So you want to be a gardener?.MOV

[@Plantgini]

Thank you for this! Your garden is breath taking!!

[@davidparker7108]

Thank you so much that video. I am exactly at that point in my life, started working outdoors a few years ago for a grass cutting business, recently building my own customers weeding pruning always learning teaching myself reading books, growing veg in my garden. The passion I have is incredible I love it so much bu that almost all changed when I enrolled on to a RHS level 2 evening course. I hated it. They gave you a list of books to go and buy, read them and study them but pay for the course as well. Well I just went and got the books and quit the course. I will teach myself thank you, questioning, researching, developing. I dont need a regulating body to tell me if im a good gardener or not. I will remain a non conformer thanks. I love gardening for the intimacy and joy it gives me. Its my love and not be shared . Its my journey, no one elses. It is all about passion and I never see it as a chore or a job. Its a way of life.

[@CharoBorboa]

Well said! I’ve begun gardening successfully after so many years of killing my plants. I’m so committed this year to planning my garden. Starting slow and watering. I mainly have south facing this plants for my backyard.

[@dc0145a]

Great advice. Across the pond here in New Hampshire. Passion is most important - without truly loving what one does one will never reach their full potential and never become knowledgeable of whatever it is they are learning. I've been gardening since I was a wee one with my mother. Getting up in the wee morning hours to make sure the stove (heat) is going in the greenhouse. Knowing how to care for seedlings and get them in the garden healthy. How / when to divide our perennials..... I treasure the love of gardening my mother instilled in me..... And I'm now passing on to my children.

[@shortnanxious6088]

This is great advice...it gives me hope, as I don't want to go to classes and I'm single work full time and have a massive perenial garden that constantly needs division, cultivation, soil adding or moving, or smaller add on gardens for perenial to grow out until I know what to do with them. I have lost some plants to division and had thought about going to classes on dividing plants but them I realized that I have never killed off the whole plant...the ones that made it grew better every year...so, I saved te and money just realizing that the strongest healthier plants survive, the weak die and every year They grow bigger and better. lol. Not to say that I havn't killed a couple $100 of plants over the years planting them, in the wrong spots, planting at the wrong time of year for my area simply planting plants that don't really take well to my specific part of the region... but I still have alot every year that comeback healthier and happier to be divided. so I guess You take your losses in learning and don't need classes... lol

[@mantrafiscus]

I left school at 15 not really knowing what I wanted to do. My dad said I wasn't going to sit at home being a lay about and took me up to see the head gardener at Chatsworth house. My first job there was litter picking around the grounds, I was then set on and was put to work with people like you. I have now been gardening for 49 years and never out of work. I still don't know everything and learn something new every time I watch one of your videos.

[@brianhanrahan7561]

You will be strolling around with a cool hat and a glass of orange juice ,..one day

[@thedivide3688]

I've learned sooo soo much from your videos. Thank you!

[@plantsmanscorner128]

Thank you for your kind comment. I hope you enjoy the coming years as we are producing a weekly video on running a nursery....the good and the not so good!! Best wishes.....Malcolm

[@shaneintheshade]

Hello Malcolm, I hope this comment finds you well, and also, I couldn't agree more with your opinion on this subject. I have ran and operated a landscape business for seventeen years now and have learned through practice more than I was ever thought. I have also had my fair share of run-ins with "garden designers" and landscape architects..... I have yet to meet the first one that I would figure ever carried a blister from a days work. I do have one odd question for you if you don't mind. What kind of boots are wearing in this video? I'm due another pair of mud boots and my "Muck" boots have no ventilation and cause my feet to sweet horribly. Yours seem to be made of leather or some other well venting material. Thank you in advance and keep up the good work.....Shane

[@Zapton5]

Thank you. One of my earliest memories is I was weeding my gramma's garden. When someone asked my gramma. Isn't he a bit young? Aren't you afraid he will weed your vegetables thinking they are weeds ? Gramma's answer. No he knows what he is doing and his small fingers and good eyes do less damage to the garden then I do.

[@sammyboy13ify]

You took the words right out of my mouth here Malcom. I really enjoy watching your videos as your views towards the Horticultural industry at this present moment in time are very similar to mine. Now, I absolutely love plants: growing them, planting them and using them to create art. Most of all I adore the science behind plants and gardening. I undertook a Level 3 Extended Diploma Horticultural course and it was absolute utter crap. We never had any hands on particle experience with plants. We were just told to "type our 'supposed' knowledge' up in theory". Luckily I did Level 2 Horticulture before that and learnt 'some' plant knowledge during that time. I mean, the first half of Level 3 Horticulture was okayish as we went into depth in regards to botany and garden design (my two subject areas I am passionate about) and we had a few lessons on commercial crop production however the 'hands on' experience was ridiculously limited at times. Luckily, I gained a Triple Distinction* and I am working as a nurseryman and landscaper now that I have finished college. If I am honest, I am learning so much more about the industry from my employers and teaching myself that I ever did at college. Keep up the good work Malcom and happy growing! :)

