Lewis Normand reflects on his journey in the world of horticulture and the benefits to pursuing a green career in Pro Landscaper’s January issue.

I recently attended the Grow Careers Event at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and was inspired by the talks, especially those from recent graduates and career starters.   

We worry a lot about who will join the landscape industry – with our myriad of problems, from low pay to gender and racial inequality especially in leadership roles, among a great many other issues.   

These, of course are shameful, and do need to be tackled and overcome; but I think we are also forgetting why people including ourselves joined the industry. We may have lost sight of some of the beauty and brilliance that we bring to the planet.   

My career path has not been linear, and I now believe that thinking of a career in a linear and progressive way is probably counterproductive. I see my future as having as many different potentials as it did when I decided that I didn’t want to be a scientist and that a creative subject was where my heart lay, all the way back at 17 years old.   

Not a great many people know this, but I had two unconditional offers to study laser engineering and optoelectronics (perhaps more broadly called photonics) at university, but in a moment of sudden realisation – not long before I was due to leave for university – I couldn’t visualise myself spending my life in a lab coat.   

As such, I looked at my options and as someone who was gardening for several local houses and working weekends in a garden centre, I felt that horticulture or more specifically garden design was a pathway that suited my vision of the future.   

I studied graphic design and illustration for a year, then a degree in garden design, where I set up my own consultancy, worked in an amazing retail nursery; Coolings – where I learned so much from excellent horticulturists and grew as a professional.   

Despite a degree and having practised as a designer in the UK, Europe and Middle East, I really feel I am more of a horticulturist. I have lots of interests in the field and although my employment is in nursery sales, I don’t see that as having to be the last thing I do in the industry.   

I have been a lecturer, designer, consultant, gardener, nurseryman, eCommerce leader, B2B and B2C sales leader and in my spare time I lead a national charity in the third sector.  

I don’t have a plan for my next role, wherever or whenever one may or may not appear and increasingly, I feel this is a good strategy for newer entrants. I encourage them to be open to possibilities, engage with the industry, join professional bodies, attend events and do good work. All of that will open doors and opportunities for you and take you to places you may never have imagined your career could go. 

We work in landscape because we know it is a wonderful area to contribute towards. Our green spaces do so much for the people, animals and plants that inhabit and use them.  

We contribute positively to the environment with almost everything we do! There are very few professionals and almost no other industries that can legitimately claim the benefits to local and wider environments that we can. Aside from patting ourselves on the back for this, we must also remember that this is why many people want to work in the landscape industry.   

The other reason as I see it is the hugely varied array of career paths that can be travelled by someone working in landscape and horticulture.  

There are easily over 100 different jobs – and growing – that make up our industry and wherever you are in your career, they all contribute positively to our planet.  

Landscape is an amazing industry to be in and having seen some of the next generation of professionals at the Grow Careers Event, I can say with confidence that we are in good hands. 

Whether they become agronomists, zoo habitat designer or anything in between, there will always be other roles they can relatively easily segue into – with the right attitude and some training. 

Someone commented recently to me that horticulture is ‘full of old people’ and it got me thinking about this.  

Yes, there are a lot of older people working in horticulture! That is not a bad thing, unless it is preventing younger entrants from having opportunities. I can think of two reasons as to why this claim of lots of older people may be true;  

1. Why would you want to leave the industry? It’s great!  

2. You live longer working with plants and greenspace, which is why we have forest bathing, gardening and green prescribing increasingly being used to support good mental health, health and well-being.  

Yes, I may well be one of the old people (I don’t think I am yet, but to a 16 year old, it is hard to deny), but I believe that the industry will continue to grow in size and I will push for increased pay, supporting diversity at all levels and fighting for the industry through lobbying, which I do at both Holyrood and Westminster to give these brilliant career entrants the opportunity to thrive and take their work in any direction they want to.