RHS Horticulture qualification

Good luck with your course Johnny I think plant botany is a fascinating subject and worlds appart from a jobbing gardener, we have a fine example of "gardeners" that visit the old girl across the way,the front is done by council employees they turn up on mass spend half an hour reading papers drive a sit on mower off a trailer drive across 4 lawns and pavements making a mess which is cleared up by blowing the grass off the path back on to were they have just cut it,the edges are never touched.The next set of "gardeners are a private company that do her back garden 3 guys turn up in a van take a petrol mower out disappear round the back reappear 10 min later I assume job done too lazy to shut the gate.I suppose these guys when they fill in a form that asks them what their job is they proudly put down they are "gardeners".Bit long winded but what I am trying to say you get all the education you can on a practical and theoretical level or you just end up a neanderthal.

 

Johnny...all the best of luck to you for doing this.
I work full time and only have Himself and two houses to look after and I can't find enough time so you will have to tell me your secret :-)

 

Thanks JWK. They give you 18 months of help and mark each set of questions from each unit, 10 in all. I've given myself 3 weeks to read each unit twice and then make notes and answer the set questions that are a mixture of former RHS paper questions and the like. I've given myself this deadline so that I can finish in January and then just study till June for the exam giving myself plenty of time to try and get a good grade, we'll see! The course material is vast and in depth and even though I may just still be a jobbing gardener or own a nursery some day the knowledge of plants is invaluable to me and the pure love of knowing the subject well, hopefully. So far my scores have been excellent but the real test is getting the RHS qualification when I sit the exam.

 

I concur with Walnut, there are a lot of "gardeners" who just mow and go. Those professionals you will find on this forum are unfortunately, very few and far between. And although experience counts for a lot I do think that something needs to be done to help amateurs seperate the wheat from the chaff.

 

A garden I look after was first turned over by a council lawnsman that reeked havoc on her plants and left lots dead and dying when I finally was asked through the garden centre I volunteer at to help. He had moved a conifer to a raised bed with hardly any soil in it which was the first mistake and probably either chopped off half the root system or just planted it way above the soil, either way it's now dead.

 

I'm lucky as I'm a full time dad at the moment so the course is centered around that and the wife being off for one year as well while she takes a year out from her Speech and Language Therapy course. So I had one year to get the course completed and sat. So a lot of studying occurs when the oldest is in bed or the wife has the energy to look after both for an hour while I run upstairs and cram in some work. Volunteering at a garden centre gives me the extra help in plant recognition, naming etc.

 

That's funny I just posted about the guy who did a garden before me and that basically was what he did. I spend 3 hours a week usually mowing, especially this time of year, but but mainly weeding, pruning, planting and keeping the garden how she wants it. She's had lots of great comments so I'm happy and hope to get lots of recommendations, so far hardly anything I've done has died!! The greatest compliment was she got me to look after her garden when she went of holiday. I'm not really a jobbing gardener as such yet I use her garden and volunteering at a garden center really as aids to my course but eventually I do hope to take on maybe 10 gardens a week that I can really look after and care for rather than just mow and go, LOL.

 

Why not start to build up a portfolio so when you do get started you have something to take to any prospective clients. This garden sounds like a good start.

 

That's hopefully the idea as this woman seems very happy to keep me on. Can't really take on anyone else though as too much else on at the moment but gradually it would be nice to start adding a couple extra people over the next two years before trying it out properly in 2010.

 

Hi Jonny,

I have three children myself so do understand. Although my sympathy is a little short at the moment, they are on their school holidays and I have to keep reminding myself, that they are my children, I love them very much, and just because I occasionally want to pack and run away it`s not their fault.

 

Yes were waiting for our oldest to start pre school in September. She's just turned 3 the end of last month and is still going through potty training that was instantly accomplished with the new arrival but she's starting to regress now as she wants to act like her baby sister!!!! I can't even escape to the garden as she loves to help daddy, which means usually beheading plants or watering (making puddles everywhere!).