Oliver’s army

As manager for Wiltshire College & University Centre’s (WCUC) grounds team, Ollie Adams has to ensure premier standards are delivered across no fewer than four campuses totalling 60 acres’ worth of groundcare.

 

He leads a team of five, based at WCUC’s Lackham campus. Lackham is an historic estate dating back to 1000AD. Its Georgian manor house is enclosed by 500 acres of estate farmland and ancient woodland. The campus offers a range of land-based courses including agriculture, horticulture, animal care and countryside management, amongst others.

“I was approached last summer to look after all four campuses,” says Ollie, “although nearby Chippenham and the Trowbridge and Salisbury sites are far smaller than Lackham.”

The team manages some 40 acres at Lackham, including formal lawns, amenity areas, a 200-year old walled garden for the Georgian mansion centrepiece, college approach and a stretch of land developed as a football pitch.

Perhaps uniquely across the sector, Ollie’s team almost wholly comprises current and recently certificated apprentices. As part of its horticultural apprenticeship programme, the college is busy building up its Level 2 Sports Turf apprenticeships to strengthen its offering in the land-based industries.

“Since the College began offering a sports turf qualification, our pitch functions as a working project for apprentices,” Ollie explains.  “It’s ideal for demonstrating pitch renovation, and offers a space for students to take ownership. Now in the second year, the Level 2 course has really expanded and we are excited to watch it grow.”

Part of a tideswell of groundscare professionals who have moved into the sector from other careers, Ollie left his specialism in fine art to come to Lackham in 2018 as an apprentice horticulture supervisor.

“I fancied a change, as my job in a Bath art gallery didn’t feel right for me,” he recalls. “I loved the outdoors and liked chainsaw work, so the switch worked well – it was the best thing I ever did.”

The team blends groundskeeping skills with creative flair, both at the college and in their leisure time. Ollie adds, “our set programme of work involves plenty of problem-solving and lateral thinking, plus a close eye for detail and composition when it comes to tasks such as pruning, planting plans and garden design.”

His team includes high-flyer Russell Fletcher, a former Lackam apprentice and recent BALI Chalk Fund winner, who also switched careers. “He was a builder for 16 years and knows plenty about hard landscaping, which will come in handy in our garden development work.”

A strong advocate of attracting more women into the sector, Ollie has welcomed two on to the team - Level 3 Horticultural Supervisor Cerys Bird, and Rhianna Bull, a Level 2 Horticulture Operative with “a passion for glasshouse management,” says Ollie. Highly appropriate as Lackham has three large glasshouses on campus.

“As a team, we all share general grounds maintenance duties, but with Rhianna’s interest in glasshouse work I’ve offered her the chance to supervise day-to-day glasshouse care, so she can develop her passion in this field of work. Within her active management plan, she is looking into alternative heating sources, as this is always a big environmental factor in plant production and preservation.”

The final two team members, Albie Way and Noah Provis, are also both studying as Level 2 Horticulture Operatives, completing what is a strongly academic grounding. “Albie’s highly musical – he studied it at college – and loves music production. Noah has recently moved to the UK from France, where he was working on a local farm in vegetable production.”

Ollie’s mission is to create “a team of good all-rounders”. He’s well on the way to achieving it. “Among us we have PA1 & PA6 certification, chainsaw crosscutting and felling, and experience with a wide range of gardening machinery, which all sits alongside skills in plant propagation, pruning, planting and a wealth of plant knowledge.”

 “As the college is primarily an educational centre, our team’s skill base and knowledge helps to provide technical support for academic horticultural programmes, such as resource provision and facilitating practical tasks.”

“In my second year here, we developed a fully functional composting bay in a bid to become self-sufficient. Now we have the other three campuses to look after, the plan is to implement a composting system there – smaller than Lackham but properly functional.”

Modifying mowing has helped the team generate far less waste, Ollie reports. “We mow about 20 acres. The previous team collected most of the grass clippings, which created a lot of waste and led to leching high pH ammonia into the ground.”

“When mowing with our new leased Toro Z Master 7500 rotary deck, we no longer box off. The job is done far faster and we mow more frequently so there’s little to no grass clippings left on the surface. In the growing season, we’re cutting weekly and can complete the whole campus in two days.”

Ollie adopts the same policy for Chippenham’s sports field and Salisbury’s green spaces, devoting a day for hedgecutting and weed spraying.

A rebuilt garden area at Lackham features a prairie environment of drought-resistant flora. “It’s a showpiece, demonstrating ways to plant responsibly to reduce water usage,” Ollie states.

The success of that project has prompted an inquiry from the Trowbridge campus. “They want us to redevelop a 2,500 metre square courtyard area, full of hardcore, into an urban forest garden space, with robust species that require little watering.”

“The first plantings include liquid amber and ginkgo - to give an example of urban-tolerant planting.”

Sustainable practices lie at the heart of the team’s move to peat-free growing media - “a mix of coir and broken-down woody material. We started supplying bedding plants to The National Trust’s Dyrham Park last year;  lots of marigolds, calendula and snap dragons.”

Using this growing media requires closer management to prevent risk of drying out unevenly and nutrient depletion.

“The college recognises the importance of plant conservation in preserving old cultivars,” Ollie says. “Headed by Horticultural Assessor Victoria Fiander, Lackham manages a national collection of rambling roses and we work closely with RHS Wisley to ensure we don’t lose species to time.”

The drive to electric has its pluses and minuses, Ollie explains. “All our smaller equipment (Stihl) is battery powered but older petrol models carry a lot of ‘oomph’ so we use those occasionally. Using electrics means we don’t have to gear our work around class times because the kit is much quieter.  Also, user fatigue is far lower. Charging, which we do during the day, is a minimal cost – about 10p per charge for smaller batteries, and 50p for larger backpack batteries - and we now use just 35l of petrol a year for machines instead of 100l, a big saving.”

Glasshouse heating, insulation and watering is a major project at Lackham. A TomTec automated irrigation system  in the propagation house is proving useful. Fabric roller screens retain heat at night, while the college is also exploring  “sustainable technologies” such as air and ground source heat pumps to install across the campus.