ORNAMENTAL
Here’s a serious question for you. Do ornamental plant nurseries suffer from the same crisis of identity as ornamental plant gardeners? - Gardening is seen as a whimsical profession not really serious enough to be paid well or have powerful unions/organisations to champion you. At least horticultural workers have the RHS to dip into funds and go on holiday once in a while. The ornamental plant nursery sector though? In Ireland anyway I can’t find any groups that I feel are including us.
I get it, food production is a nobel pursuit! But surely there is some organisation out there specifically for us ornamental growers!? It feels like growers of non-food plants are side-lined and aren’t really taken seriously enough to warrant anyone getting together and forming something productive and proactive for our specific branch of horticulture that is powerful enough to lobby or that shouts on our behalf? It feels like what I do, isn’t included in any conversations that speak of “pushing things forward”, or “bettering our industry” or securing funding. I feel like I’m a singular entity. There is no “our”.
Of course there’s a line somewhere where an ornamental nursery is taken seriously, somewhere around the “we grow plants for Tesco’s and have a two million euro turnover” mark. I’m on about small growers. There are so many really amazing grass-roots ‘movements” for small farmers & veg growers, even talking seriously about an artist’s style universal living allowance! Amazing! There’s the OGI, but again it feels that ornamental growers aren’t who they’re talking about, or to... unless you produce cut-flower CROPS.
The nearest thing I can find that purports to champion small independent ornamental nurseries is ISNA, but, not to diss it as an organisation; other than organise a handful of fairs and get a leaflet with the members names in a national gardening magazine, is it really effective!? It seems to have some pretty arbitrary joining procedures too that keep eluding me! 😆
It really feels like we, as small plant producers need to come together properly! Have a situation where we can network, skill-share, make a plan on how we can create our own PRODUCTIVE collective. Personally I think all seasonally reliant sectors should have an artist’s universal wage type of payment accessable to us! It makes complete sense! During the summer we might pull in more than enough to pay ourselves a minimum wage, but to have cash flow through the winter to take the absolute depression inducing shitshow of literally zero income a month off, particularly because most of us are based rurally where there are zero jobs, would be incredible! And it can be taxed! That’s the point!
Every small grower group I come across is angled towards food producers and it just doesn’t feel relevant. I feel like if I turned up the lads would be like, what the fuck are you doing here!? You’re a fucking whimsy grower!
I’d like to think I grow for the soul. Also, what about the more complex explanation of maintaining species diversity on the planet, ornamental growers are playing that part to. Phenotypes are boring to the general public though. Ornamentals in many cases are seen as throw-away plants, background filler that makes the place look nice for a while. .. a bit like gardeners.
Am I just totally out of touch with what’s available out there!? That is a possibility! Let me know if I’m talking out of my arse!
