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Written by Clare Gogerty, 2008   
The Women's Farm & Garden Association runs a popular scheme for women who want to learn the practical skills of gardening. Clare Gogerty explains

Where do you go if you are a keen gardener and you want to develop your practical skills? Perhaps you have discovered a passion for gardening relatively late in life and want to develop it into a profession.

There are plenty of theoretical courses on offer, from garden design to plant identification, but solid hands-on experience is harder to come by.

The Women Returners to Amenity Gardening scheme - or WRAGS - may be the answer. Created in 1993 under the umbrella of the Women's Farm and Garden Association (WFGA), it responds to the needs of many women keen to take on gardening as a second career after the children have left home, or because they feel it is time to follow their hearts and take up a fulfilling occupation.

WRAGS matches women horticulturalists with a suitable garden in their locality and, in return for 15 hours work a week, rewards them with practical instruction and a small training allowance. The trainee has regular check-ups by a co-ordinator who also ensures that she is getting adequate instruction.

"We have 125 training gardens throughout England and Wales," explains Director Patricia McHugh. "A mixture of public and private gardens, gardens opening under the National Gardens Scheme, gardens under restoration, royal gardens, all with either head gardeners or experienced owners who take on the responsibility of training our members.

Trainees come from many backgrounds - ballet dancers, police officers, teachers, mothers, lawyers, civil servants, unemployed, farmers and the retails sector.

Julie Munro is coming to the end of her WRAGS placement on a six-acre private garden, part of the larger 68-acre estate of Dunsborough Park in Surrey. She had waited for almost two years for a suitable garden to come up and had almost given up hope.

During the wait she gained an RHS diploma in horticulture and a distinction in Plants and Plantsmanship at the English Garden School. "But nothing beats hands-on experience," she says, "and as the kids had just gone back to school, I was thinking 'what next?'"

'What next' was working with a team of four gardeners in the well-maintained, extensive garden comprising formal parterres, rose and water gardens and sizeable glasshouses.

Julie had sole responsibility for the White Garden and she also turned a forgotten patch behind a shed into a cutting garden. "One of the biggest pleasures has been growing annuals from seed and then months later arranging them in displays in the house," she says.

Julie's story is typical of many of the participants of the scheme: her first career was as a community nurse and midwife but she put it on pause after she had her two children. Her interest in gardening grew four years ago when she and her family moved to a house with a large garden. Now she combines work in a hospital with her training at Dunsborough Park, doing gardening work for private clients and looking after the children.

Practical skills

The Women's Farm and Garden Association is a unique organisation that has, since its inception in 1899, encouraged women to learn the practical skills necessary to work in horticulture. In its early days it was run by a doughty bunch of upper-class women who were anxious "to promote practical skills among well-educated and cultured women of good social standing".

Many were the wives or daughters of landowners and were able to use their formidable networking skills to promote the organisation.

Several of the names will be recognised by WI members - Lady Denman, Louisa Wilkins and Mrs Nugent Harris among them. "We come from the same stable of women as the WI," says Patricia McHugh. "In 1917 Louisa Wilkins, a member of the WFGA, chaired the first meeting of the WI.

She was favoured as the candidate for the chairmanship, but she didn't want to stand and proposed her friend Gertrude Denman. The rest, as they say, is history." The WFGA was also instrumental in the formation of the Land Army in 1917.

These days it caters to all sections of the community - the only essential requirement is an enthusiasm for horticulture. For those who are not prepared, or ready, to devote two days a week to a WRAGS placement, it runs one-day courses in subjects ranging from pruning fruit trees to coppicing and hedge laying.

These reasonably priced days (£38, bring your own lunch and a sharp pair of secateurs!) are run throughout the country in notable gardens by well-informed, working gardeners.

Patricia McHugh, the organiser and prime mover behind WRAGS, is in the mould of her formidable Victorian forebears and uses her extensive contact book and significant powers of persuasion to open doors to gardens not usually accessible to the public, including Highgrove, which the association visits annually. She is also constantly on the lookout for gardens in which to place trainees.

The WFGA also runs garden visits abroad: past destinations have included Monet's garden in Giverney (the group negotiated an early entry and avoided the hordes of tourists) plus other Normandy gardens, a trip to see the water gardens around Rome and a minibus tour of gardens in Ireland.

As Julie's year-long stint on the WRAGS scheme comes to an end, she is contemplating what to do next. "Apart from all the horticultural knowledge I have picked up, I have realised that I enjoy working with a team in a large garden. So I'm hoping I can find a job that will provide this."

With the backing of the WFGA and its solid, well-respected reputation and heritage behind her, she has a good chance of realising her dream.

Further information

For more on the history of WFGA, read Women Rule the Plot by Peter King (Duckworth, £16.95).

For further information about the WFGA or the WRAG scheme, contact:

WFGA, 175 Gloucester Street,
Cirencester,
GL7 2DP,
tel: 01285 658 339
email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.wfga.org.uk
 
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