Article published in The Wiltshire Gardens Trust Journal 

For the next three years I will be juggling my work as a freelance horticulturalist with a busy family life whilst studying for The Royal Horticultural Society Master of Horticulture course. When I tell people that I am studying towards the MHort - that for three years I will be submitting essays and reports, completing assessments, sitting exams and, eventually, writing a dissertation - some think that I am truly mad. Most, however, are very supportive. They can see that horticulture has become my passion, not just a job but a vocation, and it is to these people that I am very grateful.

Wisley in early October 2017

 Embarking upon the MHort course is rather challenging when the previous academic essay I wrote was a decade and a half ago. Luckily it appears that most of my peers are in the same boat, some have never written an academic piece of writing at all before. The launch weekend at the beginning of October 2017 was, in equal parts, inspiring and terrifying. A group of about sixteen of us were welcomed at RHS Wisley by the team of tutors. This was only about half of the 2017 cohort, other MHort students are located in far flung corners of the planet. There are students from South Africa, Canada, Seychelles, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore, to mention but a few.

To be a student at Wisley is quite awe inspiring - even if it is only for a few days per year. Not only is it a wonderful garden, full of year-round interest but my fellow MHort cohorts and I enjoyed a weekend in the company of some of the finest contemporary horticultural minds. Our tutors for the next three years include a lecturer from the prestigious Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield, a horticulturalist named as one of the 100 most influential people in Garden Retail in the UK and two lecturers from Writtle University College.

We have access to the tutors and other MHort students via an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) – a kind of Facebook for horticulturalists. All of our work is submitted via the VLE and we can send messages privately or post publicly on a forum. The tutors will often reply to our queries within hours. This kind of mentorship is exactly what I was looking for in my career. I have been self-employed for eight years, having spent my earlier horticultural career working in public and private gardens. I started out at Highgrove at the impressionable age of 15 when I applied for, and successfully got, a couple of weeks summer work experience in the garden. I worked there during the summer holidays for a number of years after that, in between gaining qualifications in Fine Art, Design and Photovisual Studies followed by an HND in Organic Horticulture from Pershore College and Worcester University. I was incredibly lucky to spend my sandwich year working in Sting’s organic garden, Lake House, near Salisbury. Positions at The Abbey House Garden, Malmesbury and Cole Park followed.

Self-employment has allowed me flexibility while, with the help of my husband, I bring up my young children. It has also encouraged me to grow as a horticulturalist, fuelling my passion for horticulture, particularly organics and sustainability, planting design, topiary and organic fruit, vegetable and cut flower production. Recently I found myself searching for new challenges. I want to be able to successfully convey my passion for horticulture as a way of life, not simply a job, to more people. I think that undertaking and achieving the RHS Master of Horticulture qualification will give me greater authority and more confidence to realise my ambitions within the horticultural industry. It has already provided me with the community that I felt I lacked since becoming freelance. I have missed the camaraderie of the mess room in a large garden. I feel that I now have that back! My fellow MHort candidates and I will only meet up once or twice a year but their support via the VLE is invaluable.
It has been a good year for carrots in the garden of one of my clients

As soon as I found out that I had been awarded a place on the Royal Horticultural Society’s prestigious Master of Horticulture course I knew that I needed a little extra help. Together with the generosity of one of my clients, this help has come from The Wiltshire Gardens Trust who have awarded me a grant to cover the cost of a new computer with all of the relevant academic software plus a further annual grant to help with the books and other expenses that I will need to ease my journey on this adventure. I am thrilled to have this opportunity and I am determined to do it justice.

I am under no illusions that it is going to be easy. This is mainly a distance learning course so candidates must be self-motivated and disciplined with their time. I am having to adapt to evenings in front of the computer or reading through journals after my children are tucked up in bed. What is most surprising is how much I am enjoying these evenings. I was worried that I would find academia, and the slightly drier topics of management and funding, hard to settle down to but because they relate to the larger subject of horticulture I am finding all it remarkably scintillating! I am also aware that, at the time of writing this article, I am only two months into the course and there are plenty of long nights of studying in front of me.

I am most of the way through the first unit of eight. This unit is titled ‘Horticulture Now’ and three essays must be completed to the required standard in order to progress to the next unit. We have been asked to study the horticultural industry in general and analyse some of the different organisations that influence it, to understand and articulate the wide-ranging benefits of horticulture on society and discuss different external factors that affect horticultural organisations. The tutors are looking for an understanding of the contemporary horticultural industry, an ability to articulate this understanding and a capability to use a range of sources of information and evidence it in the correct academic manner. I am looking forward to units titled ‘Horticultural Research and Development’ and ‘Sustainable Horticulture’ and not looking forward so much to units titled ‘Operational Management’ and ‘Business Growth’. I am keeping an open mind and I am prepared to work even harder at the subjects that do not come naturally to me – who knows? I may surprise myself!

Along the way there will be online tests and something scarily titled the ‘Applied Knowledge Assessment’. It all culminates with a dissertation conference and the submission of a dissertation. Just writing these words fills me with a mixture of fear and excitement! This is an inspiring start to the rest of my horticultural life.