Working for Gardeners

09/11/2026

🌱 Working for Gardeners.

We mean it in every sense.

We work for gardeners.
Our work is making a difference for gardeners.
And everything we’re doing is geared towards helping gardeners.

Whether you’re a garden owner, work as a Gardener, want to train and gain experience, or you simply love pottering in your own back garden, we’re here for you.

Because we’re not just Working for Gardeners by name. We’re working for gardeners by nature.

Working for Gardeners.
More than a name.
It’s what we do.

Visit our website to find out how we can work for you🌱

https://www.wfga.org.uk

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06/11/2026

Come along and learn about Winter Pruning during our Linnels Farm Workshop in Northumberland on Wednesday 3rd February 2027.

About the Venue:
Linnels Farm has an idyllic rural setting, with stunning views and walks down to Devil’s Water, with 20 acres of meadows, woodland, courtyard gardens; with sheep and geese plus ducks and chickens.

Since 2011, Karen and husband Simon have progressively renovated the buildings and now have a dedicated workshop and dining space for the varied calendar of over 75 courses they offer annually. Teaching for this event will take place inside the farm’s event space, with practical activities taking place in the grounds.

About the Tutor:
Karen Phillips studied aeronautical engineering and despite the high ratio of men to women, decided not to pursue this as a career. 15 years ago, she started to run gardening courses after studying horticulture and then lecturing at Kirkley Hall College. She has a natural passion for combining gardening and incredible cooking to provide a healthy balance.

About the Workshop:
This workshop will start with a welcome, and introductions over tea/coffee. The first part of the Workshop will be an informative morning mastering the tricks of the trade: when to prune, how to keep shrubs restricted, renovating old plants, and pruning to maximise fruit or flowers. Attendees will then be able to hone their skills with some practical hands-on work with a specific focus on plant groups that cause confusion for many gardeners: roses and apple tree pruning, wisteria, cornus, and clematis.

⏰ Timings:
10.00am – 3.00pm

🎫 Cost:
Members £70 | Non-members £90

ℹ️ **Available for Garden Partner member multi-bookings**

Head over to our Events page to book your tickets:

https://www.wfga.org.uk/product/northumberland-winter-pruning-workshop-3-2-27/

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04/11/2026

We’re advertising the following gardening vacancies in our Members’ Garden Recruitment Network this week:

🍁 Dorset - Gardener (Part-time)

🍁 London - Professional Gardener (Full-time)

🍁 Lincolnshire - Experienced Gardeners (Full or Part-time) x 2 roles

For full details and to apply, head to the Members-only pages of our website by logging into your account using the url below, expanding the ‘Membership Details’ section and using the link therein.

https://www.wfga.org.uk/login/

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28/10/2026

Online – Drawing as a Creative Tool Workshop 26/11/26

Timings:
6.00pm – 8.00pm

This Workshop is about using drawing as a fast and creative tool to explore ideas and make observations, whether at site or at your desk. Sketching can be an intuitive way of making notes when on site, a creative tool to explore ideas when developing planting plans and to ‘sanity check’ a scheme. And using sketching to quickly explain ideas while with clients always goes down well. Sketching will also help you to think visually and spatially. We’ll go through exercises that you can practice to develop and enjoy your own sketching ‘shorthand’.

About the Tutor:
Anna Ribo divides her time between creating planting plans, advising on garden projects, and teaching planting and sketching. She was Head Gardener for 5 years at Long Barn – Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson’s first English garden, and now mainly gardens as part of garden restoration projects.

Anna’s interest in horticulture started as a child when she grew up in the parklands of a neglected Danish Renaissance castle (sadly as she says, not her own!) amongst the ‘ghosts’ of topiary, Victorian glasshouses and magnificent borders, with the old gardener (and his antique tractor) as a grumpy, knowledgeable friend. Anna studied Fine Arts in Denmark, sharpening her sense of colour, shapes and instinct for making planting work visually.

After living in London she re-found her roots and says she was lucky enough to be offered to retrain under our Work and Retrain as a Gardener (WRAG) Scheme on a beautiful, private Sussex estate. She is Royal Horticultural Society qualified at Hever Castle and has studied the Arts and Crafts of gardening at Great Dixter.

Cost:
Members £25 | Non-members £35

🎫 Head to our Events page to snap up your tickets:

https://www.wfga.org.uk/product/online-drawing-as-a-creative-tool-workshop-26-11-26/

28/10/2026

Gloucestershire – Growing Peat Free Seminar & Tour with Melcourt, Nr Tetbury 12/11/26

Timings:
9.30am – 1:00pm

About the Seminar & Tour:
Preserving rare peatlands is vital for the unique biodiversity they support, as well as for the wider environment. The Government has committed to banning the use of peat in retail bagged compost through it remains unclear when the use of peat in horticulture will be legally prohibited.

