RHS Level 2 Practical: Month 2

 October as a horticulture student

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has been mostly warm and dry. At Capel Manor, the leaves have turned, the gardens are looking romantically autumnal, and my goaty friends have been munching grass in the sunshine.

My fellow students and I have also been enjoying lunch outdoors together. It's been great getting to know my classmates. In some ways, they're all very different - for example, ages range from a young lad to middle-age to retirement. But we're obviously all very interested in plants and gardens, which unites us and gives everyone something to talk about straight away. 

Everyone is genuinely really lovely (I think horticulture attracts nice people), and there are so many widely varied backgrounds and reasons for doing the course. Here are a few:

• a lady who works in estate gardening and a council parks worker, both looking to formalise their learning
• a garden centre manager broadening his plant knowledge
• a lady who works at almshouses who wanted to know more after watching the gardener
• a couple of people who run charity or community gardening sessions, wanting to gain confidence and knowledge
• several people looking to change career from all kinds of directions: marketing, teaching, even leatherworking!

After the first couple of sessions being fairly classroom-focused, I'm pleased that the course has become much more practical and outdoorsy during October.

Sessions included:

• single- and double-digging outdoors
• seedbed preparation in the polytunnel
• preparing a dahlia bed
• propagating from soft and semi-ripe cuttings
• taking and propagating from hardwood cuttings
• planting up containers, which were on display for the public at Capel Manor's Hallowe'en event  

The course includes several field trips to various gardens. On 16 October, we visited Cambridge Botanic Gardens, which was lovely! 

There have been two sets of plant idents to learn. These included seasonal herbaceous perennials, deciduous and evergreen shrubs and trees, and a couple of conifers. I haven't bought any more ident plants after the cyclamen, since I'm relandscaping my garden at the moment. But I did take a shine to Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Kokuryu', a lilyturf with grass-like leaves that look black and spikes of pink flowers in summer, followed by deep blue fruit. Apart from the fact that it looks interesting, the scientific name is particularly fun to say!

Aside from the idents, I'm also beginning to notice which plants seem to be 'on trend'. Verbena bonariensis, for example, is absolutely everywhere. I'm also noticing these beautiful bright-lilac flowers. Gardener's World and most people are still calling them 'asters', but the RHS has reclassified asters recently. Identifying the differences can be difficult. As a non-expert, I can't tell whether these are still asters, or are now in a different genus like Simphotrychum. The lilac is pastel, but almost neon - very Gen Z and stunningly striking in a border. 

Outside of college, I'm trying to find opportunities to practice the skills we learn in class. You only really get one chance to do some of the practicals, so good attendance is key. I'm lucky (?) to have plenty of double-digging to do in my compacted new-build soil, but I find practicing seed sowing and cuttings 'the RHS way' a bit tricky when I don't have a potting bench. 

My husband helpfully made me a tamper (for pressing down the compost before sowing seeds)... although it does have a slightly dubious appearance. I'll have to remember not to leave it out when people visit!

The last week of October was half-term. It wasn't much of a break, though, as I worked! I've finished my full-time job now, after dropping down to part-time during my notice period to study and build up other things. Juggling quite a stressful job with the demands of the course proved quite difficult. I'm now freelancing, with a part-time side job. I hope this proves to be a much better balance.

This month was also my birthday, and I visited Kew Gardens for the first time to celebrate!

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