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Horticulture Week Podcast

Horticulture Week Podcast #4: Matthew Appleby visits Ladds Garden Centre redevelopment

Season 1, Ep. 4

The centre is being transformed into a contemporary and eco-friendly garden retail village with a food hall, farm shop, cafe-restaurant, courtyard garden and lighting and furniture showroom. It will be renamed the Berkshire Gardener when it reopens in March 2021. 

Burke discusses the challenges of redeveloping the site during the coronavirus crisis and how he sees the opportunities in the garden retail sector as he looks to develop an independent garden centre group with new acquisitions in the pipeline.

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  • 30. Careers in the landscape industries with industry heavyweight and APL general manager, Phil Tremayne

    18:51
    HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsors MorePeople.At a time when horticulture needs to encourage a new wave of young people to come into the industry, this podcast is designed to highlight the multiple and varied career opportunities available.Hear from people who have found their way into their chosen career through different paths, what their job involves and what it means to them.This week Neville Stein speaks to Phil Tremayne is the general manager of The Association of Professional Landscapers with more than three decades in the horticultural industry. Trained as a grower, Phil has moved through many aspects of the industry, but has spent the last 10 years with HTA and eight of those managing The Association of Professional Landscapers. In this podcast Phil describes the landscaping industry and discusses what opportunities are available in this exciting sector.
  • 29. ICL - all about water quality

    13:46
    ICL's Sam Rivers discusses the key issue of water quality with HortWeek editor Matt Appleby.We discover why water quality is so important and what characteristics you look at to determine water quality.Sam gives vital information on how you determine your water chemical properties and why is conductivity so important.He also relays important insight about pH, including the main differences between growing media pH and water pH.Sam gives us the lowdown on the main considerations when using hard water and any options for people who have it. He also discusses the main considerations when using soft water and options for people using that more preferable type of water.
  • 28. Careers in the landscape industries with APL WorldSkills gold medal-winning landscaper Anna Mcloughlin

    16:15
    HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsors MorePeople.At a time when horticulture needs to encourage a new wave of young people to come into the industry, this podcast is designed to highlight the multiple and varied career opportunities available.Hear from people who have found their way into their chosen career through different paths, what their job involves and what it means to them.This week Neville Stein speaks to Anna Mcloughlin, a recent graduate from the College of Agriculture Food & Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) in Northern Ireland.Anna took home the Gold award at APL WorldSkills national finals which took place in November 2023 in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Very recently Anna has also been recognised by the Association of Professional Landscapers as a 'rising star' in the sector.  
  • 27. Leading growers Stefano Sogni of Zelari and Kyle Ross of Wyevale Nurseries on the Four Oaks Trade Show 2024

    17:01
    Four Oaks Trade Show is the UK’s leading international exhibition for the whole of commercial horticulture. From production to point-of-sale, the breadth of exhibits on display is the show’s strength, attracting a broad visitor base. The event takes place on a 23-acre nursery site in Cheshire UK, close to the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, covering an area of 13,000m² under glass with additional outdoor areas. The 52nd show takes place this September 3rd & 4th and organisers urge potential exhibitors to contact them about space ASAP because they expect to sell out.HortWeek editor Matt Appleby talks to Zelari Piante's Stefano Sogni and Wyevale Nurseries' Kyle Ross about the benefits of participating at the Four Oaks Trade Show, what exhibiting entails as an overseas exhibitor and a UK nursery, and their top tips for getting the most out of the show.They give recommendations for logistics, marketing, restaurants (Stefano reveals he's a big fan of British food) and accommodation. Kyle tells a story about a top footballer he met at the show.The nurserymen talk about their plans for Four Oaks 2024, to be held at Lower Withington, Cheshire on 3-4 September 2024. https://www.fouroaks-tradeshow.com/
  • 26. The future of green jobs with Billy Knowles of the Youth Environmental Service

