Advice on getting into a horticulture career.

[Wardy940]

Hi there,

I'm currently working as a landscape gardener but there is too much of a focus on hard landscaping for my liking. I'm not learning anything new on the gardening/horticulture side now, so I'm wondering where the best place is for me to start getting some experience in the horticulture sector.

There's a garden center looking for a plant area assistant at the moment, is it worth going for that? Or is there something better I could look for. I am doing a RHS level 2 in horticulture right now as well.

 

[Marck]

Hello, and welcome to the Forums.

I think working for a while in a nursery could be fine way to learn more about garden plants. Both full-service retail garden centers and wholesale growers and distributors, can offer you a wide range of educational experiences. Knowing about the variety and the needs and possibilities of plants in a landscape will put you among an elite minority of garden designers. Too many of which select their plants from a short, dull list and then treat them like little more than static, unchanging objects in their designs.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Hello, and welcome to the Forums.

I think working for a while in a nursery could be fine way to learn more about garden plants. Both full-service retail garden centers and wholesale growers and distributors, can offer you a wide range of educational experiences. Knowing about the variety and the needs and possibilities of plants in a landscape will put you among an elite minority of garden designers. Too many of which select their plants from a short, dull list and then treat them like little more than static, unchanging objects in their designs.

You are too modest!

 

[Wardy940]

Yeah, it wouldn't be forever. Just to get some more experience. It's a shame that we don't do much garden planning involving plants at my place currently. I literally spend my summer cutting grass and trimming hedges and the winter doing patios and driveways.

Unless I want to learn hard landscaping, which I don't, there's nowhere to go with the job now. I think I'll apply for it. With not driving, I don't have much choice where I live. I'd prefer like a nursery rather than a garden centre, to be honest.