With the celebration of its 90th year and announcement of a brand refresh, this week the Grounds Management Association (GMA) talks to HortWeek about what this means for members. Jason Booth, chief operating officer of the GMA and Jennifer Carter, director of communications & marketing at the GMA also explore some of the challenges facing the turf …

HortWeek spoke toa range of industry experts at IPM Essen trade show 2025 on how to export. Andy Jeanes of Guernsey Clematis says planning, procedure and relationships with customs and shipping agents and phyto inspectors are the keys to successful exporting. The USA could become an issue. Soiless plants are air freighted to the US but there are co…

On this week’s HortWeek Podcast Stuart Mackley, head of grounds for Fulham Football Club's home ground at Motspur Park, explains how he found a career in groundscare through a love of football. As well as explaining what it is like at Fulham in the lead up to matches, Mackley relates what the team get up to in the off season which he says is “our b…

Cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder Jonathan Sheppard and dahlia and sweet pea grower Darren Everest discuss whether flower show judges should reward homegrown, sustainable plants, rather than give medals for uniformity. Everest said at RHS shows you compete for medals and not against other growers as you would at a sweet pea show. But…

Ben raskin and Andy Dibben have written Silvohorticulture, A Grower's Guide To Integrating Trees Into Crops published in January 2025 by Chelsea Green Publishing. Raskin is head of horticulture and agroforestry for the Soil Association and Dibben is head grower at Abbey Home Farms in Gloucestershire. They say interactions between trees and crops is…

Having been in the landscape industry for over 53 years Alan Sargent is regularly commissioned to either take part in, or organise job interviews and recruit new senior and head gardeners. On this week’s HortWeek Podcast Sargent takes us through some real life questions produced by himself for a recent interview for a head gardener. Beginning with …

Sean Higgs, of Floralive, is the foremost authority on peat-free cultivation of carnivorous plants. In this HortWeek Podcast he discusses his path growing peat-free plants which grow in peat in the wild,and the future of the houseplant market. After the bounce delived by the John Lewis 2023 Christmas venus flytrap advert he relates how that has con…

New HTA president Will Armitage started his career at The Barton Grange Group at Woodford Garden Centre before joining family business Armitage & Sons (Seeds) where he eventually became joint managing director. He was chair of the Garden Centre Association from 2014 to 2016 and says the big difference between now and then are the costs of employing…

Chris Hull, one of the stars of BBC One's Garden Rescue, is a rising gardening star, working with Charlie Dimmock and Alan Titchmarsh as the new face of garden makeovers. He got his first gardening job was when he was 15 at a country house hotel in Devon, and studied at Duchy College and for a garden design degree at Sparsholt College. Hull believe…

Crop technician Ross Dyke has a new project called Get Children Growing. He's a Plant Pod host and works at Bonterre CIC alternative education establishment near Worcester, teaching horticulture skills. An unassuming networker, he is also studying at Pershore College and is a Colegrave Seabrook and IPPS scholar. He left school at 14 and worked in v…

In the hot summer of 2022, RBG Kew lost more than 400 trees. By July 2024, Kew announced that it believed over 50% of its trees could be at risk by 2090 due to environmental changes due to climate change. This week's guest is Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and he joined the HortWeek Podcast to relate the researc…

Kate Ashbrook is an author and has been the general secretary of the Open Spaces Society for 40 years and counting, but she is first and foremost, a campaigner. On this week's HortWeek Podcast she recounts some of the best changes she has seen during her tenure - "the greater awareness of the importance of open spaces for the public and the greater…

HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides. Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry …

HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides. Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry …

HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides. Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valua…

HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides. Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valua…

Bob Askew was Garden Media Guild award winner a year ago for his new writer work for Hortweek. He works for Kernock Park Plants as production director and was previously at Darby Nursery Stock and Brinkmans. Here he names his top three tree genera for gardens, three underused tree genera and top five skinny trees for small gardens. He believes the …

