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An Autobiography Of My Horticultural Career
My career has included being awarded Gold Medals at Chelsea and other Royal Horticultural Society Flower Shows and National Chrysanthemum Society Shows for Slough Borough Council. Receiving London in Bloom certificates for displays for Thames Water Authority and a personal award for this work presented to me by Princess Margaret. Operating a local government nursery in a commercial environment , starting my own business and developing a retail nursery from a green field site. My interest in gardening came from a friend during my mid teens. My secondary school, Slough Technical School (now called Herschel Grammar School), where I went after passing the 11-plus in 1959, did not provide any education facilities for gardening and it was greeted with some surprise when I went to the careers officer and asked about going into a career in horticulture. However, the careers officer did point me in the right direction as after interviews I had the choice of two jobs, either as a trainee for Crown Estates at Savill and Valley Gardens Windsor or as an apprentice at Slough Borough Council. I remember my interview with the Slough Parks Director, Mr. Les Scrase, on asking how many GCE's I was taking he pointed to all his certificates around the wall of his office saying ''you can't do anything without these''. On deciding to take the apprenticeship, it was with that in mind that I had some concern that after taking seven GCE's I only passed two when four were needed for entrance to the apprenticeship but I was still accepted on the basis of retaking some and luckily eventually passed four. Before I started at Slough their nursery had an open day and my parents took me to have a look round. At that time Slough had a slaughterhouse and all the straw and waste from there was taken to the nursery to compost and the smell, phew! I think my parents had some concerns about my choice of career but if I could stand that smell they thought I could stand anything. So, I started my career in horticulture on 28 July 1964 when I became an apprentice with Slough Borough Council. After completing my apprenticeship in 1969 I was given a permanent position at their Central Nursery where I developed my experience eventually becoming chargehand. During this period I was involved in exhibiting at RHS Fortnightly Shows and Chelsea Flower Shows. Details of my time at Slough and Slough's exceptional success at shows during that period go to page 1964-1976. In 1976 I took up a position as Nursery Head Gardener with the Metropolitan Division of Thames Water Authority at their Central Nursery at Laleham, near Staines. Here I had responsibility for producing plants for the Met. Division and Thames Conservancy. My time at Thames Water can be seen on page 1976-1989. During 1989, Thames Water on its privatisation decided to close the nursery and I decided to become self-employed and started a business providing and maintaining Interior Plant Displays, Plants Indoors, initially based at Vermeulen's Garden Centre at Stanwell Moor, Staines. In addition to this in 1991 I was asked by Peter Vermeulen to set up retail nursery from a green field site for him at Sutton Green near Woking. After opening the nursery in early 1992 I continued to manage it until the end of 2001. This period of my career can be seen on page 1989-2001. Since then I have continued managing my interior plant display business, Plants Indoors. |
My name is Peter Eaton and I have
decided to launch this web site on the 40th anniversary (28th July 2004) of the
start of my career in horticulture with the main aim not only to outline those
40 years but to make available some of the many photographs I have taken over
the years, some of which are of occasions that will never be repeated or of
plants that will be of specific interest to some people, e.g. Charm and Cascade
Chrysanthemums. The galleries will be added to over time making what I
think will be quite a good library of photographs.