Dirty Fingernails

The Tool Shed

Sorry! No blog for four months…….. very slack of me. I mean, it’s not as if there is   anything for gardeners to do in the winter months is there? Of course, I’ve got my excuses at the ready: RHS exams taking over my life; projects to write up; Latin classes to attend. Anyway, it appears that some people do read my blog and they’ve started to nudge me, not very subtly, to get blogging.

As my brain is still aching from RHS exams and all the aforementioned excuses, this is going to be a light hearted blog about tools.

Since working in horticulture I’ve starting observing a few things about garden tools and how different people use them. For instance, I’ve noticed that if two gardeners are going to do the same job we’ll likely take out different tools to achieve the same end. I’ve also noticed that as my traineeship has progressed I have started to favour some tools over others; casting aside previous favourites for my latest preference.

Some tools, however, definitely stand the test of time however fickle I might be.

You might think I’m talking about the doyenne of the tool shed, the trusted Felco’s (other brands are available, apparently) but I’m thinking more about the unsung heroes; the hoe, the spade, the shovel.

The Hoe

My favourite of these unsung heroes has got to be the hoe. That’s not to say that my head hasn’t been turned by tools such as the small rake on a long handle, the hand rake and even a mattock at one point. A hoe, though, it’s pretty much THE original tool and it’s still hard to beat.

When I look in the tool shed at work there are a multitude of different looking hoes that all do approximately the same job. There’s the dutch hoe and others but I only ever pick one; a really old, worn away, simple push hoe. If that’s not available then one of the same type will have to do. I’ve also got a favourite spade and I’m pretty sure that everyone else has their favourites – or is this my OCD kicking in?

What 10 years of hard work does to a tool.

Before I was a trainee here I was a horticultural volunteer. I had to come for an interview to become a volunteer. This interview included a practical test which was simply to clear up some leaves from a paved area. A number of tools were left out for the job and I needed to select the right tools for the job. I can’t remember what the tools were but one was possibly a hoe (or am I making that up?).

Looking at the tools in the practical test, I was immediately in a quandary as I contemplated whether they had a different method for collecting leaves in Chelsea. Undoubtedly it would be a more refined method compared to how we do it where I live in South London’s badlands. But could it possibly involve a hoe? Suffice to say it didn’t. I passed the test but they wouldn’t let me out into the garden for several months. I was assigned to watering pots in the nursery area for a long hot summer; no tools required, only a hosepipe and lance. They must have been watching my leaf clearing dilemma from a distance and concluded that it would be safer all round to keep me away from the tool shed. Given my later spade/shovel mix up, they were probably right!

Getting back to my favourite hoe, as I said, it is pretty much all worn away but it’s really thin and sharp. I was using it recently when a visitor came to talk to me and said that she really liked my hoe. She thought it looked pretty good for the job and asked how she could get one. I told her that about 10 years of hard work would do the trick and she seemed to lose interest after that. Some things money just can’t buy.

The Spade/Shovel

When I started my traineeship at Chelsea Physic Garden I realised that I had a lot to learn when it was pointed out to me that a spade and a shovel were in fact not the same thing but were tools with different purposes! In my defence, I didn’t have much call for either implement in my previous career as a pen pusher. My biro/pencil/pen recognition skills are, however, in the top 25th percentile. I think my knowledge of tools is now much more advanced but there are still some items in the tool shed that I haven’t got a clue about………

Finally

I find that one of the most annoying things about tools is that however hard you try to take all the right tools with you to the job in hand, when you get there, you realise that you need something else. When I started my job at Chelsea Physic Garden, I think about 40% of my time was spent going back to the tool shed to get additional tools. No matter how hard I thought about what I was going to be doing (thinking about it step by step and imagining myself at each stage with the appropriate tool) I always needed to go back to get something else. Usually several times. I’ve developed a technique now to overcome this which involves taking one of every tool out the tool shed in the morning. This makes for a heavy barrow and lots of tool cleaning at the end of the day but at least I don’t have to keep going back to the tool shed.

How much more can you fit in a wheelbarrow?

What else is there to say about tools? They’re pretty useful things around the garden but sometimes the only tool that will do the job is a pair of hands – got to keep those fingernails dirty you know!

Turning Compost at The Chelsea Physic Garden

Earlier this year someone questioned what you could possibly learn by turning compost for half a day .  ”Loads!” was my reply.  As well as finding out that it’s a good way to keep your feet warm in winter, you also discover many other things about compost.  Things like:  what material does and doesn’t compost well; what it smells like at the different stages; what it looks like; what it feels like – the list is long but I think you get the idea.

This set me to thinking about finding learning opportunities in unusual places and whether this is, to a certain extent, a state of mind.

I'd never seen the cambium layer in this sort of detail before.

The project I’m currently working on illustrates my point pretty well I think.  It’s a complete overhaul of one area of the garden that didn’t really have a purpose nor fit into the ethos of the garden.  The aim of the garden’s has always been to promote the study of botany in relation to medicine and to be used for the study of useful plants.

