This week's guest is Guy Watts of West Sussex-based specialist plant nursery, Architectural Plants.
After a successful debut at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Guy talks about Architectural Plants' apprenticeship scheme Home Grown which he hopes will encourage new talent into the industry.
The nursery grows and sells a huge variety of unusual and exotic plants, and in line with the nursery's aims to reduce plant movements within and without the UK, Guy talks about the nursery's innovative 'lab' which allows the nursery to propagate and grow plants that require more specialist conditions.
On biosecurity risks Guy has strong views: "Our evidence is that they are as likely to come from within the UK as they are from outside of it". And despite bans on chemicals increasing biosecurity risks, he reveals how the nursery has been largely chemical-free for some 20 years which has mitigated some of those biosecurity challenges. He outlines some of the systems and strategies he uses to monitor pests and diseases, some of the non-chemical treatments they use and how staff are involved in the process.
Guy also talks frankly about his perspective on going peat-free; the nursery is running trials and has reduced peat use, but Guy expresses doubts about talks of the RHS imposing "blanket ban" and he questions whether the alternatives are environmentally sound: "it needs to be the right decision commercially and it needs to be right for the environment".
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