“I think that you’ve gotta have an understanding of plants, and then all the different types of requirements,” Adrian shares the skills needed to work in horticulture as pat of the local council. He says you need to have an understanding of the staff you’re working with, the community, the council as a whole, and all the user groups in horticulture and parklands.“You need to have a diversified knowledge and love working outdoors. I’ve actually worked from an apprentice through to management in all areas of parks areas,” he says. “I’ve worked in sportsgrounds, botanic gardens, civic streets, street upgrades and street tree plantings.”
“I’ve been interested in horticulture all my life, it was a family interest in horticulture and it’s what I wanted to get involved into as a profession.” Adrian tells us. “I did a Trade course, then a Horticulture certificate, then a horticulture science certificate and also a bushland regeneration certificate, and a diploma of horticulture. I only finished my diploma in 2005.” He says that his studies span 27 years, all at TAFE.
And all that study has certainly paid off, with his position currently being the supervisor for the south-east of Wagga Wagga city council. “This encompasses playgrounds within Wagga Wagga city council, noxious weed management, weed control, overseeing sports grounds, road side moving, tree planting, landscaping, recreation areas and native vegetation management.” He says, “I’ve got three work crews that are under my control and in total there’s about 80 playgrounds.”
Adrian’s day-to-day tasks mostly involve the management of work crews.
“I’m overseeing supervisors, management issues, doing paperwork and computer work, budgets, timesheets, on site inspections, looking at the works with other supervisors, and there’s periodic meetings.” He says. But he’s not just stuck in the office: “I’ve just done some tree planting work!”
“I’m the ABC presenter for the talkback session for Riverina on Saturdays.” Adrian explains. “I’ve done it for 9 years. Anything to do with plants and horticulture, if it’s knowledge-based information, they ring in.”
“You get some good challenging questions! You just think about them, talk them though it. A lot of the time you gotta work out the possibilities that it could be, but it’s challenging because you can’t see what they’re talking about. I just suggest some remedies and try to do things as naturally as we can.” He says. “It’s general gardening questions, from veggies, trees, flowers, lawn – everything to do with horticulture. I really love doing the show! It comes with being in the profession for a long time”.
But as if that doesn’t take up enough time, Adrian can’t get enough of Horticulture and is also a casual TAFE teacher, at Riverina TAFE. “Initially we had the local Indigenous Koori community involved, we did vegetable gardening, to teach the community to be self-sustainable,” he says.
Travel included? Just one of the perks of the job! As if working in an industry you love isn’t enough – Adrian has travelled all across the area to share his knowledge. “I’ve travelled right around the area for speaking engagements.”
The best part of the job?
It’s very varied and the work is quite different as well, you can get a lot of satisfaction about it, especially seeing jobs finished. Then you can get a lot of community feedback and support and recognition.
The hardest part of the job?
It might be specific situations that come up that require a quick response. It depends on the time of year - this year we’ll be trying to keep on top of mowing, maintain sportsground up to a high standard for user groups and keep within our budget constraints.
Advice for people entering the industry?
Pick a field you want to go in, horticulture is vey diverse: greenkeeping, floristry
parks and gardens, landscaping. So if you’re interested and follow a good profession through so jump in an go for it. There’s so much training you can do, start off, and keep building. Life’s always a lifelong long learning experience.
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