Gordon Hendry Transcript: Transcript
Student Name: Gordon Hendry
Course: HNC Garden Design
Campus: Aberdeen
Janis: Hello and welcome to the SAC learning and teaching podcast. My name is Janis Doyle and we’re here at the SAC’s Craibstone campus, just outside Aberdeen. Now, the people who come to study at the SAC range greatly in experience, age and background. In fact that’s one of our strengths here at SAC is the diversity of our student population. Today I’m here with Gordon, one of our mature students, and he is studying the HNC in Garden Design. So Gordon, you’re now completing the design part of the course. What first interested you in Garden Design?
Gordon: Well it really started with my own first garden, I found very quickly that I was as interested in the shape and form of the garden as I was in the plants. It gradually developed over there; one really important point was the programme with Diarmuid Gavin and a group of students that he’d taught garden design to over a period of a year, and I remember watching the programme and thinking, ‘I must do that, I really want to do that’. Following that, the SAC had an Open Day advertised in the paper; I went along to see what was going on, and really got blown away by what they had on offer. Three weeks later I’d thrown in my job and I was a full time student again.
Janis: Wonderful! Was it difficult to become a student again, Gordon?
Gordon: No, it was really quite easy.
Janis: Good stuff. We’re here at the greenhouse on campus. Gordon, let’s go in and have a look and we can see what’s in here.
PAUSE
Ok, we’re stepping inside the greenhouses now, and although it’s early March there’s a wonderful array of lots of different plants to view. Can you tell me a bit about these, Gordon?
Gordon: Yes, we’ve got a big array of plants in here. We have really everything you’re liable to come across in north-east gardens. We’ve a mixture of grasses, of herbaceous plants, of fruiting plants, raspberries, and as well as seedlings that the students are growing from scratch.
Janis: Are all of the plants here grown from scratch, or how do you bring them on?
Gordon: There’s a mixture of cuttings and splittings and bulbs. These techniques are all covered as part of the course.
Janis: Ok. And what happens to the plants at the end of your course, Gordon?
Gordon: Some are given away, some are passed on to students. We also have adjacent to the greenhouse a series of plots that the design students use to build gardens over the course of the academic year, and we are able to use plants from the greenhouse.
Janis: Tell me, how practical is your course, Gordon?
Gordon: It’s really quite practical. We do the physical work in the greenhouse here, we also do a lot of, it’s very practical in the sense of preparing us for professional work after we graduate. So we’re going out, we’re learning how to design, we’re learning how to draw. We also have a number of trips to gardens; we have access to BBC Scotland’s Beechgrove Garden, as well as the Aberdeen University Botanic Garden.
Janis: Marvellous.
Gordon: We also have the chance of a longer term field trip; last year we had a week’s tour to Germany, looking largely at horticulture projects, vineyards, the process of wine, and quite a lot of wine tasting going on there too.
Janis: Oh, that sounds like my kind of trip, great stuff. I’ve heard of the Pitcaple Environmental Project, can you tell me a bit about this please?
Gordon: Yes, this is a project being developed out the road; it’s a seven acre site being used to help adults with learning difficulties. We were invited by them out last year to survey an area with a view to turning it into a garden of about one-third of an acre. This is going to be known as the North-east Heritage Garden and we went out, surveyed it, and then each produced plans as part of the course.
Janis: Wonderful. And how many people are likely to work there in future?
Gordon: There’s really quite a lot, there’s twenty or thirty people there on a daily basis.
Janis: Now is this your first professional venture then, Gordon?
Gordon: It’s my first venture; I’m not getting paid for this, although I’m very happy to use it for the experience, and hopefully the publicity that will come once the garden’s open to the public.
Janis: Well done, good stuff. Now perhaps people listening to this have thought about becoming a mature student but are still not quite sure whether to take the plunge. Any advice for them Gordon?
Gordon: Yes, just go for it! Make sure that you’ve got the financial support and person support you’ll need, especially person support; if you have a family, they’ll lose you for a while. You might be able to get a grant or a loan, but if not, then the SAC does have bursary funds which may be available if you speak to them and apply for it. I did, and it made the course a lot easier for me.
Janis: Good stuff, ok. And finally, what are your highlights from the past year?
Gordon: Oh, there’s been quite a few really. The visit to the Beechgrove Garden, which is not normally open to the public was the first one; and in Germany we had a wonderful night sitting in the depths of a fifteenth century wine cellar being fed increasingly expensive wine by a professor of oenology, which was a great night. And at the end of the year we have an end of year show where all the students have a public demonstration of the work they have produced through the year, and it was a great experience seeing everybody’s work together for the first time and seeing how much everybody had improved over the year; how their skills and talents had developed. But most of all, really, it was the continual exchange of ideas and opinions with other people on the course. The people that I’ve met and the friends that I’ve made and kept through it.
Janis: Thank you so much. You’ve been listening to an SAC podcast. Find out more information at www.sac.ac.uk