[@plantsmanscorner128]

Sammy, your views are not surprising to me. For the past 18 years I have given talks all over about this. In general Horticultural colleges are rubbish, and as I've stated many times, I wouldn't employ most of the tutors, so what chance their pupils. You will learn far far more in 3 months on a nursery or with a landscaper than you will in 3 years at these so called colleges of further education. I get the impression they are for failed horticulturalists or cold and dirt fearing gardeners to make an easy living teaching people with no great knowledge that have no way of knowing if what they are being taught is in any way practically useful......which in most instances it isn't. Theory is not practice....I also get the feeling that some teachers stay one step ahead of their pupils in learning/teaching....it really is a betrayal of trust in many respects. I do not see it getting much better I'm afraid. Teach yourself, use the Internet for gathering a wide range of opinions and methods....there are many out there far better than my offerings.....work within the industry and gain practical knowledge, build your own portfolio up on the side before you plunge out on your own....slowly slowly catches monkey....above all enjoy it....it is an industry that allows you to work and earn a living doing what many aspire to do as a hobby. It has given me a wonderful life, introduced me to some exceptional and eccentric characters, I'm even off to do a series of talks in Australia this coming February before I retire.....I would wish you the same so good luck....just follow your instincts and don't be putting up with third rate courses. Best wishes......Malcolm

[@sammyboy13ify]

+Plantsmans Corner I couldn't have put it better myself. You are right because it does seem that a lot of Horticultural colleges seem to be going down the pan: I even had a few 'old-school' lecturers tell me how they learnt so much more back in their educational years when they were studying original practical RHS courses which I don't think exist in most land-based colleges anymore except for maybe RHS training at Wisely gardens, Cambridge botanical garden traineeship and apprenticeships which are all worked-related courses in general. You are right about teaching yourself: I have starting experimenting more in propagation of plants, particularly cuttings (some of the techniques I have used from what I did "learn" in my level 2 Horticultural diploma haha) and I plan to teach myself grafting and budding propagation techniques in January; all of which I am finding self-teaching is a lot easier. Anyway, good luck with the series talks in Australia Malcolm: I am sure you'll do great as you are excellent at presentation and have such a diverse knowledge of commercial Horticulture, as evident in your videos. I'll keep watch of the videos you put up on KZbin as they are very useful to me. Kind regards, Sam!

[@plantsmanscorner128]

Good luck with your career Sammy......you will learn so much more working within the industry.....I have to keep saying to people that go to colleges not to have too higher expectations, because frankly I wouldn't employ most of the tutors I've met.....and I've met quite a few. Things will only get worse before they get better, and it is maybe people like yourself that go off and sharpen their own practical skills that maybe one day teach youngsters themselves. There is far too much theory, nowhere near enough practical, and certainly not enough foundation horticulture taught in schools who seem to think....we can just sink the less academic or problem children int gardening. They devalue the subject, which is so huge that given two lifetimes I don't think any of us could get our heads round it fully.....there is nothing more important to us than plants, without them we are nothing, physically or spiritually. Good luck with your chosen career Sammy, if it brings you half the fun and pleasure and interest it's bought me you will be a lucky soul. Thank you for you comment. I retire in a couple of years but we are starting a series of "How to" videos next year....al the basic and not so basic stuff, hopefully done in an easy listening way.....we shall also invite people to ask us to clarify or explain a subject/task and see if that helps anyone who needs a little help.....just not quite worked out the best way to do it yet......we'll get ther. Best wishes......Malcolm

[@hasmukhpatel7972]

Thanks very much

[@Pappajb26]

Great words and thoughts,and so true.

[@bereniceraffaelli4290]

9:35 please at this minute help me understand that word when you say that THAT "..." ('HOWING'?) is the best method. Thank you. Thanks for your vdeos. You are right; without that PASSION that flickers inside, nothing is possible. I recognize it inside of me, and that passion allowed me to have success in my gaRDEN, PROPAGATION METHODS, THE SEASONS, THE SEEDS AT THE RIGHT MOMENT; the different experiments one can do by oneself. And learning from mistakes. They are REALLY HEPLFUL!. And being in harmony with nature through observing what happens 4example every time you change a pot to half shade or plain sun; or propagating some plants in different ways (direct earth, or first sinking it in water to obtain roots- that happened to me the 6th time I tried to propagate cestrum nocturnum...I founded out that dipping the cuttings in water for some days you'll soon see roots coming out!!!). My father was a physician and homeopath; so I inherited from him that subtlety and love of plants. Then he devoted himself exclusively to botany. Hugs from Buenos Aires. I love your place and the sanity and beauty of all plants that sorrounds you all time!

[@bereniceraffaelli4290]

***** THANK YOU SO MUCH,aLAN,,,AND SORRY FOR DELAYING IT...!

[@albert4512]

Brilliant love it thanks

[@Tonic_Taz]

Right on

[@miaou7052]

9:27 hey now!