Experience: I take care of the oldest potted plant in the world
I came to horticulture after college. I had completed a postgraduate degree in sustainable agriculture and worked in a café whilst living with my parents in Stirling. It was in the middle of the last recession and I was having trouble finding a job. My parents were trying to sell their house, and since I had some spare time, they asked me to sort out the garden.
It was a jungle. I pulled out all the weeds and started planting them - things like 'Queen Victoria' lobelia and hollyhock. Then I started a vegetable garden – mangetout, rutabaga, beets, purple potato – and even revived their tiny greenhouse. I became obsessed. Horticulture combined all sorts of things that I found interesting – both ecology and science, but it also had an artistic side; it's not something that's talked about in schools.
I couldn't afford to go back to college, but luckily most of the opportunities training in horticulture are remunerated. I managed to get an apprenticeship at an RHS garden in North Devon and it all started from there.
I worked at Kew for four and a half years. At first, I worked in the Temperate House, which has a Mediterranean climate. But then I was given the opportunity to move to Palm House, where the tropical plants live, and I jumped at the chance. It is home to a plant that is, to our knowledge, the oldest potted plant in the world. It is a giant cycad or Encephalartos altensteinii, native to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and brought to the United Kingdom in 1775 by botanist Francis Masson. In 1848 the Palm House was completed at Kew Gardens and this giant cycad was moved there.
It's poisonous all the way: very pungent, very stoic. We see him as a gentle giant, really – he lives on. When you get to know a person well, you can instantly tell if they look a little discolored. Caring for plants is the same thing. As I walk through the palm grove, I look at what the different plants look like, their color, their texture, the angle of their leaves, and I also pay attention to the quality of the air - is it too dry, or too hot?
Some plants are very spectacular, and will sag significantly or begin to turn yellow as soon as something goes wrong, but the giant cycad is not one of them. He's more like a grumpy grandpa, who sits by the fire and doesn't say much except, “Leave me alone; It will be fine." He keeps growing, slowly, about 2.5 cm per year. Today, he is...
I came to horticulture after college. I had completed a postgraduate degree in sustainable agriculture and worked in a café whilst living with my parents in Stirling. It was in the middle of the last recession and I was having trouble finding a job. My parents were trying to sell their house, and since I had some spare time, they asked me to sort out the garden.
It was a jungle. I pulled out all the weeds and started planting them - things like 'Queen Victoria' lobelia and hollyhock. Then I started a vegetable garden – mangetout, rutabaga, beets, purple potato – and even revived their tiny greenhouse. I became obsessed. Horticulture combined all sorts of things that I found interesting – both ecology and science, but it also had an artistic side; it's not something that's talked about in schools.
I couldn't afford to go back to college, but luckily most of the opportunities training in horticulture are remunerated. I managed to get an apprenticeship at an RHS garden in North Devon and it all started from there.
I worked at Kew for four and a half years. At first, I worked in the Temperate House, which has a Mediterranean climate. But then I was given the opportunity to move to Palm House, where the tropical plants live, and I jumped at the chance. It is home to a plant that is, to our knowledge, the oldest potted plant in the world. It is a giant cycad or Encephalartos altensteinii, native to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and brought to the United Kingdom in 1775 by botanist Francis Masson. In 1848 the Palm House was completed at Kew Gardens and this giant cycad was moved there.
It's poisonous all the way: very pungent, very stoic. We see him as a gentle giant, really – he lives on. When you get to know a person well, you can instantly tell if they look a little discolored. Caring for plants is the same thing. As I walk through the palm grove, I look at what the different plants look like, their color, their texture, the angle of their leaves, and I also pay attention to the quality of the air - is it too dry, or too hot?
Some plants are very spectacular, and will sag significantly or begin to turn yellow as soon as something goes wrong, but the giant cycad is not one of them. He's more like a grumpy grandpa, who sits by the fire and doesn't say much except, “Leave me alone; It will be fine." He keeps growing, slowly, about 2.5 cm per year. Today, he is...
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