Winter Future Gardeners ready to spring into new careers!
Please raise a virtual cheer for our wonderful Future Gardeners 9, who battled several storms, buckets of rain and ended their course in the midst of a pandemic.
All our wonderful students completed the practical side of the course despite these challenges and we hope they’ll all pass their City & Guilds qualification once Walworth Garden (where they do classroom-based study) reopens.
This hardy bunch has been working since January at Red Cross Garden and on various working trips throughout the course. All the students also completed two weeks of work experience at gardens, parks and estates across London.
On Future Gardeners 9 our students:
Went to help out at Tabard Street Community Garden to prepare a bed for planting for the community.
Spent a morning with the grounds maintenance company Groundscapes so the students could find out what it would be like to work in that role in the industry.
Learnt all about rose pruning at the National Trust’s Morden Hall Park.
Overhauled the planters on the roof garden of London’s New City Hall in conjunction with Great Portland Estates - in the snow!
Worked with our Green Hub Coordinator Molly at Diversity Garden to get the pond back into action in this much loved community space.
Took a trip to one of London’s best kept secret green spaces – the Barbican Centre conservatory.
Two students are looking forward to starting work once the covid-19 situation makes it safe to do so. Jake has been offered a placement with the Royal Parks at Greenwich Park and Guilluame will take up a part time role at Grosvenor Estates. Both were offered these roles following their work experience. We wish all our other students much success with their gardening careers; we hope they’ll be able to use their new skills later in the year.
Sadly the coronavirus has led to the cancellation of the Future Gardeners Graduation this time but we aim to celebrate our students alongside the next round of the course, which we hope will start in the summer.
