HortWeek Podcast

This episode Glendale's director of corporate development Adrian Wickham and Tessa Johnstone of Johnstone's Landscapes return to the Horticulture Week Podcast to give us an update on their important work on improving diversity in horticulture industry.

Both members of the BALI board, they joined various industry associations to sign Equality Diversity and Inclustion (EDI) charter last year and they talk about the work and aspirations around the charter including the ever-present skills shortage.

They have expanded their work to reach out to all areas of horticulture and collaboration is a key way they hope to make progress which includes sharing work and good practice in EDI, setting benchmarking and helping organisations upskill in this area.

Adrian has created an industry standard questionnaire to gain an industry "baseline" to, as Tessa says, "not just be a tickbox exercise but something that guides us through and does actually achieve change in the industry".

They discuss progress achieved since we last spoke to them (in 2021 - listen here) which includes, and starts with, a greater awareness in the horticulture industry.

Adrian outlines improvements in Glendale including mental health training carried out in collaboration with horticulture charity Perennial. The company has also joined the Design Lab - a London-based initiative, to examine and encourage best practice.

A key area of improvement is how to improve recruitment practice - application forms, wording on job ads, approaches to interviews - to more effectively give opportunities to people to more diverse backgrounds. Adrian speaks about initiatives working with prison populations. And Tessa outlines ways to close the gender pay gap and measures she's taken in her own business to improve EDI - including signing up to the 'Disabilty Confident' scheme and taking on a new employee with autism.

In summary, businesses should be less afraid of 'doing it wrong' and look into small ways they can improve. "Everybody has unconscious bias" says Adrian, adding "don't be afraid of your thoughts".

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In the hot summer of 2022, RBG Kew lost more than 400 trees. By July 2024, Kew announced that it believed over 50% of its trees could be at risk by 2090 due to environmental changes due to climate change.

This week's guest is Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and he joined the HortWeek Podcast to relate the research Kew has done that led it to such a stark conclusion.

"What we started to look at first was mortality data, but we soon realized that that's a really unstable data set. can't always know why a tree or a plant has died in the landscape. It's not always due to environmental factors.

"We then started looking at climate modeling...and using species observation data to start building a better picture of the impact of climate change on the living landscape here at Kew.

Perhaps surprisingly, the focus was not on identifying vulnerable species, but "the provenance of the seed".

Kew studied its own environment, located as it is in "an urban heat island" on the edge of Greater London with relatively thin and poor soil, "so the effect of climate change is always exaggerated".

To understand the plants that suited this environment, they found themselves in the Romanian steppe which proved a good match.

His next trip will take him to Georgia to find more species that might thrive at Kew.

Rather than building more and more glasshouses to create the right condition for plant collections, with their huge energy bills, botanic gardens must play to their strengths and grow the plants that fit their ecosystem and climate profile.

"And the native, the English native one is a really interesting question.

"You've got Quercus robur, they all have a large distribution range. So we're now looking at their dryest range to understand how those trees have adapted...they will grow right up to the edge of Azerbaijan, right on the dryest edge of their range. So we're selecting seed from those areas to bring them back to Kew to understand how they've adapted."

And the change needs to translate to all green spaces and gardens, large and public as well as domestic and small.

"A lot of the plants that we all go to the garden centre to put in our own private gardens, those trees have been selected for us realistically by the Victorians. A lot of those plants are available in commercial nurseries, they're all from the original plant collectors from the Victorian era especially, and they're the same cloned material that's just passed round.

"So it's really not just changing the planting palette within Botanic Gardens...This is a change of planting palette... and that does need support and investment in further research from government in order to support the commercial nurseries as well.

"I do think it's going to be the biggest shift we've seen since the start of the organisation back in the 1840s".

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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.

Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valuable store for carbon and as the UK Government tries to meet net zero targets, a peat ban is on the agenda.

Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.

Christina asks:

• Do we need a peat ban?
• Why is the transition to peat-free causing so much division and proving so difficult?
• And as the sector navigates the numerous challenges, she asks what is needed for the sector to survive, if and when peat ban legislation actually comes into effect.

