Catherine’s new career direction has been planned for a while, as she has enjoyed growing plants since she was 11 years old – growing Helichrysums bracteatum (everlasting flower) and tropical plants from seed. She furthered her interest by taking part in evening classes, designing and building her own garden, through growing fruit and vegetables on her allotment and through designing her friends’ gardens. Says Catherine: “I eventually decided I had enough of working in an office and it was time to pursue my dream.”
Training has played an important part in Catherine’s life. “In my previous career as an IT Project Manager, I received a lot of management, planning and financial training, which has been invaluable to setting up my business,” she says. “To increase my horticultural knowledge, I have trained with the RHS (general horticulture), English School of Gardening (design), C&G (general horticulture), KLC (Design), and the BBC Diarmuid Gavin Garden School (bit of everything). This training has been invaluable in giving me a firm foundation to work from. The RHS courses are excellent for general horticulture. I believe that the RHS course, with practical application was the most effective part of my learning, alongside extensive project work.
"Completing a course at any of the horticultural colleges around the country is a fantastic start to your career"
“Practical experience is also vital to be able to build gardens properly. A course in garden design will teach to you draw, and think, but you need to follow up by reading, researching, practicing, looking at other gardens, learning from the great gardeners of our time and looking at garden history. I firmly believe that you need to be a gardener before you can design and build gardens; hence you must combine practical horticulture with your design training. A combination of practical and theory work is very effective, as is having a mentor to bounce ideas off when you get stuck.”
Dedicated to her work, Catherine even found ways to train in her desired profession whilst in full-time employment “The way I did my training did fit in with my working life, as I did most of it in evening and Saturday classes, which took years, but enabled me to work and earn a living at the same time. My five months at Garden School was full-time, which gave me the push to break away from full time IT employment and move into garden design and gardening full-time.”
Whilst Catherine has been successful in her own career, does she have any advice for others? “Well completing a course such as Diploma in Practical Horticulture at the RHS gardens in Wisley or Kew or any of the other horticultural colleges around the country is a fantastic start to your career. This should be followed up with a specialised garden design course and some further practical experience. In order to have a successful garden design business, I think it is really important to have good people skills. You have to listen to your client and understand their requirements; a lot of your future work will come from recommendations. Practical knowledge is a must too – so that you know before you start what will and won’t work.
“The best thing you can do is get training alongside practical experience. Learn from others and find good partners to work alongside, whose skills are complementary to yours.”
