I think we are going in the right direction.
I feel that within the next 5-10 years we will have convinced many that horticulture is a worthwhile profession and decent career path to choose.
Of course if you are reading this and you are already a gardener you'll probably need no convincing that gardening is a skilled occupation requiring experience, sensitivity and above all a willingness to adopt a continuous professional development attitude, for life.
I can think of no other profession that can take a lifetime to learn but with none of us living long enough to learn just a mere fraction of what horticulture can teach us or has to offer.
Horeticulture truly is a skilled occupation of which no certificate or formal educational process can do justice. To learn horticulture you must me immersed within it on a daily basis.
Just a gardener
Despite knowing, deep down, that a gardening career is so worthwhile it feels as though there lingers a feeling of derision and subservience, when considered alongside landscapers and garden designers.
Somehow just the title appears to demote a gardener several levels below their industry peers. If a layman was to be asked to list in order of cultural importance and professional status, I suspect that gardener would be placed third; landscaper second and garden designer third.
Even a garden designer or a landscaper, who provide garden maintenance as part of a professional service, will very likely label themselves as a garden designer or a landscaper ahead of calling themselves a gardener.
There is still a very real professional apartheid existing within the landscaping industry.
However, as most of use here will probably attest, a gardener can be all three of the above professions combined. I'd like to go one step further and say a gardener is by far the most important practitioner: a gardener is the glue that holds the industry together.
What do you think....am I being too dramatic or have you considered there to be a hierarchy imbalance?
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If landscapers and garden designers didn't exist tomorrow it wouldn't change much if gardeners didn't exist tomorrow we'd all be living in a jungle! in Spring that would probably be by the end of the month..leave a garden for a season or two and you'll know what I mean !
I always knew I'd have to do my apprenticeship in gardening..yeah sure I had some knowledge when I started but figured I'd need at least 8-10 years hands on day in day out all year round before I'd have enough "practical" experience to start to know your trade...you need this time to see those seasons through, to see what works and what doesn't..encounter a myriad of ideas, scenarios and weather conditions to see what does what to what..this is of course never ending, so yes surely the skills run deep in just being a gardener ;-)
Couldn't agree more Mark. I think you need to work through years of different seasons to really understand how difficult this industry can be and what works well together. Wouldn't change industries...even in deepest darkest winter !