    18:11
    The Youth Environmental Service, which is backed by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, has won backing for a 'national service' for the environment.Dubbed a "green jobs guarantee" for a post-secondary school-age young people. Programme director Billy Knowles explains:"The Youth Environmental Service is an organisation that we set up with the idea that what would happen if every young person had the opportunity to do a year of paid environmental work."It's a great way to give something back, it's a great way to develop skills, and it's a great way to build connections to all of the other young people who are also worrying about the same problems [climate change, nature degradation and biodiversity collapse].After more than two and half years of campaigning, delegates at a Royal Parks Guild Annual Discovery Day voted 48-6 in favour of the idea of a green jobs guarantee. Knowles acknowledged some do not like the idea of national service because they think it would be mandatory, but he said it would be volunteer-based and would pay living wage for a year's work. The first pilot New To Nature pilot helped 97 young people into work and a new pilot will focus on the North West.One of horticulture's key challenges, Billy says, is improving access and diversity:"Sometimes we aren't sensitive enough to the variety of different needs and challenges there might be. A great example of this is physical access. If you're a young person who's grown up living in a city, and you might come from a sort of socioeconomically disadvantaged background, parents haven't got a huge amount of money to spend there, you might not have your access to your own form of transport, you might be used to taking public transport. How are you then going to go out and work in a sort of fairly rural role and an opportunity that would be fantastic otherwise, but you just can't physically get to?"The scheme aims to create "10,000 paid opportunities per year for young people working across nature, net zero and circular economy organisations and the Labour Party has already shown support for the plan. But Billy says "neither party has any real clear idea on how they're going to do that. What we offer is the answer to that question, how you create those green jobs and you start building that workforce."The policy isn't to fund every single one of the 10,000 jobs, it's to fund a small number and to create the framework around which other organisations are able to create their own."We're not building something that we want to last for two years, we want this to last for 50 years, and so what we need to do is have a really strong base and a strong foundation from which we can do that. And we need champions within parliament. We need champions within the civil service who can help us make that happen."Find out more at www.youthenvironmentalservice.co.uk. 
  • 25. ICL on vine weevil control

    16:30
    Vine Weevil control is one of the biggest issues for many growers and ICL deals with many queries about the pest.In this podcast, ICL's Sam Rivers explains what vine weevil is, what the pest's life cycle is and what plants they feed on. He highlights their effect on heuchera, primula and Portugese laurel.Control options start with cultural control. Products available for vine weevil control include nematodes and Lalguard. Rivers explains how these work and gives tips and advice on application.
  • 24. Make Parks Sexy Again! - the joy of parks with Paul Rabbitts

    30:02
    Veteran, and very proud 'Parkie' Paul Rabbitts (currently working at Norwich City Council) fell into parks work after qualifying as a "really bad" landscape architect. Finding "everything was going down the route of being computer aided design and CAD - that sent a cold shiver down my back" he thought "I don't want to do this...which is one of the reasons why I moved into managing parks. Thank God!"His latest tome, People's Parks: the Design and Development of Victorian Parks in Britain, continues where the late parks historian Hazel Conway's People's Parks left off. It explores parks "beyond the Victorian era, right, through the Garden Cities movement, right up through austerity, Covid" and on."I just felt it was timely to bring what she'd done up to date but also kind of reinvigorate...interest in the kind of history and heritage of parks and why we have them, why we enjoy them and why they're so important".Among the fascinating facts unearthed during the research of the book was the vast difference in staffing of parks, with hundreds of qualified gardeners and park keepers employed in the days of London County Council. He also explores "Parkitecture" over the years, the marked change in the number and design of children's play areas, changes in parks management, tendering, and of course, funding leading to "a decline and eroding of what we do in parks." As ever on the Horticulture Week Podcast, the issue of labour shortages arises: "How is it you will attract somebody to work in parks these days? There's no pathway like they used to be. No career pathway at all...We're not getting the applications and where we are getting them, the quality is not very good."He speaks with characteristic passion about his love for the work he does and the work being done by Parks Management Association, APSE and other organisations to "make parks sexy again!" He also discusses severe local authority budget cuts and financial constraints which have forced some, such as Birmingham, into bankrupcy plus the myriad of pressures post Covid and arising from the 'cost of living crisis'. The logical consequence of all this is, he says, "there is going to be a greater emphasis on the third sector and on volunteers" and a "greater emphasis on commercialization".So, times are hard, he says, "but actually there's some really good stuff going on out there. I mean, the number of friends groups that we've got across the country are just incredible.As a Green Flag awards judge, Paul gets to see the best of parks and sometimes the most curious, like a bear pit "in the middle of the Wirral"There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful as some local authorities are "really making a difference".
  • 23. The potential and limitations of Biodiversity Net Gain with landscape architect Alexandra Steed

