#horticulturalconsultant

[igrowhort]

Apple Cider Vinegar Gardens Natural Miracle Cure

Apple Cider Vinegar Gardens Natural Miracle Cure

Blessed are the blossoms for they bring the bees, thankful for the miracle apple fruits for they nourish the earth and feed the hungry.

I started adding a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to a morning glass of water, I wanted to shift a persistent cough and mucus that would often progress from a Summer cold to a chest infection.

The apple cider vinegar made short work of the excess mucus,…

[igrowhort]

Grow a Career Path that Works

Grow a Career Path that Works

There is no way of knowing what lies ahead but you plan for your future and you should make plans for your career path.

Believe me growing up, I never anticipated being a Manager in demand by anyone, not least as leader of growing teams.

It takes many years to carve a career path, with careful preparation the next big job will come to you.

I have not left a job without another in hand for many…

[igrowhort]

Take a stroll amongst Fields of Poppies, textured canvas by Pammy

Inviting you on a journey to share her love of nature and gardening Pammy often finds new ways to help you really experience her paintings first hand.

Pammy’s latest large colourful canvas paintings have the added dimension of touch, texture and a collage feel about them. 

The rough textured surface and raised flower petals in this poppy field painting enables you to not only feel your painting…

[igrowhort]

Love, Trust, Faith and Facebook

Some might think odd that we would choose to open our hearts and personal story at this stage in our lives, others will wander in amazement at our journey, however you look at our story, please take sometime to consider our message of love, trust and faith.

Both of us were raised with religion in our lives, my partner raised devote Polish Catholic, me Church of England. We both struggled with our…

[igrowhort]

Plant Like Gertrude in an English Cottage Garden Style

Learn to Plant in an English Cottage Garden Style!

Having recently said goodbye to roliing hills of Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales, moving to Philadelphia leaving behind a 55 acre woodland and English cottage garden style garden that Gertrude would likely have approved of. Leaving behind wild flower meadows and winding lanes in-exchange for the City metropolis of Philly. Famous for her Garden designs here in the USA, sadly she never got to visit them…

[igrowhort]

Save Your Own Fruit & Vegetable Seeds #SYO

Harvesting fresh vegetables from your garden is highly rewarding however collecting your own seed from project you have grown yourself comes with its own sweet reward. Especially if you’re collecting your own tomato or pepper seeds as these are expensive to buy and relatively easy to grow, from seed you have collected from plants have performed and *true to type well this season.

You will notice…

[igrowhort]

Thanksgiving Vegetarian Walnut and Pecan Loaf Recipe

I’m no chef, I’m a gardener who likes to eat healthy, keep fit and generally practice as I preach so not unlike my selection of #manmade recipes for relatively healthy no frills meals.

There is always the opportunity to make any recipe healthier for example this recipe could be plant based nut loaf recipe. Vegan eggs and almond butters becoming readily available as consumers take control of the…

[igrowhort]

Wordless Wednesday Thankful

Grow with me on

Stephen Pryce-Lea

Head Gardener and International Horticultural Consultant

    “It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion grow together, when you find it in a Garden it’s like finding Paradise“

iGrowHort – A Head Gardener’s Horticultural Journey of love, life and learning.

  SaveSave

SaveSave

[igrowhort]

A late night conversation with Mother can lead to some enlightening discussions and a few home truth’s that are often best forgotten by morning! Fortunately I’m getting good at retaining information since I rarely drink and try to stay fit.

However I was getting frustrated by the lack of retention in even the simplest things like people’s names and dates! So I took action and decided that by altering my focus and priority I should be able to recall dates, plant and people’s names and appointments much better.

  Remember Me

  My note making and memory recall seems to work although compared to my hubby who can recall names from his childhood, places, even dates. He is a real storyteller I just wish he’d write it all down. Until then it’s down to me to share our adventures! Our journey together started out as a colourful online trans-atlantic voyage. Our long distance relationship, has indeed endured the test of space, time travel and Skype.

My Family loved to get in on the act and Robert loved all the attention!

Back to my fireside story as Mother recalled snippets from my childhood as we sat huddled in front of the tiny log burning stove (the only heat source in her stone Chapel-side cottage that she loves so dearly). She told me that between my brother and I, it was I that was the confident child.

Apparently I would eagerly greet people with a bold naivety in thinking that everyone is good, often giving my Mum a fright as a tug at people’s legs whilst queuing or running ahead of her to greet all animals in my line of sight.

  Cosy cottage fireplace the heart the makes a Home

  I believe that all changed when I was persecuted at school, my confidence took a sharp knock compounded by actions of my infant school teacher. “She” as Mother would exclaim was”Pure Evil” and she had taken an instant dislike to me. Often ridiculed by being made to stand in the corner facing the wall, a penance for my flaws.

