Sunnyside Rural Trust opened its fourth site at Serge Hill last summer, in the form of a beautiful hi-tech nursery. The Trust is enabling people with learning differences to propagate plants from The Plant Library, which will be available to buy later this year.

Orchard Nursery and Perennial Lead, Sophie McIntyre Peters, took over running sessions at the end of October and is now heading up operations on site.

Her thoughts:
'The process of propagation is a great thing for people with learning differences to do. The concepts around making copies of plants through vegetative propagation are straightforward to teach and once a group develops enough knowledge they gain confidence quickly. So far, trainees have been mixing the potting mix; dividing with forks; dividing and separating with knives or by hand; taking stem and root cuttings and potting up.

Much of the work we do is under supervision, but what's really struck me over the last few months is that our trainees really are great propagators - it's a task that many enjoy and can succeed in. It doesn't take long to build confidence, and you can get a lot done with six enthusiastic people in the greenhouse! We are currently averaging five to six plant varieties each week.

There is also much excitement among trainees at taking on a new and important challenge in a different place. Our trainees often work away from site on outside gardening contracts, and they very much enjoy new places, challenges and people.
Currently, we have groups coming from our three other Sunnyside sites on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and teams (also with learning differences) coming as part of employment training through another charity, Mission Employable, on Thursdays and Fridays.

All the best from The Orchard Nursery greenhouse!'

Photo credit: Jiaji Wu