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    The requirement for developers to implement minimum Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) standards became law on 12 February, and having already worked on projects this week's Horticulture Week Podcast guest already has considerable experience in the field.Although Alexandra Steed was speaking from Vancouver for the podcast recording, her landscape practice is based in London and South East England. Highlights include developing green and blue landscape infrastructure strategies for South Essex Estuary Park and masterplanning a 25% increase of footprint of Canterbury.The latter is a project that reflects the aims and concerns of BNG:"It's really looking at how we can improve the landscape while we're bringing about new development. So you know the two can happen hand in hand.Development doesn't necessarily have to mean that a landscape is harmed in any way or brings about negative consequences. In fact, if we plan in a landscape-led sort of way, then we can actually bring benefits to that landscape."Now that BNG is here, with the hope it will help reverse a rapid decline in biodiversity in UK landscapes, Alexandra nevertheless has a number of concerns:"I would say my biggest concern is that biodiversity net gain is being considered on a plot by plot basis. So rather than looking at a landscape in its kind of regional capacity, or you know, at a watershed level, where all of its natural processes and systems are taken into account - instead, we're dividing it up and trying to apply improvements on a plot by plot and piecemeal basis. And nature just doesn't work that way...so right from the start, that brings about a lot of problems"She explains her fears that measures taken could become a 'box-ticking' exercise, potentially "a homogenisation of habitats that are easy to deliver" and improvements restricted to the plot boundary, leading to disconnected islands of green space and "not getting the benefits of enriching the larger landscape".Alexandra is also concerned there will be a lack of governance and ongoing management and stewardship exacerbated by a lack of funding for in-house expertise within local authorities.More broadly, Alexandra is passionate about interconnectedness and people's connection with nature as a necessary means to heal the planet. Her book, "Portrait to Landscape: A Landscape Strategy to Reframe Our Future" explores the role policy makers, developers, landscapers through to individual citizens.As she says, it is "about how we deal with our landscapes because it expresses everything that we as humans believe about nature and our relationship to nature.So it's not just important for those of us working in the landscape industries, it's important for everybody to understand this and to understand the power held there and the power for rehabilitation within our landscapes."Presenter: HortWeek senior reporter: Rachael ForsythProducer: HortWeek digital content manager Christina Taylor
  • 22. Plant Collection holder Jonathan Sheppard takes his 'hobby' to Chelsea Flower Show

    25:50
    Former corporate lobbyist/political adviser Jonathan Shepherd is tentatively "proud to be called a bit of a horticulturist".But horticulturist he very much is. The National Plant Collection holder is a veteran of Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in 2022 and 2023 where he won silver gilt for his Cosmos collection display (he also has a hollyhock national collection). In 2024, he makes his exhibiting debut at RHS Chelsea Flower Show.So with all the work of growing and nurturing some 3,000 Cosmos to select 100 in peak condition in May 2024, what's in it for him?"Commercially it's a ridiculous decision because doing flower shows, it costs a fair amount of money. He is conscious, if a tad sceptical about the need to address sustainability as a grower. He grows in peat-free compost, favours terracotta pots over plastic ones, but he tries not to "over-egg what I do".But in the run-up to Chelsea, his plant collections are recovering from a severe flooding event which will provide a dramatic narrative backdrop to his exhibit at Chelsea.He narrates the events of 20 October 2023 in the wake of storm Babette:"By 4.30 in the morning we heard the upstairs toilet start bubbling, which I think was a sign that all the drains had been overloaded. And we literally packed the car and kind of evacuated...filling the car with my precious seeds for the National Plant Collection.""I think that part of the flower show is actually focusing on flooding and resilience this year...well what better story to say that a grower that's been flooded out can come back, can come to Chelsea and show award-winning flowers?"The experience chimes with his interest in water conservation; his two plant collections survive solely on the 20,000 litres of the rainwater he stores over winter. It's a far cry from his former life when Jonathan was, he jokes, "one of those nasty lobbyists that people imagine" working for clients such as Royal Mail, Boots and the Woodland Trust - "essentially working in the political arena to either guard against threats that come from Government because all legislation has unintended consequences, or indeed spotting opportunities".He says he is actually proud of some of the work lobbyists do, "keeping Government in check and ensuring that perhaps some decisions that they take, that can be quite ludicrous and ridiculous because they haven't got all the information, perhaps get amended or changed or influenced".He contemplates what horticulture should be lobbying for: "If I was the industry, I'd be gearing up for the next election...what are you going to be wanting from whoever forms the next Government? What are your five asks?" He asks for "certainty" on peat and a more joined-up approach.Despite the recent attention lavished on the industry during the Lords Horticulture Enquiry and subsequent report, the work is not over, he says."There has to be a realisation...that once you've had a big piece of work, right, we're there, we're done...but politics doesn't work like that.."It's following through on that and ensuring that you don't let Government off the hook.As for the future, as his "hobby" takes an ever greater hold of him, Jonathan is contemplating possibilities, maybe even a third national plant collection. Watch this space.