Throughout our podcast chats with those working in the horticulture industry in Scotland, we've talked about their varied careers and often asked their advice for those considering entering into the world of professional horticulture. We've pulled out some extracts from the 'Scotland Grows Show' with Kirsty Wilson, George Anderson, Scott Smith, and Stan Green to plant the seed, or help you grow, a career in horticulture.
Kirsty Wilson is known to many as a ‘Beechgrove’ presenter but her day job as Herbaceous Supervisor at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh keeps her very busy. Kirsty’s career has included working at Highgrove Gardens, a year at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, as part of an International Training Programme, and as Glasshouse Supervisor at St Andrew’s Botanic Garden.
Kirsty has also completed a Diploma in Garden Design from RBGE, winning gold for her first show garden, The Coffee Garden, at Gardening Scotland, and has just published her first book, ‘Planting with Nature’, a practical, easy-to-use guide for anyone who wants to boost nature in their patch and make the world a little greener
It's a dream job. It's a a wonderful place to work and a great team, but we work in all conditions, all throughout the whole year, in all weathers. I start very early in the morning. The garden opens at ten, but we have to be in there around quarter past 7, before any of the public come in, to do certain tasks.
I'm a manager at the Botanics, and I have a team of horticultural experts who are assisted by students and volunteers so I manage them. My team are responsible for the garden's herbaceous collection which is quite vast: everything from the Queen Mother's Memorial Garden, to the herbaceous border, to oversee the demonstration garden. We look after the largest collection of plants outside China, six ponds, the biodiversity garden, two native planted areas, and the rain gardens. People always just think I'm deadheading the 165 metre herbaceous border, but we do a lot in the garden so it definitely keeps us busy.
Then I could be giving talks or leading tours in the garden, redesigning areas, updating our database of plant records, or taking photographs. It's quite varied and different every day. I also teach the students on the degree course about herbaceous plants, and I like to research.
I went straight in from school, and I've loved it. I think you've got to do something in life that you enjoy.
You have to have both the academic understanding of horticulture and plants, and as much plant knowledge as possible. When I was a student, you had to learn 25 plants a week, but it's also good to get as much practical knowledge as well. So get out there in the garden, get your hands dirty, and know your plants, know what conditions they survive in.
You can come into horticulture at any level, at any age. There's so many different courses out there, you could do an RHS certificate, you could do a certificate in horticulture, you could go and do a full degree like I did, or you might just want to do a diploma. The Botanics does lots of online learning and HND, HNC, and degree programmes.
The different areas that you can work in is vast. People in my year went on to become plant taxonomists. Many of us went on to be head gardeners, or garden managers now. Others are garden designers. You could be a plant physiologist. You could be teaching about horticulture. You could be working in media.
You don't know where horticulture can take you, but just get as much plant knowledge and as much practical experience as well, and you'll do great. Volunteering is really important too, I did that when I was younger and that really helps get jobs.
I had a fantastic opportunity at 25 to go to America and work in a garden abroad. Take as many opportunities as you can, there are amazing grants for horticulturists to travel the world.
Networking is important too. Get to know people in the industry, ask questions. I think I've always just looked up at people who were higher up in different positions and said how did you get to that position in your career, and how should I do it?
Catch up with the rest of Kirsty's chat in the 'Scotland Grows Show'.
George Anderson is one of Scotland's best-loved gardeners, having accrued over 50 years in the horticulture industry starting as a gardener's boy, and moving through to the Head of School of Horticulture at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh where he remained for almost 38 years.
George has served as President of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, and as Board Member of the RHS, as well as joining the team as a new presenter on the ‘Beechgrove Garden’ in 2005.
There are lots of opportunities. When I started teaching at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, most of the people who were there were being trained for the parks departments. Then from the middle nineties onwards, the people that we were training were going into head gardenerships, the National Trust, and big gardens.
There are so many opportunities, that's what education is about: it’s about opening doors. The one thing that students should do is apply for grants to go and travel to find out what's happening elsewhere. I did that, I went to all these different continents to find out what horticulture was doing in other places - that's important.
Students could end up nowadays being buyers for many of the big supermarkets. What's stopping them from being that? If you've got an ambition to do that, go and do it. We've got people who have become taxonomists, and working in botanic gardens across the world. There are no barriers.