This week the HortWeek Podcast meets Imogen Bell, supervisor at Thomson's Garden Centre and a YPHA Southeast regional coordinator In her article for HortWeek 'Despite CITES, not all doom and gloom for houseplant sales' Imogen reflects on how the reinterpretation of CITES "meant practically a third of my stock became unavailable overnight". One of t…

HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsor Westland Horticulture. 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…

This week's guests are James Cairncross and Angela Lewis from the Midlands Parks Forum which has its annual conference on the 17th of October at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Highlights include keynote speaker Dr. William Bird, a GP who contributed to a select committee report on access to green space who will speak on health be…

Both our guests on the HortWeek Podcast broadly agree with the reasons for a peat ban and agree there is a need to reduce carbon emissions to help fight climate change. But they are not equally convinced a peat ban is the way to do it. In the 'for' corner is cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder and lobbyist Jonathan Sheppard. Sheppard s…

ICL's Sam Rivers digs down into Integrated Pest Management and speifically IPM planning. Sam describes what the current situation in the industry is with regards to IPM planning and details the 'hierarchy of control', which includes cultural, biological, physical and chemical methods. He gives examples of the different types of controls and talks a…

GroundsFest 2024 took place10 - 11 September at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Initial visitor numbers from day 1 (unaudited) of 4,738 were 40% up on last year, the show’s inaugural year. The podcast was recorded on day 2 of GroundsFest amongst the hustle and bustle of the show. HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth spoke with Chris Bassett, eve…

Alan Down is a gardening broadcaster and writer and current HTA president, shortly to be replaced by Will Armitage after two eventful years. He studied at Cannington and Pershore College of Horticulture and after a spell working Germany, he developed and managed Hillier Nurseries' container grown and seed propagation nurseries for nine years. For t…

A Sussex native, Susan Raikes, the new director of Wakehurst, Kew's wild botanic garden in West Sussex (she joined in June) was familier with the garden since childhood. "We're Kew's younger, bigger and wilder sister and very much a botanic garden with a purpose...a site of horticultural and scientific excellence and a living laboratory where groun…

GroundsFest 2024 takes place on the 10 and the 11 of September at Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire. The free annual event is a must-attend for grounds staff, greenkeepers, landscapers, designers & architects, gardeners, local authorities, estate managers and contractors. It combines indoor business and education opportunities with outdoor demonstra…

HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsors MorePeople. This episode was recorded on location at Ball Colegrave where the great and the good from the horticultural industry gathered to celebrate 30 years of the Colegrave Foundation. In this episode Neville St…

This week's guest is Angus Soft Fruits' breeding program director, Lucy Wilkins. Angus Soft Fruits sells to the major multiples in UK, food service and wholesale and also exports fruit around the world to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Angus is launching two revolutionary raspberry varieties: AVA™ Monet and AVA™ Dali - so named because they are,…

Edwin Meijer from Green Solutions speaks about the dos and don'ts of loyalty programmes for garden retailers. Edwin speaks about the role of smartphones in loyalty campaigns as the older generation uses social media more. Research from KPMG showed that more than 80% of the consumers expect a mobile-based loyalty programme. If you retired aged 65 in…

Matthew Bent of Bents Garden and Home and Plants for Europe's Graham Spencer speak to HortWeek about the visitor experience at Four Oaks Trade Show. Four Oaks is the UK’s leading international exhibition for the whole of commercial horticulture. From production to point-of-sale, the breadth of exhibits on display is the show’s strength, attracting …

Sales development executive at Collier Turf Care Sally Jarrett is not a football fan but as stories of divot-strewn pitches she has sympathy for grounds keepers under the spotlight during the Euros tournament held in Germany last June. "When football pitches are getting ready for big tournaments, they undergo a lot of work...it could be that some o…

This week's podcast guests are leaders in the UK fruit growing sector: Alana Deakin, the new chair of the NextGen Fruit Group and head of operations at Hall Hunter and Oli Pascall, MD of Clockhouse Farm and the NextGen past president. They talk about their key takeaways from a recent visit to the USA including ag-tech, driven in part by scarcity an…

