Some ambitions are lifelong passions, and some start as tiny seeds that grow over time. That’s how it has been for me anyway, 30 years of journalism, running to keep up with the news agenda. Meanwhile quietly, in the background, building up my knowledge of plants, not realising it would lead to a midlife career change into garden design.
At 55, I graduated for the second time in my life, this time with a diploma in Planting Design from the London College of Garden Design. This is the final step to add to a clutch of qualifications I’ve acquired over the past 7 years in garden design and horticulture. I’m now working in the London area as a qualified, knowledgeable (and very reasonably priced) garden designer who can tidy up your garden or completely transform it. And it only took me several decades to get here!
I hope this doesn’t make it sound like I’ve had a masterplan, because that certainly isn’t the case. I had a career that went sort of up and up, most of it at the BBC. I bounced around various departments and roles before finally settling into frontline breaking news. For a long time, my job was that lifelong passion. I worked crazy hours, travelled a bit, covered politics, protests, earthquakes. I met interesting, sometimes even important people. I was so proud of it all, of the collective purpose, of my team, of the output. I absolutely loved it.
Then the love affair began to dim. It was me, not them. The long hours and the relentless deadlines became less exciting, more exhausting. Perfectly normal office politics grating. I was bored … and restless. At the same time, my financial situation was stable, and another big restructuring meant I could apply for voluntary redundancy. I have a supportive husband. So much privilege. At last it seemed time to listen to the many, many friends who told me to stop moaning and do something.
So I did. When the email asking for interest in voluntary redundancy came round I signed up in seconds. It took about 9 months before I actually left, practically skipping out of the building, with only the vaguest idea about how to use my garden knowledge to actually make money. Those ideas have slowly matured with more training, including 2 design qualifications. I gained better connections and experience over many months. The hardest part, however, has been going from something where I was supremely confident and incredibly experienced, to starting again. That’s why it took me so long to jump.
How I decided to become garden designer in midlife
There have always been plants and gardens in my life, inspired by my grandmothers and my mum. Gardens have been a solace and an escape where my brain stopped whirring and my body relaxed.
Our own garden is beautiful, an unruly haven between two rows of houses, hidden from view by mature trees, and a testament to my endless experiments with new plants in new places. I was happy bumbling around in it until 2016 on Brexit result day. I was visiting Great Dixter and Sissinghurst, 2 of the most beloved gardens in the south of England. Something about them, and the vote, made me pause. I already knew thousands of plant names, but not enough about how to grow them properly. And I knew I wanted to change that.
Next stop was signing up for RHS qualifications. This step took up all my holidays and shift swaps for the next 3 years. I disappeared for a day a week to learn about xylem and lenticles, substrates and root propagation. I loved it so much, my happy place, where I was always grinning, and often came home with leaves in my hair and mud under my nails.
I had to do exams in a prefab hut in Mottingham after weeks of swotting. At one point I was flying to Dakar once a week for work and flying back on Thursday nights just to carry on doing my course. I started volunteering with English Heritage and learned about planting at scale, for gardens that had to be perfect, all the time.
It was pure pleasure then, far too much fun to be a career. That way of thinking has slowly changed along with my idea of what I need from work.
What I’ve learned as a garden designer
As a designer, I have stretched and strengthened creative muscles that had gone slack after years of underuse. Drawing. Reading. Learning with inspiring expert tutors. Discovering even more plants and how to use them. Meeting new people from completely different backgrounds and skills but the same passion. Some have become dear friends and I know we will support each other for years to come.
Deadlines are seasonal in gardens, not hourly. Results take years not minutes. I have to consider weather, climate change, plant availability, soil conditions, and what my clients want from their gardens. My work gear now includes trousers with built-in knee pads and a sketchbook. I really enjoy talking to clients about what they want from their gardens and helping them achieve it. I always hope they will learn to love their plants in the way I love all plants.
So that is all the good stuff, my inspiring mid-life career change story! Well done me.
Not exactly. It’s still very much early days. I am so much happier, and healthier, but this has been scary.
Scary to give up security, not just financial but societal. Editor job at the BBC? Those 3 letters are definitely the thing new people remember about me, maybe they always will. Instant Dinner Party Status. One client even told me he saved my number in his phone as BBC gardener.
How to believe in your midlife career change
It is unbelievably difficult to keep up the self-belief required to start again. My family, friends and fellow Queenagers are invaluable in keeping me on track and drowning out the doubting voices in my head.
In my old job, the tightest of deadlines held no fear. Two minutes to change the headlines? No problem. Major breaking news and rolling for 6 hours? Bring it on. In my new career, class projects loomed large for weeks. Approaching deadlines almost reduced me to tears. “I can’t do it,” I whined to friends. “Nonsense on stilts!” said one. “Of course you can.” And she was right.
What about money?
Money will always worry me. I don’t have a salary anymore. I have a business. One grubby secret about my new industry: Many of those fancy gardens and shows we all visit rely on armies of volunteers doing the graft for nothing. Whatever Instagram tells you, there is no way to transform an outdoor space for pennies. It’s an investment for the long term and it takes time and skill to keep it going.
Want to make a midlife career change?
The only advice I have for anyone else in my position is to consider everything and rule out nothing. I have no regrets and I wish I had done this earlier. For me, my new purpose also has a wider importance. Green spaces contribute to changing the world, plant by plant, just as much as news bulletins.
At a wedding recently I chatted to a stranger about her job. “Do you work in local government too?” she said. “Oh no, I’m a journalist” I said. A reflex answer.
It’s easy to say you have changed, that things are different, but occasionally I surprise myself. I was a journalist. But I’m a garden designer now.
– Alice Cairns sinensisgardens@gmail.com @mmehilaire