This area couldn’t really be described as promoting the study of anything. That’s not to say that it wasn’t an interesting area of the garden but just that it didn’t fit.  When your site is only 4 acres in size, every part of it has to work hard!

We’ve spent a lot of time propagating plants that we wish to retain in the collection.  We’ve  also moved many shrubs and trees, divided perennials (potted up or replanted) and moved bulbs.  We love plants.

On the flip side, inevitably, we’ve also spent a lot of time digging up large plants and shrubs and removing trees that don’t fit in the new design.  These plants are either common or we have other specimens in the collection. Even so, it’s a hard thing to do………….and I don’t mean just physically.  As I said before, we love plants.

Anyway, getting back to the main point, what exactly do you learn by chopping something down or digging something out or raking flat large areas of soil?

Quite a lot as it turns out.  Through this project, I’m seeing and experiencing things that I had previously only studied in books. This has got to be what practical training is all about.

What sort of things have I learnt on this project?

By removing large plants, I’ve seen inside and underneath them. What types of root systems certain plants have; how some large plants have very small root systems; how plants transport materials throughout their cells; what a cambium layer looks like; different colours and hardness of wood. It has given me access to parts of plants that you don’t get to see so often in the normal course of gardening. It has added an amazing practical side to my study of botany and allowed me to ask endless questions of the team that I’m working with – poor them.

This Araucaria aruaucana was felled as it was planted far too close to another rarer Araucaria angustifolia. You can see the ring of sap showing translocation of sap throughout the phloem cells.

Secondly, Chelsea Physic Garden soil and I have become very well acquainted during the last month through a lot of digging and levelling. Let’s just say that I can see in my crystal ball a lot of soil improvement taking place over the next few months (I’m thinking my biceps will never again fit into anything remotely feminine…..). This knowledge of our light, sandy soil will make a huge contribution to my experience as most of my previous experience has been gardening in South London on very heavy clay soil.

Whatever I’m doing in the garden I pretty much always learn something – even when the task itself doesn’t seem to present much in the way of learning opportunities. Is it because I am in scholar mode and I am receptive to seeing everything in that light?  Or maybe it is because of my colleagues’ willingness to share their knowledge and experience with me.  Probably it’s a combination of both.  I would say that an open mind is essential for learning but you’ve also got to have the right people around to help you develop.

What did you learn today?

This Mahonia japonica had the most amazing yellow wood and as you can see, seemed quite happy to be added to the shredding pile!

Happy Christmas everyone!

I’ve been at Chelsea Physic Garden now for just over a month and I’m beginning to feel that the balance of useful team member v. hindrance is tipping in the direction of usefulness. However, one aspect of horticulture that I have found really hard to get to grips with is watering. How much? When? How often? Which plants? This is of especial importance to me as I look after a glasshouse where the plants are in pots and also look after our standing-out area where everything is in containers.

As someone who is learning, I have been looking for the rules and THE formula to which I can work – hoping that if I do X, Y and Z then all will be well. Unfortunately, as often seems to be the case, the answer to most of my watering questions is invariably, “It depends…….”

It reminds me of when I recently asked a colleague how she made her very delicious chilli paste because I had a glut of chillies that I was hoping to use up. She told me the ingredients but when I asked about proportions or actual measurements, she said that she didn’t measure anything, merely tasting as she went along to see if she needed to add more of anything. In short she used her knowledge and experience to decide.

So speak the experts!  I guess it’s hard to communicate something that is second nature to you – a bit like asking someone how to ride a bike – it’s something you learn from experience and the building blocks of how you come to that knowledge are hard to break down into easy to understand chunks for a trainee (or aspiring chilli paste maker).

I constantly ask our garden team questions about watering and here are some of their thoughts gathered over the last month or so:

1.  ”Consider where the plant comes from and try to replicate those conditions” – to do this you need to know a) where that plant is from and b) what the conditions there are………..
2. “Stick your finger into the potting medium – if it’s dry, water it!”  – I’ll refer back to no.1 – you need to know what the requirements of that specific plant are as succulents for example would be quite happy in dry soil.
3. “When your succulents are wrinkly, they need watering” – this one is pretty simple even for me.
4. “Imagine you are that plant – would you want to be sitting in a pot with cold water all around your feet when the weather is cold?”  (That one’s from Ben, one of our trainees who has a different way of looking at the world).
5. Alan Titchmarsh says “Tap clay pots with a length of broom handle.  A dull ‘clonk’ means the compost is moist enough; a clear ‘ring’ means it is dry, so get watering.”  This isn’t much use to me as most of our plants are in plastic containers.

So, even though there are some pointers on watering, most of them require you to have some degree of knowledge.  It seems that I will learn to use a combination of my senses and knowledge to know if a plant needs watering and this will come in time with experience.  As there is no shortcut to experience, unfortunately there is no silver bullet to my watering questions – hopefully the plants will survive my uncertainty about their needs.  The consensus seems to be that more plants are killed by over-zealous watering (by trainees) than by under-watering so whilst I get to grips with it, I will be erring on the side of caution.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?

