Dunedin Botanical Gardens best place for training apprentices

Horticulture apprentices (from left) Morgan Hampton, Stephanie Sinton, Carla de Boer, Jacqui Skelton, Kyla Mathewson, Briar Alexander, French horticultural student Camille Couteau, and Toni Robertshaw in the Dunedin Botanic Garden's propagation house. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

Otago Chamber of Commerce 4Trades facilitator Bruce Dunn reckons the Dunedin Botanic Garden is the best place in the country to do a horticultural apprenticeship.

The garden was home to a group of like-minded, passionate people whose knowledge base was ''second to none'', Mr Dunn said.

He works with up to nine apprentices at the botanic garden, supporting them from start to finish in their training.

Collections supervisor Barbara Wheeler said they were ''enormously proud'' of the efforts of current apprentice Morgan Hampton and graduate Pippa Lucas, who both competed in the 2017 Young Amenity Horticulturist of the Year competition at the Wellington Botanic Gardens recently.

Ms Lucas, who took part in the apprenticeship programme between 2011 and 2014, is now a plant collection curator at Auckland Botanic Gardens.

She won the amenity final and will now compete at the Young Horticulturist of the Year national competition at the Auckland Botanic Gardens in November.

Mr Hampton, who is a senior third-year apprentice, competed for the first time this year and gained valuable experience and industry exposure. He intended competing again next year, Ms Wheeler said.

Dunedin Botanic Garden had always been focused on training and career succession. It wanted to train to the best of its ability now so the parks and gardens were in ''good fettle'' in the future.

That focus on training dated back to the 1880s, Ms Wheeler said.

With about 30 4Trades apprentices, covering everything from building to automotive engineering, horticultural apprenticeship was a big part of the programme, Mr Dunn said.

It was a great partnership between 4Trades and the garden. 4Trades looked after the employment side and pastoral care, allowing the garden staff to focus on training, Ms Wheeler said.

Recognition at the awards was a ''really good tick in the box'' that they were doing the right thing, she said.

Mr Hampton (21), who was halfway through his third year, said his parents both worked at the garden when they were his age and trained with Ms Wheeler.

He enjoyed the outdoors and working with plants and trees and he hoped to start his own nursery one day, specialising in rare and woodland plants.

Mr Dunn said he got a great sense of achievement seeing the apprentices leave with a high level of training and knowledge.

That was down to the support of the botanic garden, from team leader Alan Matchett to Ms Wheeler and all the curators who worked first-hand with the apprentices.

Ms Wheeler said more horticultural apprentices were needed. A recent recruitment saw 15 applications for three positions. Back around 1990, there would have been upwards of 90 applications.

They wanted people with passion - they did not need experience as that could be taught - but they needed people who ''really want to be here''.

Such a career suited anyone who loved plants, science, conservation and working outdoors.

''We're working for the next generation . . . that gives us a lot of pride and huge sense of achievement,'' she said.

- Otago Daily Times