A quick change of school and a formal complaint by my Mother put a halt to the persecution and provided me with the first teacher male positive role model in my sheltered Fatherless life. I say Fatherless I have a father, he was there growing up, he provided and largely completed his fatherly duties free of emotion and void of love.

I promised to the brightest star’s to accomplish everything he hadn’t, also to be emotional, expressive, open and honest, caring loving and kind.

It felt like I was reaching for the stars, timid, quietly spoken, scrawny Welsh boy! I finally took control and claimed back my life from the bullies, the name calling , the face-paint, the hung while wearing my jacket, from the cloakroom coat hooks or public ridicule of being forced ass first into a playground bin was all finally behind me. I had once been a reserved, shy and quietly spoken child, they tormented me for my soft-spoken ‘posh’ voice, in-turn I shone through and turned a corner from the taunting and began put my well spoken British accent to good use.

I finally felt the pain drip away as I turned the hate to power and threw myself into my career and subsequent relationships.

  By my late teens I felt I had the World in my grasp

  All these childhood nightmares that alone I could not stop, became my lesson, my truth my strength of character! I was determined and damn was I going to use it to become a Man and draw from my own destiny. Gardening was my savior my guiding light, I sought its solace, savored its grace and cried myself a garden, as I carved a career that was to be filled with a lifetime of love, life and learning.

To have been part of the generations that have experienced so much social progress and yet bear media witness to so much targeted hate is hard to comprehend. Naively over the last five years I had begun to think the World was becoming a better place to live! Happier, healthier, environmentally conscious society that reduces its red meat intake, find other way to farm the land that is productive and not destructive like the waste of innocent lifes, through Fire, Flood, Tornado or Terror attack.

  !Take the Challenge a week meat free!

  Instead feed our bodies nutritious healthy whole foods that the land provides and nature protects. I’m done with chemicals and toxins, in my body on my garden plants or in my environment!

I’m currently combining a low impact fitness regime along side an attempt towards a fully vegan plant whole food diet. vegetarian and more so veganism seem to be gaining in popularity due to genuine informed lifestyle choice that exceeds the torrent of  fads and trendy celebrity diets.

As I mentioned in the previous article A Garden Cure for Writers Block , I explain that I’m at a crossroads in my life, my career and you might like to read what we’ve been up to since I was reunited with my husband in the Always Sunny City of Philadelphia.

I survived Halloween and thought you might like to see what we got up to? Pumpkin Carving and Caramel Fudge a falltime trick or treat.

FEATURED COLLECTION GARDENSHIRTS

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Buy from my shop >>> GARDENSHIRTS , All ages, styles and colours choose from Hoodies, Sweatshirts, Vests, Leggings even Caps

Come grow with me on

Stephen Pryce-Lea

Head Gardener and International Horticultural Consultant

    “It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion grow together, when you find it in a Garden it’s like finding Paradise“

iGrowHort – A Head Gardener’s Horticultural Journey of love, life and learning.

  Tags; vegan, naked gardener, d for determination, garden determination,passion for gardening, horticulturalconsultant,head gardener,stephen lea head gardener, Stephen lea estate manager, igrowplants, igrow gardens, igrow Horticulture, igrow herbs, igrow perennials, igrowhort, gardentags,Stephen Pryce-lea,

The Naked Gardener – D is for Determination A late night conversation with Mother can lead to some enlightening discussions and a few home truth's that are often best forgotten by morning!

[igrowhort]

Driven by a passion for Gardening on a practical level usually means as the season change and we head towards Fall. I often find myself with some free time to spend on my blog.

I struggle to find my voice and often end up with several articles in draft that may or may not be revisited but worse still I end up starting an article and going completely off track. Yet with so many great Garden bloggers out there its easy to get lost in the mix and all the advice strongly points to applying a personal informative approach to your writing style. So here goes…

My sporadic writers block although partially to blame on the weather and seasonal workload, is also due to the fact that I feel like I’m still searching for my focus. I find my best ideas for articles come to me while my mind is calmed by working in the Garden. So I ordered some winter salad leaves to sow in our cold frame as micro greens. My new garden and first home garden for many years now, is small and sad. It lacks character, colour or structure in-fact it’s a blank canvas. My first project to clear back all the debris, hard prune the grape vive, reduce the height of the sour Polish cherry.

Herb’s and aromatic will be the first to be planted in the fall with less hardy varieties planted in the Spring, I’m told Philly winters can be harsh so no point planting anything that cannot withstand the snow and ice until the first signs of Spring.

