HortWeek Podcast

HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation. 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. We hear from people who have found their way into their chosen care...

Head gardener Scott Smith is one of a growing number of horticulturists-turned TV stars as co-presenter  Beechgrove Garden  for the BBC. Smith explains how the show works and the challenges of keeping the garden shipshape around the filming schedule for the show, which includes the 'Back to Basics' feature helping gardeners demystify some of the projects shown on TV shows and to pro...

Landscape architect and trustee of  Brogdale Collections T om La Dell discovered very early in his career, a passion for, and conviction in the importance of ecology in landscape architecture schemes. Brought up with artistic background, he was more interested in breeding plants and after a botany degree did his post graduate in landscape architecture which enabled him to combine his interest...

Sam Rivers of ICL talks to HortWeek editor Matt Appleby about new vine weevil control product Lalguard. They discuss how Lalguard works, what its ingredients are, and how to use the product. Lalguard works in an IPM plan and Rivers details how to include the product in integrated pest management and what plan support ICL has available. Vine weevils are one of the most problematic pests ornamentals...

Dr Neil Bell is a bryologist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Much of his research is focused on quantifying, understanding and promoting Scotland’s globally important bryophyte flora, of which mosses are part (along with liverworts and hornworts). This year is a big year for the bryophyte world: the British Bryology Society celebrates its centenary and in tandem Neil has published his book,...

There are a few well-known Edwardian lady gardeners - Gertrude Jekyll, Ellen Wilmot are two. They tended to be wealthy and able to forge their trade in their own large gardens. "Less well known are the professional gardeners and particularly women professional gardeners", says Fiona Davison, the head of libraries and exhibitions at the RHS. While looking for stories of gardeners at RHS Garden Wisl...

This week Rachael Forsyth speaks to Borde Hill's managing director Jay Goddard, and head of horticulture Harry Baldwin. Borde Hill, a country garden set with in 383 acres of heritage-listed parkland in West Sussex is celebrating its 130th anniversary. Jay is the fifth generation of the Stevenson-Clark familly and she spent an her childhood in that idyllic setting. After a period away during w...

This week we welcome Blenheim Palace head gardener Andy Mills to the Horticulture Week Podcast. A year into the role, Andy says he is still getting his bearings with the garden: "A place as diverse as Blenheim takes quite a while to get your head around - ask me the same question in about 3-5 years!" Andy is merging hands-on gardening with garden history in his role at Blenheim, with plans to rest...

The guest on this week's  Horticulture Week Podcast  is Andy Baxter of outdoor furniture supplier, Maze. Managing director since early 2021, Andy has had to navigate the firm through a particularly tumultuous time with containers prices hitting record highs and lockdowns in China halting supply. Sterling "has been a challenge", Andy says. "At the moment, it's looking quite good. Not nece...

This week RBG Kew's director of gardens Richard Barley and arboretum supervisor Rebecca Lane join the  Horticulture Week Podcast . Kew has changed a lot over the last 10 years, including the introducing the Great Broadwalk Borders, the Children's Garden, Agius Evolution Garden, "reinvigorating" the Kitchen and Winter gardens, plus and the restoration of the Temperate House...

Financier and environmentalist Ben Goldsmith joins the HortWeek podcast. He was a Defra non-executive board member from 2018-22, where he was involved in the Environmental Land Management scheme, the Nature for Climate Fund and the Species Reintroductions task force. Goldsmith is chair of the influential Conservative Environment Network. His new book is titled  God Is An Octopus: Lo...

This week Plant Heritage business manager at Plant Heritage Gill Groombridge joins the Horticulture Week Podcast She reports on her highlights from the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (July 2023) which included displays focusing on the history of Plant Heritage's collections over 5 decades as part of its 45th anniversary celebrations. They announced the winner of the Brickell award - awarded...

Ahead of his time in naturalistic planting at the Dorset gardens and nursery Knoll Gardens, Neil Lucas was an innovator in a movement whose time has well and truly come: "Certainly when I first started it was far more unusual to garden or more importantly to be thinking in this way. For many of our customers it is [now] becoming front and centre. "I think it is such an important subject...sup...

