Our new trainees embarked on their City & Guilds Horticulture course with Grow for Life this Tuesday.
This is an adult community learning course supported by Bath City College and the Community Interest Company Grow Yourself, held in the Park’s Nursery site amongst the greenhouses in Victoria Park. It runs for the next 12 weeks.
Our first session started with potting on a variety of plants for sale in the Urban Garden nursery. Our last cohort of C+G trainees had planted bulbs in the Autumn and now for Allium ‘Mont Blanc’ and ‘Gladiator’, two beautiful large flowering bulbs, it was time for a bigger pot.
We usually pot on to a larger pot to benefit the plant, providing fresh nutrients, more space for roots and to help avoid becoming potbound. The second plant for potting on was strong smelling curry plant (Helichrysum italicum). This activity requires us to be very present, to be observant of the plants, to handle them with care, to be mindful of each action we take.
After the decorative onion bulbs, and the curry plant we potted on spider plants (Chlorophytum Comosum). All these plants required fresh compost—it was so warm, we couldn’t help ourselves by submerging cold hands into warm compost!
Afterwards we got outside to appreciate nature and trees, the maidenhair tree (Ginko biloba); alongside evergreens like Yew (Taxus baccata), Box (Buxus sempervirens) and Eucalytus. We are so grateful with having Victoria Park right on our doorstep, we will be learning more tree names over the coming weeks.
Our new group of trainees worked well together, getting to know each other a little more over lunch and are looking forward to session two
next Tuesday.