In Episode 2: From multi-purpose to pick 'n' mix, Christina explores the two particular challenges faced by garden centres.

The first is the transition from selling peat-based compost to peat-free mixes. Challenges here include the variable quality of peat-free compost mixes, fears over supply of new ingredients, the higher price of these mixes and how they can help educate amateur gardeners learn to grow their plants.

Many have found difficulties in germinating seeds prompting fears that thousands of customers, particularly those trying to Grow-Your-Own fruit and veg, may give up, costing garden centres valuable customers in the process.

We hear about the initiatives from thought leaders in the industry on how these challenges can and should be addressed.

The second challenge relates to the sourcing of plants that have been grown in peat-free compost. This is where the interests of retailers intersect with the growers as peat-free adds to cost pressures. Ways to grow so-called tricky plants continue to be elusive prompting fears that we may lose the ability to buy whole categories of plants in the UK.

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Both our guests on the HortWeek Podcast broadly agree with the reasons for a peat ban and agree there is a need to reduce carbon emissions to help fight climate change. But they are not equally convinced a peat ban is the way to do it.

In the 'for' corner is cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder and lobbyist Jonathan Sheppard.

Sheppard says: "You only have to look at places like Hampton Court where they have the peat-free garden where the plant list was massive. I've never seen a plant list as long which showed people that you can grow without peat. So I'm just wholly not convinced that you can't be a successful grower. But then I guess it depends on what do we mean by a successful grower. I just don't want to see rewards being given when there's an RHS sustainability strategy when using peat...It must be the wrong thing to do, given the science that we know about how much CO2 digging this cheap product up emits."

And in the 'not so sure' corner we have dahlia and sweet pea grower Darren Everest.

Darren argues: "Just for example in the National Dahlia Society, you try finding me one of the top elite growersn that don't use peat and I think you'll struggle to find any...growing flowers to national level requires a lot of time and years of knowledge and experience growing and I haven't found anybody online yet, certainly in the dahlia world, that has found a suitable non-peat-based product. "

HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby hosts the discussion which focuses on efforts to end peat use by growers and RHS exhibitors.

The pair reflect on their experience of using peat free and debate how significant the carbon emissions cuts achieved by ending peat use in horticulture will be.

The RHS plans to end peat use from 2026 and they ponder how this ban will affect different growers, awards, whether shows will attract fewer exhibitors and crucially, how it can be policed.

For more information on growers and garden retailers going peat free, see https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/peat

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HortWeek spoke toa range of industry experts at IPM Essen trade show 2025 on how to export.

Andy Jeanes of Guernsey Clematis says planning, procedure and relationships with customs and shipping agents and phyto inspectors are the keys to successful exporting.

The USA could become an issue. Soiless plants are air freighted to the US but there are concerns about 25% Trump import levies, as there has been for Canada and Mexico.

Commercial Horticulture Association's Susan Fairley says research the target market, establish demand, identify market trend data, plan a strategy, find the right country, identify channels, get staff trained and ready, build relationships, use Department of Business and Trade webinars, be patient, consider costs and make sure you know your IP, customs paperwork, credit check customers and get the right logistics in place. Cenrral Asian countries are places of growth.

Tim Briercliffe of AIPH adds that understanding your target market and how easy it is to reach it are important. Systems such as Floriday can be a way in. The UK has not been strong at exporting as businesses concentrate on the home market. You need something new, special and different. He says potential levies are challenges, while exchange rate problems can be huge. Plant health issues like false codling moth are becoming bigger threats to international trade. Green cities are the areas to look for growth.

David Austin's head of international partner networks Kate Porter said selling licences rather than plants is the rose grower's way forward, post-Brexit. There is US growing base so it is the brand that is exported. Australia is a growing market.

Air-Pot's Suzie and Jamie Single say there is a team of partners around the world, in Europe distributors and otherwise consultants working on commission. Taiwan is a growing market, as is Switzerland and the US. The CHA help Air-Pot with exports, particularly via IPM Essen. The Scottish Government is helpful, she said, while a new Air-Pot 7 product, endorsed by ex-Kew arboretum head Tony Kirkham, has created a wave of publicity for the company.

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