HortWeek Podcast

Richard Lawton and Neville Stein are celebrating a combined 100 years in horticulture this year and both are trustees of horticulture charity Perennial.They talk about changes in horticulture, challenges facing horticulturists now and the services Perennial offers horticulture in this moving podcast.Lawton, ex-Hillier, speaks about the challenges of seasonal work, physical injury, isolation and risk of financial hardship for those working in horticulture, and the support Perennial offers those in need and their families.HortWeek writer and industry consultant Stein tells a moving story of a horticulturist who did not know about Perennial and how it could have saved his llfe.The speak about industry partnerships and how fundraisers such as Plants for Perennial from Allensmore, Wyevale, Bransford and New Leaf have helped fund the charity's work.In 2025, Perennial undertook 19,753 preventative activities and programmes and helped 2,445 people with one-to-one services. They claimed 380,645 of benefits they were entitled to and £235,335 of debts were written off, which Perennial support.Perennial will be at Four Oaks trade show in Cheshire on 2 September, with Perennial director of services Helen Waddington, Garden Centre Association CEO Peter Burks, Grass Gains' Steve Harper (who is a new Perennial ambassador), David Salisbury (Farplants) and Nikki Burton (MD of Melcourt) lin a panel discussion sharing their insights into the impact partnering with Perennial has for their employees, businesses and the wider industry.

In the latest HortWeek podcast, editor Matt Appleby speaks with Andy Mills, head gardener at Blenheim Palace. Since August 2022, Mills has led a 10-year restoration of Blenheim’s 90-acre gardens. He reveals how his team is balancing 300 years of horticultural heritage with the realities of a changing climate.The renovation has also thrown up unexpected surprises and discoveries. Partly due to a surprising lack of historical records, Andy has unearthed whole new garden areas by exploring neglected corners. One foray through the undergrowth revealed an ornate bridge and the long-forgotten Cascade Garden:"I came across a bowl... imagine like half the size of a tennis court, a beautiful ornate stone bowl. And then there was a couple of little grottoes like druid cells and a subterranean cave with a spring in it."Historical accuracy must now balance with climate resilience. Mills is actively adapting Blenheim’s planting for hotter, drier conditions replacing "thirsty fuchsias" with exotics like Agave, Astelia, and Hedychium. Similarly with trees, Mills is shifting to smaller, highly ornamental species like Paulownia and Catalpa.Perhaps the most controversial change has been Mills's decision to leaves 60 acres of grassland to grow long, which while reviving dormant wildflowers and boosting pollinators, has drawn questions from some visitors."I love those conversations with people... they say, 'We're not used to this.' Well, you should be. This is what we gave to the world."Conversely, Mills is reversing years of unmanaged laurel growth that blocked key vistas, restoring the intended "English Versailles".Ultimately, Mills hopes this restoration shifts public perception. "We're known as Blenheim Palace and Gardens, not just Blenheim Palace," he states. "At the end of 10 years, that's where I'd like to be."

In this week's episode Sue Payne, MD of Q&S Commercial Landscaping, and Alison Benjamin of Urban Bees explore the shift toward chemical-free landscaping and the vital role of sustainable, pollinator-friendly habitats in urban spaces, such as Battersea Power Station.Rather than viewing natural landscapes as "messy," they argue for a cultural shift toward embracing naturalistic designs. This approach involves replacing intensive, high-emission machinery and chemical weedkillers with skilled hand-gardening techniques.Benjamin debunks a common corporate sustainability myth: placing honeybee hives on rooftops. She explains that this practice does not aid biodiversity, as honeybees are managed livestock that compete with the UK's 250 wild bee species for food. True biodiversity comes from planting diverse forage.While chemical-free gardening is more labour-intensive, Payne highlights that it reduces material costs. Cultivating perennial plants and dividing them for self-population creates self-sustaining ecosystems that save money in the long run.Both guests emphasise the importance of "pollinating London together". By linking small green spaces, green roofs, and pocket gardens, cities can create continuous "pit stops" of forage and nesting sites for traveling insects. This could be scaled up nationwide.

HortWeek editor Matt Appleby, A-Level student William Appleby and technical editor Sally Drury report on the essential horticulture stories of the week.Topics this week:Peat-free hits the national pressAre garden centres pricing themselves into slower plant sales?Matt's week on the road with word from Fruit Focus, Ball Colegrave's Summer Showcase, Floral Fantasia at Hyde Hall and the Green Italy launch.How drought and hosepipe bans are hitting horticultureDoes the absence of horticulture in schools' career advice signify a broken system?

