, but often doesn’t help in certain situations. For some, the idea of becoming a horticulturist is so different in their head compared to reality that when they start working it is a shock. In some ways, I can understand this, as most people only have pottering around in their own garden on a weekend as a reference so the job is ‘easy’.

The differences between working as a horticulturist and pottering in a garden is quite a long list and includes the following:

• You can’t stop after an hours work because you have worked up a bit of a sweat when you are working-you have to continue working in a bit of a sweat for, in my case, eight hours a day (but I do get lunch in that).
• In your own garden you can do as you please with the types of plants you have and how you arrange them, when you do your gardening and when you decide that on any given day you really can’t be bothered! Life as a horticulturist is not like that-in a lot of ways, it’s the opposite, even if you advise to the contrary! Just don’t get me started on that part.
• When working in the industry, you often get other jobs that are not anything to do with plants-since I started working within it, I have had to spend time clearing out drug dens, spend a day a week cleaning up litter in council parks and generally cleaning up litter that is left on the ground. In my last two companies (a local council and a private landscaping company working at various sites with actual cleaners), there have been either bin men and/or cleaners that could, and should, clean litter but are incompetent (through management ideas or through their own inability) so we often do it unfortunately.
• The biggest difference in many ways is the pressure to get a job done and to get it done yesterday. They also underestimate how long things can take to do. This can also be tied to how much people are willing to pay for your services. In the end it all boils down to the same thing-you have to get the job done to a high standard (at least where I work) and get it done as quick as possible! Therefore you are on the go all day with little time to take it easy, especially in the summer months.
• The pay rates in the industry are not that great at all, even when qualified so the hard work doesn’t always get rewarded.
• There are also plenty of cowboys floating around who will happily have a race to the bottom cost wise, meaning the true value of a qualified horticulturist isn’t clearly seen a lot of the time.

This makes it hard for people who have little to no experience of the work to stay working in the industry. You will be sore and ache in all sorts of places you never knew existed, just to rinse and repeat every work day. You really have to decide to want to do the work because you enjoy it-which can be hard, I’ll admit.

This leads onto what can be done to change things? That’s a hard one in today’s world as cost is an increasing factor in everything we all do. Try to save money on staff means you reduce the quality of those staff employed and the vicious circle continues downward in perceived value. It’s only by actually appreciating quality, and paying for it, will things improve:

• Get better people to work and stay in the industry
• Spend more money on educating kids in schools about growing food and other plants, and why that’s important, will increase the understanding and appreciation of what people like me do
• Educating adults is also important. Through no fault of their own, many, if not most, adults (at least in western countries) seem to have little connection to gardening and growing things. This will be hard to achieve, but being able to engage all adult age ranges (not just kids) within a population on all things related to plants is vital-not just to flog horticulture jobs or products but to improve lives in all sorts of ways is important.

Change won’t come easy, but I do think it can be done, if the information is accessible to people. While for some it is through radio or podcasts, others it’s the television or streaming services, some the written word and for others it is actually having a go at an organised event that can be the catalyst for an interest in all things plants. It also has to be something that can be easy on time as people are busy, often too busy!