Next-gen gardening

Arit Anderson considers how we can encourage and nurture the next generation of gardeners

- Arit Anderson

I don't have many regrets, but I do wish I had found gardening earlier in my life. As part of a large family, there wasn't much time for gardening, and my early memories were of our neighbour having a perfect lawn and immaculate borders, unlike ours, which was rather trampled on by us children. But how different life could have been if I'd asked Mr Lucas next door just one or two questions about his gardening.

At RHS Chelsea 2023, schools were invited on Press Day to a picnic, attended by HRH The Princess of Wales, and they got to vote for who they thought had the best garden on Main Avenue. There just might have been a garden designer of the future having sandwiches with the Princess.

These days, in a world that encourages us to stay inside close to a modem, and with house prices rocketing, how are the younger generation going to learn gardening? So many challenges to our wellbeing, community and the environment can all be solved in a garden. So now is the time for generations old and new to join forces, work together and make the future of gardening a bright one.

There are many ways that we can engage children from a young age in the garden. Watching sunflowers grow from seeds is always fascinating (made even more fun if there is a competition attached for who can grow the tallest). And who hasn't watched mustard seeds germinate on wet tissue? Once given permission, young children love being outside and getting mucky.

But, just like with students, once we reach our teens and early twenties it becomes evident that gardening has 'gap years'. And gardening in earnest perhaps doesn't start again until we reach our fifties. This in part is due to people settling down and having children older than ever, so it's not until later that there is time to devote to the garden.