I have learned from RHS experts
Rod Powell
why i stopped sitting at a desk in an office and went back to college
When I was little I used to help my dad in the garden and he told me off for digging up all the plants and leaving the weeds. Fortunately, since then, I have learned from the RHS experts at Merrist Wood College and have an RHS Diploma in Horticulture to prove it. After my diploma I went on to work in other people’s gardens and grow my experience. I see similar plants and problems in a lot of gardens.
I also have ‘designing with plants’ and technical drawing qualifications.
I have been to many talks, workshops and seminars with some big horticultural names such Noel Kingsbury, Tom Stuart Smith, Roy Lancaster and Neil Lucas among many others.
A decade ago I took seasonal work at the RHS Wisley Plant Centre to boost my plant knowledge. By chance I discovered that my great uncle was a Wisley diploma student just before WW1. He was shot dead in the Sinai Desert in 1916 aged 21. His name is on the memorial plaque in the Wisley laboratory entrance hall: Douglas James Powell.
Uncle Doug who was planning to be a fruit farmer
Many hands make light work of building garden structures
Teamwork counts
gardening talent to call upon
I have met and worked with a number of others with complementary skills. I don’t want to install fences or cut massive hedges and they don’t want anything to do with the plants or planting. So it all works out in the end. An extension of ‘nature’s balance’.