If you want to go into horticulture, then just do it. Don't let anybody ever put you off. You'll not be a millionaire, you will never make hundreds of thousands of pounds, but you will be able to feed yourself, you’ll have a life that is worth living, and you will have great enjoyment in what you do. What else is life about?
I think we're in a reasonably good place. I have noticed a lot of changes in Scottish horticulture. I've seen in my lifetime that the production of vegetables and fruit in Scotland has gone out of all proportion. These two things used to be small holding enterprises, now they are farm enterprises, and there's the machine ready to go with that.
If you look at daffodil bulb production, for example, which happens across the whole of Aberdeenshire, and down into Angus, that’s only there because these fellows used to grow potatoes and still grow potatoes but the two crops are complementary to the same equipment, just at a different time of year. It's interesting how these things have have changed. I think that horticulture in Scotland has got a huge future.
Catch up with the rest of George’s chat in the 'Scotland Grows Show'.
Scott Smith came to 'Beechgrove' as head gardener after head gardener positions in Pitmedden Garden and Haddo House for the National Trust for Scotland. Horticulture though was not his first career choice.
I went to university and did cybersecurity so very, very different from what I'm doing now. It just wasn't for me, I didn't enjoy it whatsoever, so I dropped out of the course because I knew that's not what I was going to do with my life.
I got lucky because I left and just took the very first job I could get my hands on at the job centre which happened to be a seasonal gardener for the National Trust for Scotland at Kellie Castle. The interview went horribly, and I did not expect to hear anything back, but it turned out I was the only person to show up for interview. I got the job, and I fell in love with gardening from there, and everything just snowballed.
I went from a seasonal there and then got an apprenticeship at Pittmedden Garden and Crathes Castle. I went on to be a full time gardener, then worked on a private estate, and then got the Head Gardener position at Pitmedden Garden and Haddo House which I did for 4 years.
I was running a roster of around 40 people - permanent staff, seasonal staff, volunteers - liaising with property managers, events people, running different sets of budgets, different gardens, different criteria. It was very hard work, but it was rewarding.
Absolutely, it’s a dream come true, something I never thought I would do. I watched ‘Beechgrove’ for years, I was always a fan of it, I liked their down to earth approach. I applied, got an interview, I think there were 9 people interviewed in total, and I was very, very pleased to have got the job. It's been absolutely brilliant, I really enjoyed it there.
Catch up with the rest of Scott’s chat in the 'Scotland Grows Show'.
Stan Green is Managing Director of Growforth Ltd., the wholesale nursery he established in 1990. Stan has had a long and illustrious career in Scottish horticulture, starting behind the scenes at Beechgrove Garden, serving as President and Chairman of the Horticulture Trades Association UK Board, and awarded the Scottish Horticultural Silver Medal for contributions to Horticulture.
He is currently involved in representing horticulture as Chairman of the HTA Scotland Policy Development Group, working with Scottish ministers to develop the ‘Scottish Environmental Horticulture Growth Strategy’ which you can read about in the June issue, issue 18, of Scotland Grows magazine.
My mum was very much into nature and I was a slightly geeky kid at school who could identify a tree in the winter by its shape. I thought all kids were like that; you went for a walk and got to know things like the shape of a beech tree.
I wasn't from farming stocks so when I did my degree in agriculture, I thought, where am I going to go? With horticulture, there were ways in. I started my own business in the early 1990s, so a love of nature transposed into a love of plants. And then the more I got to know about what gardens and gardening meant for people, the more I got interested and taken by it - and that has been a constant.
I have absolutely no regrets about what I'm doing and the industry I'm in. It's a fascinating industry, with lots and lots of lovely people, but what a product, it's just brilliant. When you see what difference plants can make to people, that's a huge motivator.
Keep the doors open! There are some head gardeners or people that have come into gardening who have done degrees in geography or art, not specifically horticulture, but there's been a land-based element, or an artistic flare, or a colour, or a feeling, or whatever it might be - that’s what horticulture is really good at, it’s just about mixing your palate. It's about opening people's minds up to what horticulture can deliver, how it can deliver. Don't close off your mind as to what you think horticulture might be. Knock on many doors. And even if you don't start in horticulture, it might be the end game for you.
Catch up with the rest of Stan's chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
You can find all episodes in series 1, 2 and 3 of the Scotland Grows Show on all good podcast platforms. We'd love to get your feedback once you've listened, and would be so appreciative if you left us a review or rating on your podcast platform of choice.