Threave Garden & Nature Reserve

Changing times

The name-tweak is not the only change at the School. Female trainees were admitted for the first time in 1981; there was a switch to a condensed one-year course in the 1990s; and the trainees now live in former holiday accommodation rather than the mansion itself. These days, they are as likely to be career changers as 16–20-year-olds.

‘We’ve had doctors apply, as well as surgeons, architects and quite a few artists and writers,’ says Stuart Thom, who himself switched to horticulture after a career as a bookshop manager. ‘It means that most years we get a nice mix of people who learn from each other – they could be trainees straight from college or in their 50s or 60s; it’s never too late.’

The famous ‘ident’ tests

Once embarked on the intense year-long programme, trainees learn everything from propagation to pruning, and garden design to machinery use, rotating through three different ‘departments’:

• the walled garden
• the glasshouses
• the grounds

This offers trainees access to a vast collection of plants and different gardening career paths. Also setting them up in their careers is the School’s rigorous ‘ident’ training, which is possibly appreciated more with hindsight than at the time! Each fortnight, trainees receive a list of 20–25 plants to learn, including the full botanical names and family names. Two weeks later, they are tested on 15 plants from that list, plus 5 from previous lists. A shrub they learned for autumn colour in October may re-appear in a test months later, looking entirely different as a bare twig or in its spring blossom. ‘It means they have to really revisit all the plants as the seasons change,’ explains Stuart Thom.

Interview with an alumnus

One Threave alumnus who remains thankful for the ‘ident’ discipline is Tim Keyworth, the National Trust for Scotland’s Gardens & Designed Landscapes Manager, South & West. Tim went to Threave’s School of Heritage Gardening in 2007, after studying horticulture at college. On graduating, he went straight into a gardening job with the Trust at Leith Hall and became Head Gardener there two years later, aged just 22. He’s been with the Trust ever since. We spoke to him about his time at Threave and what it’s meant for his career.

How did your time studying at Threave set you up for your professional career?

I wouldn’t be where I am today without Threave. I’ve got a lot to thank it for. Without experience, it’s quite hard to get gardening jobs; at Threave, you had the training but you also got the experience and learned how an organisation works. Also, the ability to put theoretical learning from college into action was really useful. I remember, for example, I was really bad at cutting hedges. The instructors put so much time into me getting it right – it took weeks to get me there!

But the biggest thing that Threave gave me was its amazing plant collection. The plant knowledge and the ident tests were, for me, an absolutely huge part of the experience. It was definitely harder in the winter, with the bare twigs.

What makes Threave special as a garden?

It changes so much. It’s not a historic garden, in the same way as a lot of Trust gardens are, so there are parts of the garden that have changed quite frequently, and it’s all done by the students.

Finally, any tips for anyone thinking of studying horticulture?

My main advice would be to put a lot into plant knowledge: learning the plants and working with the plants. Once you’ve got that knowledge, you can understand what the plants want.

And I would definitely recommend people going to Threave School of Heritage Gardening to study if they get the opportunity. So many people you come across in the gardening world have been there – it’s really given them a head start.