Hyde Hall, so far.

      Two months on from moving to Essex and beginning to garden with the RHS, I think it would be fair to say a lot has happened. All of it has been good, all of it has brought a smile to my face.

     I am living in a very sleepy town close to Hyde Hall with Martine and Hermine, a fellow apprentice and a trainee - both very lovely, and both willing to put up with me singing in the bath every evening.

      After being given a stocking-full of horticultural goodies (secateurs and a holster, a pruning saw, a knife, steel toe cap boots, steel toe cap wellies, a forestry helmet, safety glasses, five polo shirts, two sweatshirts, a fleece, a jacket, waterproof trousers, gloves, more gloves, and a partridge in a pear tree) from garden manager Ian Bull, work began!

    The crew is roughly divided into two teams (Hilltop and Clover Hill), along with several specialists - and it is with Clover Hill that I have spent my time hitherto. Their territory stretches from the nursery to the orchards and the ponds, the Australia & New Zealand Borders and the Tropical Border, the Queen Mother Garden,
the Modern Garden and the Country Garden, and indeed the wider estate. I'll refrain from listing all of the things I have been working on with them so far, but what I shall say is that I have been able to work in all of these areas, much to my delight.

Pastures new and infinite things to learn, this really is marvellous.