Senior Gardener
Senior Gardener required
Our client is a landscape maintenance company specialising in the care and improvement of gardens within residential developments in London. The company was established in 1985 and the owner has over 35 years’ experience in landscape construction and maintenance and holds a Royal Horticultural Society Master of Horticulture.
The company is made up of a small team of professional gardeners committed to the highest standards of customer service which operates at all levels, they are also committed to the wellbeing and development of their staff. Most of the work is in southeast and east London on contracts to improve and maintain the gardens of many of the exclusive residential developments on both banks of the River Thames, from Tower Bridge to Woolwich Arsenal. Most of the gardens are private and only accessible to residents.
The team currently consists of 5 part-time and full-time gardeners and with their longstanding relationships with several of the main players in property management in London, the company has been the garden maintenance contractor on many regular properties for over 10 years. They continue to win contracts for residential developments in London and are now in the position to recruit for a new Senior Gardener.
The Senior Gardener will be responsible for the care, cultivation and maintenance of the contracted gardens in southeast and central London. Key responsibilities and duties of the senior gardener are to undertake a comprehensive range of gardening tasks to a high standard, including but not limited to: planting and pruning, grass cutting, edging, hoeing and general bed maintenance, hedge, shrub, small tree and topiary maintenance, garden pest, disease and disorder control, input and support for planting schemes, assisting in the planning and implementation of improvements and replanting and undertaking routine maintenance of equipment in accordance with recognised procedures. The responsibility for training, supervising and advising the other gardeners in certain circumstances is also part of the role.
The nature of the role requires you to be able to enter a garden and make an assessment of the tasks that are required on any given day. Also, you will have to be able to ascertain the health status of all planting, including lawns, and be able to carry out any remedial action to address plant health issues. Communication with building managers, resident board members and property management staff is so important in this role. You really need to be able to take a ‘customer is always right’ approach even if you know that is not the case. Both your verbal and written English need to be of a good standard so that you can communicate with the various stakeholders.
Sometimes you will be working on your own. This tends to be on the days you are carrying out work in our smaller, central London sites. The green waste coming out of these sites compared to the larger sites is significantly smaller so not so much heavy lifting. However, the gardens are still ‘high-end’ requiring a keen eye for detail and skilled finishing touches.
On the days that you have one of the other gardeners working with you, you will be the one in charge and the person who makes the decisions. It will be advantageous if you have had experience of giving instruction to other gardeners in a manner that gets their ‘buy in’ and encourages them to carry out their work efficiently and to a good standard. Sometimes you will need to give them some on the job training because they are still learning to get to the right standard.
The successful candidate will ideally hold a minimum level 2 horticultural qualification, have three years practical experience of gardening in a similar setting and a strong working knowledge of ornamental plants, including plant identification. A full clean driving licence is essential for the role as you will drive company vehicles in accordance with vehicle usage and maintenance policy. You will need to be confident about driving in central London and having prior experience of this will be an advantage. The senior gardener will be someone who takes pride in their work and adheres to and promotes all relevant policies such as those relating to health and safety. Excellent customer service and communication skills and the ability to work under your own initiative is important and you may be required to undertake other duties within the broad scope of the job as may be requested by the Director.
It’s an early start every day – 7am at the head office. However, the finish time is 3pm and it’s nice to be able to beat the traffic on the way home. That’s an 8-hour day with a half hour lunch break that is paid. Your work will be scheduled for each day, Monday to Friday. Generally, you will have 2 or 3 sites to visit in a day and some of the bigger sites require a full day to complete.
If this Senior Gardener vacancy is of interest, please apply or contact Sara Yassin on 01233 733510 or info@englishcountrygardeners.co.uk.
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Thank you for the interest you have shown in this Senior Gardener vacancy. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of applications that we receive, it is not possible to respond to every one. Therefore, unless you hear from us within the next 14 days, your application for this Senior Gardener vacancy will have been unsuccessful.
