Blog

4 September 2024

As we approach the start of term, we do not have too much to report in terms of gardening. We have been quietly ticking over and trying to complete our very busy workload, whilst trying to balance the period of the staff summer holidays. It is such a busy year in general and, as Head Gardener, I do not take much time off over the summer. I tend to cover the absences in the department as some of the team have families and must juggle the school holidays. In any other workplace, the summer holidays can just be managed accordingly but, unfortunately, in gardening, this isn’t so easy.

We have all been there when you returned from holiday and your garden has grown far beyond your expectations! In the summer, we can have as many as three gardeners off at any one time, so you can imagine that the workload just keeps piling up. We would like to thank everyone for their patience in this busy period.

In the last few weeks, we have seen the end of the contracts for some of our learning staff. Last week, we had to say goodbye to our apprentice, Izzie Hare. She successfully completed her apprenticeship, and we are pleased to announce that she passed with distinction. I am extremely proud of her and would also like to thank the rest of the Gardening Team for taking the time to pass on their knowledge as well. Izzie is now exploring the option of becoming a self-employed gardener. We all wish her well and thank her for her time tending our gardens. We have had an extraordinarily large number of applicants to replace Izzie as this year’s apprentice gardener. We shall be recruiting shortly.

This week we also say goodbye to our WFGA student, Emily McMullen. Emily has successfully completed her one-year programme with us here at Emmanuel College. Emily has been studying for her RHS exams alongside the placement she had with us. Emily starts her new permanent job at Girton College in a few weeks. This really does prove that the positive environment within the College Garden Department really gets the candidate industry ready. This is important: as an employer, we need to be responsible for addressing a skills shortage in the industry. Education and experience are an enormous part of this. Although we are not retaining the trainees, we can have a full heart knowing that we have been a huge stepping stone in somebody’s life. Hopefully they will remember Emma with fondness and, you never know, they may return in the future as vacancies arise. We have successfully recruited Emily’s replacement, and she starts on 11th September. More news to follow.

In other news in the gardens, we have had quite a lot of tree work done recently. The wet spring and windy weather have challenged some of our trees this year and we have had quite a bit of emergency tree work done. We are not alone, though: at a recent Head Gardener’s forum meeting that I attended, the other Head Gardeners from the colleges shared similar stories. I feel we are paying for the drought season we had a couple of years ago. Trees tend to only show signs of stress a couple of years after severe weather events. The next few years could be quite interesting!

Best wishes.

Brendon Sims, Head Gardener

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