Having made a huge lifestyle change over the last few weeks has meant I have had to register as a permanent US resident and get my social security number, bank account etc all in order.

Next I need to re take my driving license and purchase a car for road trips to farmland and coastal regions of the Garden State and to the much awaited North Pennsylvania Blue Ridge mountain range.

Closer to home I’m keeping an eye on the horticultural movers and shakers in and around Philadelphia, The City of Brotherly Love. It’s Love of a good man who brought me stateside, our re-union long-awaited took several years in its preparation but a few short months after our visa application, I had an interview date for a month later when we were approved.

  I believe strongly in destiny and that it’s something we have the ability to mold, strength of character and determination plus the desire to grow is offered us all at different stages in our lives! How we respond is determined by our immediate influences often tipping the scales.

So wordy wise and all that it’s now that I find myself at a crossroads, my focus has for as long as I can remember all about my immigration and it’s only now that I have my ID card (never had one of these before) my social security number (I guess that’s like a National Insurance Number?)  My permanent residency card (green card) plus my passport. I’m all ID out and ready to find a job!

The crossroad comes as I decide where to funnel my focus? I think having a diverse career in the international horticultural industry affords me the opportunity to focus my skill set in a new direction? I’ve always enjoyed teaching, I’m a good communicator and have worked closely with people of all ages, abilities and cultural backgrounds.

Urban redevelopment projects, community gardens, schools and businesses are encouraged to promote a greener, environmentally conscious community of gardeners growing in Philadelphia.

The horticultural industry is quite different here than my experiences with the sectors of UK and it’s here that I hope to pursue interest and subsequent employment with the PHS, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Right now my husband and I are enjoying some quality time, furnishing and decorating our home, it’s only been a month and we have managed to achieve so much in just four weeks. I’ve even had time for some baking.

Monster Chocolate #cookies

A post shared by Estate Manager Head Gardener (@igrowhort) on Nov 3, 2017 at 12:03pm PDT

  Focusing on our health and fitness has been a major focus of both mine and my hubby since he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s almost 8 years ago now! We attend the gym together, walk together explore the city, take in a show but best of all we like to stay home, cook some tasty vegetarian meals, watch a movie.

The next few weeks will determine my career direction, having already applied for two high-profile vacancies I anticipate interviews will be forthcoming and there’s the horticultural consultancy service to consider? It’s been an exciting few weeks, a new country, a new home, a beautiful fall. Robert has ensured I have felt incredibly welcomed from the moment I greeted him at the airport, by our neighbours, family and friends. It’s been a busy time for us both and I’ve even make a new friend.

You can follow Rascal and his antics on our Instagram page, we’d love to hear from you and hope you enjoy my gardening journey of love, life and learning.

For those of you left wondering why figs? Besides the fact that they are a healthy nutritious largely misunderstood fruit, they are a known laxative! Enough said so I will probably have verbal diarrhea as I attempt a no holes barred approach to my writing (far from grammatically correct) style goes. Wish me luck!

Grow with me on

Stephen Pryce-Lea

Head Gardener and International Horticultural Consulatant

    “It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion grow together, when you find it in a Garden it’s like finding Paradise“

iGrowHort – A Head Gardener’s Horticultural Journey of love, life and learning.

  Tags; Garden Writers Block, Writers Block, garden writers, garden writing, cure a block, phs gardens, phs garden online jobs, passion for gardening, horticulturalconsultant,head gardener,stephen lea head gardener, Stephen lea estate manager, igrowplants, igrow gardens, igrow Horticulture, igrow herbs, igrow perennials, igrowhort, gardentags,Stephen Pryce-lea,

A Garden Cure – Writers Block Driven by a passion for Gardening on a practical level usually means as the season change and we head towards Fall.

[igrowhort]

Seaside Succulents a popular sunloving garden perennial.

Seaside Succulents a popular sunloving garden perennial.

Succulents enjoying a popularity reminiscent of the mid 80s and hardly surprisingly with a range of diverse colours foliage and contrasts that the sun loving succulent offers. This collection of Agave, Aeonium, bulbs and alpines makes a lovely seaside succulent scene. Grow with me on

Stephen Pryce-Lea

Head Gardener and International Horticultural Consulatant

    “It’s a beautiful thing when a…

[igrowhort]

Silent inspiration in the Trees

Silent inspiration in the Trees

Silent in the trees, Standing cowardly, I can feel your breath, I can fear my death, I want to know you, I want to see, I want to say hello, hello…

I know Where you stand Silent In the trees And that’s Where I am Silent In the trees Why won’t you speak? Where I happen to be Silent In the trees Standing cowardly I can feel your breath I can feel my death I want to know you I want to see I want to…