The Adam Greathead Award: new recipient

Connie at work with Head Gardener Nigel Hopes

The Ashwood Charitable Trust is delighted to announce that it has awarded its second Adam Greathead Award to Connie Hudson (pictured with Nursery owner John Massey). Throughout her application, taster day and interview, Connie displayed  her passion for plants and love of growing things, especially on her eco-friendly allotment. She has visited many gardens of the National Trust and other renowned gardens including Stowe, Kew and Versailles.

Her other passion is for environmental affairs and she has worked as an ecologist on a self-employed basis. She has has also enjoyed competing in cycling as a professional in Spain, volunteering at Baggeridge Country Park as well as at an animal welfare rescue centre in Costa Rica.

The aims of the Award:

The aim of the Adam Greathead Award is to teach good gardening practices and a love of plants.

Looking towards the canal in John’s Garden

Connie’s first six months will be in John’s Garden at Ashwood Nurseries in the West Midlands. Here, she will be working alongside head gardener Nigel Hopes and his team, involved in planting, maintenance of shrubs, trees, conifers, herbaceous and alpines, propagation, creating and maintaining plant displays, plant association and transparency pruning.

Connie will also spend time on the nursery to observe and help in the production of some of Ashwood’s speciality crops including cyclamen, lewisias, hepaticas and hellebores.

The second six months will be spent at Great Dixter, Northiam, Rye in East Sussex working with Fergus Garrett. At Dixter, she will work alongside the team on multi-layered mixed borders getting hands-on experience in Great Dixter’s unique way of layering a long-seasoned border.

The beautiful front entrance at Great Dixter

Connie will be immersed in life at Great Dixter, looking at meadow management, the putting together of a sub-tropical garden, pushing and pulling work to be reactive to the weather and be more efficient, as well as understanding the complex production of plants to feed the garden.

She will get an understanding how a garden like Dixter is managed and will be part of an intense learning programme undertaken by the scholars and students at Great Dixter.

She will also take part in the push for greater biodiversity at Great Dixter. The garden and estate currently ranks the 25th most biodiverse place in the UK and Connie will get an insight into why that is.

Adam Greathead remembered:

The late Adam Greathead in John’s Garden

The Award is named in memory of Adam Greathead, inspirational Head Gardener at John’s Garden from 2014-2017.  Adam passed away suddenly aged 27 in 2017, a young life cut tragically short and a great loss to the world of horticulture. We hope that the Adam Greathead Award will honour his memory as well as being a lasting tribute to such a remarkable young man. Read more

Appeal for sponsors:

If you would like to donate to help sponsor this award, please contact Philip Baulk, chair of the Ashwood Charitable Trust [email protected] . Your donation would help the trust to achieve their goal of offering this award annually so that the UK can have many more great horticulturists.