Recently, I came across this quote attributed to Steve Jobs:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

This is how I feel about my new role as a trainee gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden but there is definitely another side to it too.

On the positive side, as Steve Jobs says, it is pretty liberating being a beginner – everyone knows more than you do and with the word Trainee in your job title, you have a licence to ask questions.  Luckily in horticulture, and particularly at the Chelsea Physic Garden, gardeners never seem to tire of questions – although I might be pushing my luck in my first two weeks……

On the flip side though, I invested many years in my previous career in recruitment and I’m used to being in control and good at what I do.  As a beginner, you can kiss that feeling of control goodbye – there are many moments of indecisiveness; worrying about doing the wrong thing, then doing the wrong thing and then worrying that everyone thinks you’re stupid.  All in all, a lot of worrying – this can lead to a kind of paralysis for fear of doing something wrong.

I’m at the end of my first couple of weeks at the Chelsea Physic Garden and I’ve made some mistakes already but they are far outweighed by the things that I have learned – the mistakes and the learning often being different sides of the same coin.  What I’ve found in the last couple of weeks is that my gardening colleagues usually have previously encountered whatever gaffe it is I’ve made and not only do they know exactly how to put it right, they also do it with such good grace that I don’t feel quite so bad about it.

I’m loving my new job but it’s going to take some time to get used to that out of control feeling.  I think my motto going forward needs to be “feel the fear and do it anyway” but I’ll let you know how that goes…….(with thanks in advance to Nick, Kathy, Sam, Charlotte, Mark, Ben and Kate for picking up the pieces!)

How did I get here?

I used to be a Recruitment Consultant, a job that ranks down there with Estate Agents and Tax Inspectors in the minds of most people.  My brother, a farmer, who grows, makes, builds and nurtures things, used to ask me ‘But what is it you actually do?’ and after about 16 years in recruitment, I starting asking myself the same question

Time for a change………..

I decided to take some time off and live on my ill gotten gains for a while – I’d been working 10/11 hour days for quite a while and figured I could do with a break.

After a couple of months:

House sparkling clean                                   tick

Personal admin completed                            tick

Cupboards sorted                                         tick

Garden redesigned x 10                                tick

Plants sick of being moved around                 tick

Twitter addiction                                           tick

 
So what next?

RHS Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture, that’s what.

I’ve never particularly enjoyed studying –  I’ve got O’ Levels, A’ Levels and a degree but I really had no interest in the subjects, I just knew I had to get these pieces of paper to get on in this world.  This time round, despite how pedantic the syllabus could be, I just couldn’t get enough – the world of plants being endlessly fascinating, diverse and just so damn clever!  I took the first four exams in February 2011 and did pretty well.

And then?

I’ve done my studying through distance learning with KLC and once I realised how much I loved this subject, I knew I wanted to get some more practical experience. I applied for a volunteer role at The Chelsea Physic Garden and was invited in for an interview.  Normally when you apply to volunteer at an organization, they just say “yes please”.  However, this wasn’t your standard volunteer interview as it involved a plant ident, interview with Head Gardener and Deputy Head Gardener and a practical task.  I was scared…….I even had to buy steel toe capped boots just for the interview! Chelsea Physic Garden was the place I wanted to be though, so I gave it my best shot.  After the interview, they couldn’t offer me a horticultural volunteer role but did have a need for someone to water and weed the container plants that they propagate and sell on site.

I was in!  

Dedication to my watering and weeding duties paid off and a few months later I managed to get one of the coveted horticultural volunteer roles which I have been doing now, once a week, for around a year.

The longer I volunteered in this professional environment, the more I began to think that I could have a career in horticulture but had no idea of what route to take.  I didn’t feel experienced enough to go out there and set up as a gardener on my own and wasn’t even sure if that was what I ultimately wanted to do.  I loved volunteering at the Physic Garden – I loved the fact that all the gardeners were so experienced, that I was learning about horticulture not just from a practical perspective but also with a botanical slant too – especially the plant idents.

It was at the Physic Garden that I heard about the Historic and Botanical Gardens Bursary Scheme (affectionately known as HeeBeeGeeBees) and decided to apply for the traineeship role at The Chelsea Physic Garden.  After a tough panel interview, I beat off the competition and was offered the role – I start in September as a full-time trainee for a year.  To say I am over the moon is probably understating my excitement – it’s an amazing feeling to be starting again at the age of ‘nearly 40’ and learning new things every day – I just feel so lucky to have this opportunity.

I’m going to be blogging my traineeship experiences and hopefully give an insight into starting out in horticulture.  I hope that it will show that it’s never too late to make that change even though I don’t anticipate it being an easy ride.  The biggest upside for me to my new career is that I can start to know again what it is I “actually do” and when my brother (or anyone else) asks me now what I do for a living, I can proudly say ‘Gardener’, and that makes me feel good.