Education & the RHS

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Student Profile - Helen Bostock

Despite having a life long interest in plants, Helen only seriously considered horticulture as a career during her final year studying for a degree in history. Following her A-Levels Helen had taken a year-out to work on a self-sufficient farm in North British Columbia, Canada. Returning to Canada and Alaska for holidays, Helen realised how much she loved working outdoors with plants and so during her final university year she started voluntary garden work with York Age Concern Gardening Scheme and at Beningbrough Hall, a National Trust property. After graduation, Helen enrolled at Askham Bryan on the one-year NCH course. She completed her NCH at Distinction level and was going to bridge on to a National Diploma in Horticulture course until she discovered that the RHS offered a practical route to becoming a qualified horticulturist.

The opportunity to learn as you earn was an added bonus to being let loose in the plant collections at Wisley, and Helen has enthusiastically tackled the variety of garden departments; she has also enjoyed a two week swap of jobs with a student gardener at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum. In 1999 Helen won the NAFAS [National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies] Founders' Prize for her review of Sarah Raven's Cutting Garden, and is using the financial award towards a study tour of cut flower growers on the eastern seaboard of the USA during the summer of 2000.

Looking to the future, Helen wishes to further her interest in floriculture - ideally a position advising growers on the quality standards of cut-flower crops for contract growing would use her skills and allow her to work in a stimulating environment.

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