The author of The Ethical Carnivore, Louise Gray takes a journalistic approach to questioning trusims about fruit and veg being better for you and the planet. Mike Berners-Lee wrote about the carbon footprint of 100 things in 2010's How Bad Are Bananas. As many businesses attempt to go carbon neutral, ethical and environmental sourcing is more of a…

Tayshan Hayden-Smith's Wikipedia entry tells you he is a professional footballer from Ladbroke Grove, London. Nicknamed the "English Neymar" Tayshan had a burgeoning international career underway until the Grenfell Fire in 2017 took 72 lives from his local community. A quest for healing led him into the world of horticulture and his non-profit orga…

This week's guest on the Horticulture Week Podcast is Glendale head of development, estate services, Deric Newman, The podcast was recorded shortly after the Perennial Quiz in February. HortWeek editor Matt Appleby and Deric, both on the 'Horticulture Geeks' team, discuss how they fared. Deric talks about his role and about Glendale's current busin…

This episode we hear from Peter Wessel and Shaun Herdsman from Modiform. Modiform offers solutions in the field of growing, transport, and packaging systems for the horticultural sector based on recycled raw materials. As one of the first horti-packaging companies to start looking into the recycling of plastic, Peter and Shaun talk about how and wh…

Former Defra secretary of state George Eustice says there should be a new generation of UK fresh produce glasshouse production post-election, with a Defra strategy to support that. The retiring Conservative MP believes more can also be done on labour shortages. He supports a needs-based policy so sectors with shortages have sector-specific visas, a…

Trees, arguably, have never been so popular and Sarah Lom, chief executive of the Tree Council is enjoying their moment in the sun. Applications to the Tree Council's small grants fund [under £500] have doubled in the last 12 months. National Tree Week at the end of 2023 reached an estimated 30 million people and a schools programme is helping enga…

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 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…

Renowned plantswoman Claire Austin, who has recently written a book called Peonies, a personal collection of 350 species, has revealed the secrets behind growing the increasingly popular herbaceous, intersectional and tree peonies. Austin, who owns the only retail nursery that also has a pub on site, in Sarn, mid-Wales, talks about the appeal of pe…

HortWeek editor Matt Appleby speaks with ICL's Andrew Wilson, Matthew Miller, Steven Chapman and Sam Rivers to preview Hort Science Live. ICL Hort Science Live explore the latest technologies and management practices growers need to produce quality resilient plants in sustainable media. Wilson will lead the ‘How to rethink plant nutrition’workstati…

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…

David Richardson is director of horticulture at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) and leads a team of almost 850 horticulturists responsible for the maintenance and gardening of more than 2,400 sites across 50 countries. He speaks to HortWeek about how the CWGC will be at the heart of many D-Day events in the UK and France, and is a glo…

Chris Baines is one of the UK’s leading independent environmentalists and an award-winning writer and broadcaster. A trained horticulturist and landscape architect, he spent some years practising and teaching landscape design but has spent most of his career a professional adviser to Government and other bodies including the National Trust, Nationa…

Biostimulants and legislation is the topic for this week's podcast with ICL. ICL's Sam Rivers says there is confusion about what biostimulants are: micro-organisms that when applied to plants stimulate natural processes. They are not replacements for nutrition or IPM but can help overcome issues in plant production. Different types of biostimulants…

The second part of this conversation with Fargro's managing director, explores drones, sustainability and fairness in the supply chain. Fargro's interest in drones is part of a number of projects on data-driven decision-making for protected horticulture "to try and give a holistic view for agronomists and growers so they actually get some actionabl…

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 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. This wee…

Fargro managing director Richard Hopkins speaks to HortWeek about spring optimism, the upcoming general election and peat, water, border inspections and crop protection. He says growers should talk to policymakers using policy asks from the HTA, AIC and NFU. Key issues are peat, plant health, plant protection products and water. On crop protection …