Sally Drury will be judging the GroundsFest Innovation Awards which celebrate excellence and innovation across landscaping, amenity management, turf care and related industries.
The winners will be selected on day one of the event (9 September) and celebrated on the same day with champagne courtesy of GroundsFest at 3pm in the HortWeek seminar area (Hall 3). The awards are sponsored by Cramer and Bosch.
See the shortlist here.
What was your journey into the horticulture industry?
I started young, watching my father gardening while I sat in my pram. In my early teens I had my own micro-nursery, growing bedding plants to sell to my teachers. In my lunch break I helped the school groundsman with the tennis courts, rounders pitch and athletics track, and the hockey pitches in winter. After school I maintained the local village churchyard, mostly grass cutting, and looked after several gardens in the village. I was also the youngest member of the National Federation of Village Produce Associations, attending their conferences and shows.
By now my brother Howard was at Edinburgh Botanic Garden – I visited him often. At 16 I worked at a nursery growing tomatoes, cut chrysanthemums (spray and bloom), bedding plants and some pot plants. Then it was the University of Reading for a degree in Horticultural Science – that was an eye-opener, everything from fruit, veg, ornamentals, glasshouse crops, landscape design, arboriculture, soil science, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, taxonomy, economics, MECHANICS! I loved learning, researching and passing on information, so being a writer seemed a done-deal – I became an editorial assistant on the Gardeners' Chronicle & Horticultural Trades Journal (GC&HTJ – forerunner of HortWeek).
What have been some career highlights over those years?
Every day brings something new but the best memories come from meeting and talking with people, and testing machinery to see how it can best work for professionals. Sometime ago I was elected Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture and in 2016 received the President's Award.
What would you say are your areas of expertise?
Jack of all trades? Having had such a broad horticultural education and subsequently working for HortWeek, I know something about many aspects of horticulture and associated sectors. Machinery always gets me excited, but so too does turfcare and grounds maintenance. Anything to do with trees – street, garden, parkland, woodland and forestry – interests me but I also try to keep up to date with production, be that ornamentals or edibles.
What is your fantasy future horticultural innovation?
A robot to clip hedges – but it must clear up after itself!
What are you most looking forward to at GroundsFest as a visitor?
Obviously to see and inspect the new kit and products and appraise how it will deliver better outcomes, superior performance, greater productivity and more profit as professional go about constructing and maintaining landscapes, woodland and sports facilities for the benefits of their clients and the public.
