Two conversations lately about the awful point out of horticultural education in Britain: both with past instructors at (previous) horticultural universities. Another reason behind national pity - the world's leading garden region (well probably!) has hardly any college or university courses instructing horticulture. For 'adult education', run by local councils, this is something we used to be excellent at, but it commenced to perform into problems back the 1980s, and then be starved of financing from the 1990s onwards. It really is now effectively lifeless. 'Lifestyle' posting stressing design over gardenING. Final result is a complete generation appears to be growing up being unsure of how to prune, take cuttings, increase their own bed linen plants.
I feel increasingly more concerned and considering the whole problem of 'garden education'. I write as anyone who has performed in adult education in the dim and distantly more youthful recent, and socially I move around in a global where there are a great number of professional educators. As being a article writer and 'communicator' I am fascinated with information and exactly how you present it, specifically the task of how you breakdown really complicated or counter-intuitive information and obtain it across. I must say i feel its part of my quest now.
Coaching gardening is an elaborate business, which could very well be one reason I think it is so fascinating. It really is a variety of art, build and science. Artwork means creativeness, and beyond the essential growing of lettuces in in a straight line lines, nearly every gardening will involve some ingenuity. By craft After all the use of a couple of skills, something through frequent repetition, you grasp. When people speak about technology however, what they often times suggest is technology, a learning from your errors procedure for making something work. Understanding some basic herb science however, helps a great deal - it permits anyone to take some bought knowledge and then use it to new situations.
Acceptable, that's enough description defining. Among the wonderful reasons for having gardening is just how leading people who often don't believe of themselves as imaginative into creative activity. Precisely how do you lay out the begonias you merely bought from your garden centre? Given that you've got the clippers out, precisely how will you condition that hedge? Shall I buy those screaming green lythrums and put them next to the yellowish rudbeckia? Usually gardening was essentially a build activity, the perfecting of skills that could be employed in pretty much creatively, depending on person. Most would clip a hedge to a right range, but those who thought enjoy it could flip their skills to castellations or curves. Artistry and creative imagination will always be like optional add-ons; pretty much as disposition and self-assurance allow.
I feel increasingly more concerned and considering the whole problem of 'garden education'. I write as anyone who has performed in adult education in the dim and distantly more youthful recent, and socially I move around in a global where there are a great number of professional educators. As being a article writer and 'communicator' I am fascinated with information and exactly how you present it, specifically the task of how you breakdown really complicated or counter-intuitive information and obtain it across. I must say i feel its part of my quest now.
Coaching gardening is an elaborate business, which could very well be one reason I think it is so fascinating. It really is a variety of art, build and science. Artwork means creativeness, and beyond the essential growing of lettuces in in a straight line lines, nearly every gardening will involve some ingenuity. By craft After all the use of a couple of skills, something through frequent repetition, you grasp. When people speak about technology however, what they often times suggest is technology, a learning from your errors procedure for making something work. Understanding some basic herb science however, helps a great deal - it permits anyone to take some bought knowledge and then use it to new situations.
Acceptable, that's enough description defining. Among the wonderful reasons for having gardening is just how leading people who often don't believe of themselves as imaginative into creative activity. Precisely how do you lay out the begonias you merely bought from your garden centre? Given that you've got the clippers out, precisely how will you condition that hedge? Shall I buy those screaming green lythrums and put them next to the yellowish rudbeckia? Usually gardening was essentially a build activity, the perfecting of skills that could be employed in pretty much creatively, depending on person. Most would clip a hedge to a right range, but those who thought enjoy it could flip their skills to castellations or curves. Artistry and creative imagination will always be like optional add-ons; pretty much as disposition and self-assurance allow.
The last thirty odd years however have seen a 'design revolution' which has completely turned the craft/art equation around. The creativity of many gardeners (very often women, traditionally rather marginalised) has been given a boost, but at the expense of the passing on of the craft skills necessary for quality garden maintenance. Gardening media have focussed on 'getting the look' rather than 'how to do it', and have simply not been transmitting the nitty-gritty practical knowledge. We now face the situation of gardeners 'getting the look' but being unable to keep it. And no use turning to professional gardeners, because there are not many of them, and so many of the semi-skilled ones are precisely that, capable of doing the basics but with no real depth of skill or plant knowledge; they can mow, clip and weed, but cant' prune properly, propagate or train.
We, in Britain, don't do too badly with 'garden schools', privately-run institutions which put on day classes on various aspects of gardening, and garden design. These to some extent make up the slack left by the loss of council adult education. Except that most of them are in the south and south-east of the country and are marketed at, and priced for, older and reasonably well-off people. If you are a youngster trying to get into gardening these days, or find out more, the opportunities are greatly reduced.
What do the 'garden schools' offer? A lot actually, up to a point. Getting big name speakers is part of the appeal, so there is an opportunity to learn from real expertise and knowledge. However, the quality of teaching is pretty basic, so basic that 'teaching' had better go in inverted commas – it's actually lecturing. Most of the speakers at these events give a good lecture, and that's that. There is often little 'active learning', where participants have to do things; the design-orientated courses seem to be ones most likely to include an active participation element. However good a lecturer is, they cease to be good after about an hour or so – the human mind only has a limited ability to concentrate, and after a while begins to switch off. Another activity is needed to refresh the mind and preferably, to enable information acquired to be put into practice.
There are garden lecturers who seem to think that showing slides and talking to people for hours at a time is 'education'. Sorry, its not - its being 'talked at'. I remember one experience, in the US, where a speaker lectured an audience for two hours solid in a temperature of over 30C, allowing the prisoners a brief break and then launching into another hour. The few gardening conferences (all in the US) annoy me too, wall to wall lectures but no conferring.
The trick is to design events where participants can do something: make lists of plants, analyse plans, take some cuttings, discuss a plant selection, prune a rose bush. Its not always easy, as venues often don't have enough space or facilities to allow this. But this active engagement is vital, if information gained is actually to be retained and internalised.
Which, in short, is why Annie Guilfoyle and I have started the Garden Masterclasses. 13 events and 20 tutors across 8 venues, in the South-West, South Wales, South East, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Scotland.
Find out more here and come and join us:
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