Flower shows stalwart Martyn Flint of Chysanthemums Direct has told the Horticulture Week Podcast he is going into retirement. The 36-year flower show veteran reflects on how shows have changed in recent years. "They were beginning to lose their shine in the years before Covid" and with the move online not all shows have survived: "The half a dozen shows we do - the big RHS shows - are the on...

At the age of 15, Michael Buck, was busy destroying plants in his back garden kicking a football around as at that time he was already getting paid to play and was contemplating a future in the professional game. But he transferred his ambition to the world of horticulture and as head of horticulture at Creepers Nursery, is not beyond singing to plants to get them to flower. Creepers, wh...

This week renowned soil scientist Tim O'Hare unearths the ways soil is impacted by and can impact climate change. Tim O'Hare Associates recently won a Pineapples awards for Circus Street in Brighton where a derelict urban market space was redeveloped into a mixed-use neighbourhood space. Tim developed the various soil profiles and ensured they were sourced and installed correctly: "We're...

Garden designer Peter Donegan returned to the HortWeek Podcast fresh from the 116th Royal Windsor flower show in June where he enjoyed the "humbling compliment" of judging alongside a "who's who" of garden industry including former Chelsea shows manager Alex Denman, Rob Hardy of Harkness Roses and Alan Titchmarsh. He reflects on his trajectory from a 'geeky' kid growing plants under his bed, on to...

HortWeek editor Matt Appleby talks with ICL's Sam Rivers about irrigation and peat-free growing media.  Sam explains why irrigation is important in peat-free growing media and differences between watering with peat alternatives and peat. He reveals options growers can use to help manage irrigation, which wetting agents to use and gives examples of where H2Gro has shown to benefit gr...

Henri Ghijben of HRG Tree surgeons has been mentoring other tree surgeon businesses through the Tree Surgeon's mastermind since the start of 2022. Keynote speaker for the Arb Show of 2022 he tells the Horticulture Week Podcast about how tree surgeons and arb contractors can benefit from sharpening their business skills. Drawing on his own experiences, he offers his "blueprint to my tree surgery bu...

Plant breeder  Peter Moore , who has been creating new plants for 40 years, tells HortWeek about his new breeding and his vast experience in the production of new plants. He started work at Hillier in 1960 with some legendary Hillier propagators. In 1997 he left Hillier’s to become propagator at Longstock Park Nursery in Hampshire. He is still responsible for the  National Collectio...

Harrowden Turf's managing director Stuart Ridd-Jones talks on the Horticulture Week Podcast about the company's diversification from turf growing to wildflower turf, sedum, green roofs and topsoil.   Ridd-Jones gives us a market outlook and discusses new technology such as the Firefly Harvester. The effects of extreme weather due climate change on smaller gardens means we need new types...

Horticulturist Chris Collins, the Westminster Abbey head gardener, talks to the Horticulture Week podcast about the royal wedding and how he would have prepared the gardens for the big event. As a former Brighton Parks gardener, Collins rues the decline in funding for green spaces. And as Garden Organic head of horticulture, he talks about his role promoting organic gardening. The ex -Bl...

Alistair Yeomans has been with Plant Healthy since it was set up 2019. Plant Healthy is the biosecurity standard for UK businesses, mainly growers. The Plant Health Alliance is made up of Defra and about 20 trade and other membership bodies including the National Trust, RHS and HTA and they own the Plant Health Management Standard and the Governing Body of the Plant Healthy Certification Scheme. Y...

Melanie Asker was recently promoted to managing director of Greenwood Plants, supplier to new-build property sector, but increasingly, commercial work and infrastructure. Listed at no 27 in HortWeek's  Top 100 Ornamentals Nurseries  ranking, the nursery grows "pretty much everything you can think of" but, a 'G' range comprising the "top 350 plants across most of our orders". 2022 wa...

Eliot Barden headed a field of 15 to win AIPH young international grower of the year at IPM Essen in January. But at the start of his career, which began at the age of 15 with an RHS evening class, some teachers were not encouraging about his prospects (a not uncommon experience for many in the sector} and one which informed his current role as production and education manager for mature...