Understanding peat-free growing is a challenge for us all, and not all peat-free growing media are the same. This is a unique opportunity to visit Melcourt to see their production processes first hand. You will find out what goes into their peat-free products and why, providing an important insight into establishing, growing and maintaining healthy plants without the use of peat. You’ll also participate in a compost ‘Make and Take’ by exploring using different compost ingredients to make your own seed compost (a couple of litres) which you can then take away to trial.

Cost:
Members: £30 | Non-members £50

🎫 Head to the Events page via our Bio to book your tickets.

27/10/2026

Online – Making The Winter Garden Shine Talk with Anna Ribo

Tuesday 3rd November 2026

About the Talk:
This Talk will look at the darker time of the year, between the autumn and spring equinox and look at ways of making the garden appealing when the conditions are less kind. As climate change can make the summer garden less reliable, convincing clients to look at the garden as an all year garden, not just a 3 month flower spectacle, brings lots of opportunities for planting and enjoyment.

We will look at bulbs, how to plant them, how they work and how to use them in a wide variety of garden situations, from pots via borders to meadows and for a long period of flowering. Winter flowering shrubs have delicious scents to lure the few insects out from far away and can add a real lift to a garden and we will look at a few of these and how to best use them. And we’ll look at a variety of plants that put on a good show in winter and touch on aspects of winter maintenance of the garden that can help visually.

“This has been lovely, it’s really lifted my winter blues – thank you so much.”
Past attendee.

About the Tutor:
Anna Ribo is a planting designer, garden advisor and gardening and sketching teacher. She used to be Head Gardener at the gardens at Long Barn and trained in horticulture under the WRAG Scheme but now focuses on her own practice and projects as well as offering freelance planting plans for other professionals.

Timings:
6.00pm – 8.00pm

Cost:
Members £25 | Non-members £35

🎫 Anna’s events are always popular so please head to our Events website section via our Bio to book your tickets today.

27/10/2026

Online – Plant Classification Workshop with Timothy Walker

Saturday 23rd January 2027

🌿 The subjects covered during this Workshop are highly relevant to those planning to take RHS 2 or 3.

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This highly informative Workshop hosted on Zoom will start by looking at the history, purpose, and theory behind plant classification.

It will then focus on the main groups of land plants and their life cycles, concluding with looking at some of the major families of flowering plants and how they can be identified quickly.

A handout of all the slides will be emailed out to all booked attendees post-event.

About the Tutor:
Your inspirational Tutor for this talk is Timothy Walker – lecturer, botanist, gardener, presenter and author. Until 2014 he was the Horti Praefectus of the Oxford Botanic Garden. Since then he has been a senior College lecturer in Plant Biology at Somerville College Oxford, and has been providing online and in-person events for Working for Gardeners for some years.

Timings:
9:30am – 3.00pm (breaks included).

Note on Attendee Numbers:
This event is limited to small numbers at the speaker’s request to enable them to more effectively engage with attendees.

Costs:
Members £70 | Non-Members £90

🎫 Tickets sell out fast for this very popular event so head to the Events link in our Bio to snap up your ticket today.

14/10/2026

🌱 We’re seeking enthusiastic, self-motivated Regional Managers to develop and support our Work & Retrain as a Gardener (WRAG) Scheme across (a) Staffordshire & Derbyshire, and (b) Berkshire & Hampshire. Based within the region that’s covered (or at least one of them), the successful candidate will act as the local presence for the Charity, building relationships with garden owners, members and trainees, and expanding opportunities for horticultural training and practical experience.

The role of Regional Manager combines horticultural knowledge with strong communication, organisation, networking and marketing skills. Key responsibilities include recruiting and assessing suitable placement gardens, supporting trainees throughout their placements, organising garden visits, workshops and skills days, and developing links with colleges, nurseries, garden networks and other horticultural organisations. The role offers considerable flexibility and the opportunity to work alongside experienced gardeners and some of the country’s leading gardens.

This is a self-employed position averaging around 20 hours per month, with flexibility required to accommodate seasonal activity and the needs of trainees and placement gardens. Full guidance and mentoring will be provided, making this an excellent opportunity for an experienced horticulturist who enjoys working with people and would like to play a key role in developing the next generation of gardeners.

Head to our website to view full details and apply:

https://www.wfga.org.uk/work-with-us/

We look forward to hearing from you!

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13/10/2026

12/10/2026

It was lovely to see and catch up with so many of our Regional Managers at the recent annual meeting here in Trull, south Gloucestershire, where we had a chance to meet new faces, including recent trustee additions.

Huge thanks to everyone for joining us - some of you having had long journeys!

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