A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the launch of a new initiative called Hortistry. Hortistry is intended to bridge the skills gap in Horticulture, this is much needed in the industry.
The initiative was thought of by Jekka Mcvicar VMH. She saw the skills gap and it sounds like she kept badgering King Charles about it. He gave her the thumbs up and encouraged others to join and then The dirt News took up the mantle to help with marketing and admin and thus, Hortistry was born. This is all about Preserving skills in Horticulture for the future and passing them on to others so the knowledge is not lost.
There were two locations, One was at Beth Chattos plants and gardens and the other was at Jekka’s Herb farm. The day at both venues was to include three masterclasses from seasoned professionals in the business, then a Q&A and a talk about plant conservation from the National trust.
They asked for professional Horticulturalists to apply so I applied to attend the day at Jekka’s herb farm. I have admired her for a long time, I have wanted to visit her farm and another big win was also that Nick Dunn of Frank Matthews trees was teaching the fruit grafting workshop there. To learn from someone who has grafted on a farm scale was too good an opportunity to pass up!
The day was gloriously sunny so that was a great start, traffic was perfect so all was well before I even got there. We were greeted by Jekkas Husband Mac and guided to the tea and coffee station. I have met Jekka and Mac before as I gave them a tour of Le Manoir and she had helped us with our Herb garden long before I worked there. However at events like this there is always a trepidation about whether you will know anybody or not. I didn’t need to worry as I pulled up in the car park next to someone I had taught on one of our Raymond Blanc Garden School courses….It’s a small world in Horticulture!
The day started with a welcome and introduction from Jekka and the other speakers and we were split into three groups and then guided to our first workshop.
My first workshop was fruit tree grafting. Nick Dunn VMH has a wealth of knowledge and he taught us the importance of good tools, how best to keep them sharp. How to graft using the whip and tongue method, how to move whilst grafting. I am heavily paraphrasing but I intend to do another post going further into this another time.
My second workshop was softwood cuttings with Jekka Mcvicar VMH. She taught us the importance of watering in the morning, How important good tools are and even improvised ones such as sharpened chopsticks and tweezers, info on rooting hormones and soil mixtures, not taking out the growing tip of your cuttings. All really good stuff.
Then we stopped for lunch which was provided by Jekka’s family. It was also a time to meet other professional horticulturalists. Networking is so important, Instagram is great for this but I feel like more is achieved by meeting in person and I hope to do more in person networking. There was a great mixture of people. There was flower farmers, fruit growers, veg growers, head gardeners, ornamental gardeners etc.
My third workshop was with Jon Wheatley VMH. This was a workshop on seed sowing. We learnt how to store seeds, soil mixtures including peat bog alternatives, labelling tricks etc.
We then went back for tea and cake and all three groups gathered to listen to Chris Trimmer from the National trust to hear about plant conservation techniques used in their nursery to propagate for their many gardens, this was really fascinating.
Then after a Q&A with all the speakers, that was the day over and then we made our way home.
My final thoughts
Having worked and trained in both sectors, I have long said that the gap between horticulture and Agriculture is too big! Both sectors can learn from each other and I was really pleased to see that Hortistry was a good mix of both.
The speakers were all so generous with their knowledge, I have been “told off ” before for sharing too much knowledge about orcharding. I would argue that is partly why orchard skills are dying out.
I really liked how the speakers knowledge was from years of experience. Like all of us, they have made mistakes and learned from them. This is not knowledge that is rigid from books, courses or influencers but learned horticultural behaviours which still need to evolve even now with climate change etc.
There was no hierarchy in this event and I feel like everyone was on the same level which was wonderful.
Gardening is classed as unskilled work which couldn’t be further from the truth. It is not often Horticulture is on a drop down menu under profession for instance. Which is just crazy.
It was a fantastic day, incredibly inspiring and made you feel proud (which of course I am anyway) to be a gardener.
The other thing that struck me was the generosity of the day, whether it was the hospitality of Jekka and her family, time and knowedge shared by the speakers or the fact it was a free event to us. A big thank you to all who made it happen!
This was the first of hopefully many and the following are links relevant to Hortistry.
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