Horticulture Week พอดคาสต์

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 Ste…

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. Business…

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. HortWeek…

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 fro…

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 fou…

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 fou…

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 proj…

Landscape architect and trustee of Brogdale Collections Tom 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 architectur…

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…

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 ce…

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 l…

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 …

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 h…

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 mom…

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…

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 bo…

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 ann…

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. "…

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…

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 pl…

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…

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…

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 w…

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 experienc…

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 respon…

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 sm…

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…

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…

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 ac…

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 pro…

Peat-free and peat-reduced growing media may lack beneficial microbes to promote break down of plant residues, improve soil carbon and pH; and help to provide plants with available nutrients throughout the season. ICL's technical controls manager Sam Rivers explains that the microbial inoculant Vitalnova Triboost consists of a population of benefic…

Trees for Cities is a charity that helps facilitate tree planting in urban contexts but as recently-appointed chief executive , Kate Sheldon explains, the benefits are wide-ranging and sometimes surprising: "Some of the biggest risks in cities [are] around heat and flooding and I believe that as an urban tree planting charity we can have more impac…

Director of the Landscaping Consultants, BALI South Thames chair and board director Jake Catling is a landscaper who brings genuine drive and enthusiasm to his work. In this episode Jake talks about the excitement and challenges of working on two RHS Chelsea Flower Show gardens and provides fascinating insight into the process of putting together a…

This episode Glendale's director of corporate development Adrian Wickham and Tessa Johnstone of Johnstone's Landscapes return to the Horticulture Week Podcast to give us an update on their important work on improving diversity in horticulture industry. Both members of the BALI board, they joined various industry associations to sign Equality Divers…

Primrose Hall Peonies' Alec White is an RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medal award-winning British specialist peony grower and holds the Plant Heritage National Collection for unusual Intersectional or Itoh peony varieties. He has also written a new book A Love Affair With Peonies, which involved five years of nationwide travel to photograph peonies …

In this bumper episode, BALI Grand Award winners, Maylim managing director and owner Thomas O'Mahony, and business development director Alistair Bayford reflect on the accomplishment and the project that won them the top honours. O'Mahony puts the win down to the complex logistics of the Exchange Square project, which sits on a podium above Liverpo…

This week, Jo Davey of Whartons Roses joins the Horticulture Week Podcast and speaks about the rose market, trends, new promotions, supply and demand and sustainability. Recently. after 35 years at the helm of Whartons Garden Roses, managing director Robert Wharton has become chairman, stepping aside for Paul Wharton to take on the role of managing…

ICL technical manager Sam Rivers talks to HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby about ChatGPT, an new artificial intelligence chatbot that could be useful for answering horticultural questions. Rivers explains how queries are answered by ChatGPT and what the benefits and concerns are and whether the programme has a role for professionals. He live tests C…

This week's Horticulture Week Podcast welcomes Burpee Seeds' sales and marketing director Simon Crawford and commercial director Andrew Mellowes. Burpee Europe’s focus on the breeding and development of new varieties of vegetables, fruit and flowers for the home gardener market has seen the team enjoy a steady rise in seed sales and has provoked a …

Marking International Women's Day this episode hears from arborist and World Champion tree climber, Jo Hedger. One of still relatively few women in the sector, she talks about the myriad challenges of running a business -Arbor Venture Tree Care - and avoiding getting trapped in the office. But from early in her career, Hedger found a passion and sk…

Garden designer Camellia Taylor came to the discipline via work with young people on the autism spectrum, women that had experienced domestic violence and a Masters in speech and language therapy. During a career break prompted by the birth of her two children she began to connect her interest in psychology with nature and a passion for plants. She…

New HTA president Alan Down talks about high priority issues in horticulture such as biosecurity and peat in the latest HortWeek podcast. The former Cleeve Nursery garden centre owner, writer and TV and radio broadcaster, studied at Cannington and Pershore. He has worked in Germany, for Hillier and on a Nuffield farming scholarship. He and wife Fel…

New Garden Centre Association chief executive Peter Burks backs an upbeat economic forecast from the recent GCA conference by economist Roger Martin-Fagg. From a well-known garden retail family, Burks looks forward to the 2023 season as one that will see the sector return to normal. The former Sanders, Wyevale and Blue Diamond manager speaks about …

As Apprenticeship Week (6-12 February) approaches, Rachael Forsyth talks to two landscape maintenance apprentices who work for idverde in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Adam James is extra works team leader' and Mark Skinner, South park team leader as part of idverde's apprentice program. [Both have worked for idverde for a number of years but d…

This week head of masterplanning Julian Tollast and David Hughes, estate landscape manager tell us about the transformation of Wembley Park which has given the area around the eponymous stadium an ''urban arboretum" and includes far more extensive and varied green space than people may realise. One of London’s largest development schemes of recent …

Kew's Joe Richomme on popularising botanical words, career changing, how to get into the industry, what peonies and alternative grasses to plant, Richomme is a botanical horticulturist based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Working primarily with temperate plants, he is responsible for Kew’s living collections of grasses and peonies. With Emma To…

Signify's commercial leader horticulture UK and Ireland Nathanael Dannenberg talks about coping with the energy crisis and how to use light strategy to keep lights shining when prices are at their lowest. Signify, formerly known as Philips Lighting, says growers who go with innovation will thrive more. Government funds and grants are explained as m…

Horticulturist and garden writer Barbara Segall, editor of The Horticulturist, the quarterly journal of The Chartered Institute of Horticulture and a well-known gardening author, is the guest on this HortWeek podcast. Segall talks about the importance of networking, particularly post-lockdown. She discusses her new book Secret Gardens of the South …

Having grown up exploring the Scottish countryside, Carol Adams’ interest in forestry grew into a horticulture qualification. Around eight years ago, this brought her to Trentham, a 725 acres estate in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. With influence from Capability Brown, the gardens have seen many evolutions over the years, most recently, the like…

Provender Nurseries MD Richard McKenna has more than 20 years expereince supplying nursery stock to landscapers. After a couple of rollercoaster years he looks into his crystal ball to predict trade in 2023. On the big issue of biosecurity, he worries that the Government is becoming more detached from the industry and he wonders why nurseries aren;…