Date – 24 May 2024
Time – 10:00 am - 3:30 pm
SPEAKERS
Katie Rushworth
TV gardener and garden designer Katie Rushworth has been an integral member of the famous gardener team on ITV’s Love Your Garden for 12 years. Katie is also a self-employed gardener and garden designer and has been running her own garden consultation business from her home in Leeds for almost 17 years. Katie’s passion and enthusiasm for gardening is infectious, she has excellent plant knowledge and a great eye for design – both for function and beauty.
Matthew Wilson
Matthew Wilson is an award winning landscape designer based in Rutland. Over the course of a three decade career he has worked as a head gardener, landscaper, Curator of two RHS Gardens – Hyde Hall in Essex and Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire – and for the last fifteen years in landscape design. His design practice has won multiple awards including People’s Choice at Chelsea Flower Show in 2016 and Gold for a large show garden at Shenzhen Flower Show 2022.
Outside of his design work he has written for multiple publications, including a ten-year stint for the FT, and is a long serving panellist of BBC Radio 4s Gardeners’ Question Time. Current work includes residential projects in London, Hexham, Hampshire and Surrey, commercial projects in Yorkshire and as lead designer on the prestigious ‘Reimagining our Landscape’ project at Harewood House.
Corrina Urquhart
Corrina Urquhart is Director of External Relations at Lantra. She has a ‘squiggly career path’ spanning over 15 years, having worked as a research fellow, a policy adviser and more recently, moving into strategy and advocacy. Corrina is passionate about diversity and inclusion, with sustainability driving her commitment to the land-based and environment sector. She recently introduced a national programme to recognise the achievements of learners of all ages in the sector, resulting in her reaching the final of the Women Who Achieves Awards 2024. In her spare time, Corrina is enthusiastic about gardening but is not naturally green-fingered!
Katy Merrington
Cultural Gardener at The Hepworth Wakefield. Katy has cared for the garden at The Hepworth Wakefield, since its creation in 2019, when an unused acre of ground at the art gallery was transformed into a free public garden, designed by internationally renowned landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith.
Katy works with a small, dedicated team of local volunteers to nurture the planting, as well as collaborating with the art gallery’s learning and events teams to devise exciting outdoor activities.
Katy has a background in fine art and began her horticultural training at The National Trust for Scotland, before moving on to Tresco Abbey Gardens on the Isles of Scilly, RHS Garden Harlow Carr, Longwood Gardens: Pennsylvania, USA and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh at Logan, Dumfries & Galloway.
Georgia Gilbert
Technical Manager, John Chambers Wildflower Seeds. Georgia joined Green-tech in 2019 in the Specification arm of the business, before transitioning into the John Chambers team in 2020. Starting off as a Technical Sales Advisor, Georgia worked her way up and is now the John Chambers Technical Manager. This involves overseeing larger bespoke projects, creating maintenance and management plans, and assisting the wider Green-tech sales team with their customers’ wildflower sowing needs. In addition, Georgia is currently studying for a Masters in Landscape Architecture which will help her add a more technical and design led element to her role, enhancing the offering that John Chambers brings to its customer base.
Brad Bingham
Head Gardener, Norton Conyers. Brad has always been interested in horticulture since, since being at school, sharing an allotment with his uncle, helping out on Saturday mornings. Brad went on to study for two years at Askham Bryan college; a level 3 extended diploma in horticulture. He then went on to join the RHS on their level 3 traineeship at Harlow Carr, where he worked in the garden full time for a year. After this he joined the Professional Gardeners’ Guild traineeship: living and working at The Garden House, Devon before moving onto Ashridge House, Hertfordshire for a year. This led him to gain his first head gardener position in Cumbria and then sole gardener position near home in Ripon. Brad is now settled in his dream job as Head Gardener at Norton Conyers, with a keen interest in the more unusual species and encouraging wildlife.
Registration Instructions
Please be aware that this event is being held in-person and online for those who cannot travel. Please ensure that you select the correct registration type.
If you arrive in-person with an online ticket, you may be turned away.
In-person attendance at Harewood House, Leeds.
If you are a current student at any of the colleges below, please register for this event directly with your college as organised field-trips are arranged for you to attend as part of your course.
Askham Bryan College – Contact Steve Bassford
Bishop Burton College – Contact Elliot Ostler/Mo Kinnes
Shipley College – Contact Helena Glassup/Catherine Russell
Wakefield College – Contact Richard Brown
Everyone else should register using the link at the bottom of the page, the event is open to all current and prospective horticultural students, school leavers, career-changers and early-career horticulturists.
Places are limited, if you can no longer attend please either contact your college contact or email: cih@horticulture.org.uk so that your place can be offered to someone else.
Please be aware the photography and video recording will occur at this event. We will endeavour to accommodate requests to be excluded from such activity: please make the organisers aware on the day when you arrive.
Online attendance (via Zoom)
Online attendance is available for those unable to attend in-person. The day will be split into 2 sessions with a break for lunch. Recordings will be made available after the event.
Please be aware that this event has been designed for the maximum engagement of in-person attendees and, as a consequence, the quality of the online experience will be less than being there in person.