Why the career change?

Being made redundant isn’t a nice experience but it did give me time I needed to reflect. Whilst I’ve always loved going to public gardens, my first dream in life was to work in the film industry, as I’ve always been a massive film nerd and thought it would be great to make a career out of something I love. So why, at 31, did I decide to put pause to this and go after something completely different?

Being at the same post-production company for 7 years, going through Covid and becoming a Mum in that time, I’d experienced plenty of ups and downs. I found that certain office environments just weren’t good if you’re prone to social anxiety. There were also times where I felt I was moving closer towards working on content I would really enjoy and be proud of and this kept me going. Things were looking better towards the end, as I was in a new and more creative department, my boss was very supportive and flexible around my childcare situation, and I finally felt like I had a good work/life balance.

Then redundancy came out of nowhere and my worst fears were realised as every other editing job I could find would have essentially meant only seeing my daughter on weekends and working on videos that just didn’t sound very interesting.

Weeks went by and it was all looking bleak. I found myself questioning everything. I felt trapped. Like I had to apply for all these jobs I didn’t really want because it’s what I’d been working towards my entire adult life.

But then I started to realise that in order to try and soothe my anxieties I was spending even more time than usual watching or reading about gardening and nature and wanting to spend as much time as I could outside.

I tentatively started looking into gardening jobs near me and what I would need to do to get them. I looked up people who had changed to horticultural careers later in life and the benefits of working outside compared to being in an office all day like I’d been doing for years. The more I looked into it the more inspired I felt.

I started volunteering at different public gardens to gain experience and make sure this really was a good fit for me. I enjoyed everything about it; even the basic things like weeding and mowing. The people I worked with were all friendly and I kept thinking a career like this would really be something that made me happy.

In quite a short time I got really lucky and was offered a horticultural apprenticeship. This involves 4 days a week working in a number of parks and 1 day a week in college. The hours are also much more ideal for getting to spend time with my daughter than it would have been commuting from Sussex and working in London 5 days a week. So everything seems to be going great so far!

I can’t wait to begin learning more about horticulture and getting stuck into work that will have so many benefits for myself, other people and the environment. I’m really hoping this will be a very rewarding venture.

I’ll try my best to post frequent updates, as this will help me on my learning journey, and also to help other people see if maybe this could be a career change for them too.

“We’re all slowly dying in front of f***ing computers” – Passenger