In this episode of the HortWeek Podcast, Matt Appleby speaks to Sara Blair-Manning to discuss the ambitious Growing Our Green Heritage project at the Birmingham Botanic Gardens. Facing the dual challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, Blair-Manning outlines the transformative £25 million “Growing Our Green Heritage” project, aimed at restoring the historic venue while ensuring 21st-century sustainability. At the heart of the project is the massive challenge of temporarily relocating over 10,000 plants to allow for glasshouse restoration. Sarah describes this "museum of plants" as a living collection that carries inherent jeopardy, as plants, unlike static museum artifacts, react unpredictably to being moved. To mitigate this, the horticultural team has spent years auditing the collection, setting up specialised nursing glasshouses, and actively propagating backup plants to ensure the gardens' global botanical legacy is safeguarded. Simultaneously, the physical footprint of the gardens is being redesigned to vastly improve the day-to-day visitor experience. The current, echoing UPVC entrance building, which she jokingly refers to as the "swimming pool entrance" due to its extreme seasonal temperatures, will be replaced by an extended, fully accessible visitor centre. Existing architectural footprints will be reused rather than demolished to lower carbon impact. Additions include accessible facilities including a prayer room, changing places facility and a significantly larger cafe run in partnership with Medicine Bakery. The new layout will allow locals to access the shop and cafe without buying a garden ticket, a move expected to better integrate the gardens into the local community. "Education by stealth" will be delivered via multi-layered digital interpretation.The curation strategy is also shifting to meet modern environmental and cultural realities. Rather than relying on high-maintenance, water-heavy municipal bedding, the gardens are transitioning to drought- and pest-resilient perennial plants better suited to extreme weather:"We've changed the approach in terms of areas of planting to go to a drought-resilient and pest-resilient perennial framework of planting that is more sensible given the extremes of weather that we're getting," she says.The gardens are also moving away from traditional, colonial-era botanical narratives toward a co-curated model. By partnering with Birmingham’s "hyper-diverse" communities, the gardens are incorporating multicultural knowledge about the plants' origins and implementing multi-layered interpretation, including digital tools like Bloomberg Connects, to ensure that history, science, and cultural relevance are shared transparently with every visitor.As Blair-Manning says, "I've always believed that if you can get the values and behaviours right of the organisation and the people working or volunteering for the organisation, then everything else will follow."

HortWeek editor Matt Appleby, prospective horticulturist Douglas Newbery and technical editor Sally Drury report on the essential horticulture stories of the week.Topics for this week:National Plant Show product highlights including pre and post-biotics for soil health, a marvellous mulch and a child-size garden centre trolley.Promising news from Aeroplas pot and tray company An early look at potential Christmas hot sellersNew lines for Creation Horticulture New plant award winners at NPS and Gardeners' World LiveOne-stop shops in the UK - could this Dutch model work where it's failed in the past?Horticultural shows: what changes might be see for next year?Horticulture salaries come under the microscope in HortWeek's latest reportAnd Doug Newbery (son of Georgie Newbery of Flowers from the Farm) offers his thoughts on horticulture as a careerPodcast producer: Christina Taylor

This week the tables are turned on Matt Appleby as he guests on The Plant Based Podcast where he fields probing questions from HortWeek columnist and horticulture influencer Michael Perry (aka Mr Plant Geek) and horticulturist, floral designer, broadcaster and author Ellen Mary.Topics up for discussionHas RHS Chelsea Flower Show become too much about spectacle and not enough about gardening?Peat-free transition: Has the horticulture industry been set up to fall by unrealistic timelines, or has it been too slow to innovate?Is peat-free growing being successfully communicated to consumers?How is the horticulture trade on the continent reacting to the moves towards peat-free?Every year hundreds of exciting new plants are introduced and win awards, but why do so few hit the market?Are there any plants on the market that shouldn't be?How can we attract and support young people into the horticulture industry?Can the horticulture industry continue to rely on passion over pay?Are moves towards sustainble and ecological gardening making gardening too difficult, complicated and expensive?Should domestic horticultural production be supported more and will the SPS agreement help?AND FINALLY...What practice might horticulture look back on in 10 years' time and wonder how it was ever normal?

Lord Heseltine tells the story of the birth of the European Space Agency. Why post-Apollo, when the US was spending £1.2 billion a year on space, the whole of Europe was spending just £200 million. Why the birth of ESA was driven by the self-interest of three major countries. Why the US general with a $29 billion budget for the Star Wars project wanted to invest in Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Why, the idea that Britain could compete alone with the technologies that were accumulated and available to the American capitalist system was “simply laughable”. Why “being European is not selling out British interests”. And why Margaret Thatcher told him: “If you want to get on and put your budget into this, you can, but you're not getting any of mine." Join Alice and Lord Heseltine as they pick apart the negotiating contrivances and the wheeling and dealing to circumnavigate “turkeys not voting for Christmas” that ultimately put European space on the map.Contributors:Alice Bunn, President of UKspace Dr Alice Bunn OBE FIMechE FRAeS CEng | LinkedInUKspace: Overview | LinkedIn Lord Heseltine, Member of the House of LordsKey topics covered:Creation of the European Space Agency (ESA)US "Star Wars" program and brain drainGeopolitical case for European R&D collaborationImpact of Brexit on science and technology

HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby discusses the 2026 salaries report on the HortWeek Podcast with Fresh Horticultural Careers director Viki Halkett and Haymarket Recruitment marketing manager Vishnu Kannan.Higher-paid roles are becoming more common across the horticulture sector, as employers respond to rising costs and changing demand. New HortWeek research, drawing on internal sample data from jobs advertised on www.HortWeek.com, shows steady growth in roles paying £40,000 and above, reflecting a shift towards more skilled, technical and management-focused positions.The findings are based on HortWeek’s analysis of salary data from across the UK gardening sector, using a consistent sample of roles advertised on HortWeek.com to compare how pay bands changed between 2021 and early 2025. The data show a clear upward movement, with mid-range and higher-paid roles taking a larger share of the market over time.The panel discusses what kind of technology is replacing manual labour in the industry — and should humans be worried about “the robots” taking their jobs?We debate whether employers are taking on fewer entry-level staff due to the recent National Minimum Wage rise and what that means for young people who want to start out in the horticultural industry.Viki tells us what kind of salaries technical experts or managers expect to earn and what will be the most highly sought-after technical and specialist skills in the world of environmental horticulture green jobs in the future.Submitted questions from Capel Manor College students are also tackled by the panel. The answers include the essential information on where you can gain work experience after gaining a horticulture qualification, what starting salaries are and what qualifications employers prefer.