Alan Titchmarsh is the patron of Horticap, and visited the centre on Otely Road, in Harrogate today (17 May 2023).
Horticap has a team of volunteers, and staff, who provide adults with learning and other disabilities training in horticulture, allied crafts and rural skills.
He is a proud advocate of what Horticap does, and how it aligns with own beliefs on what an understanding of the natural world can do.
Horticap is going through a period of development with a new building, shop and café. Outside work is just completing on a new garden, and there is a nature trail.
Especially this time of year, the greenhouses are brimming with plants.
Alan Titchmarsh said:
Horticap proves what horticulture means to me, and what great things it did for me as a young lad.
It’s a great way of connecting people with nature, of grounding us, non pun intended, in a world that is increasingly technological that divorces us in way from the reality of nature.
Horticap has found this wonderful way of connecting everybody, both the students here that are learning and the people that come here and support it by buying plants.
It is for me the most perfectly construct example of what plants can do for us as people, and what people can do for plants.
As a charity and organisation it is just the best, I love my association with them.
Alan is a strong advocate of the need to incorporate more of the understanding of horticulture, and the natural world, into the school curriculum.
Alan Titchmarsh said:
If we are not careful humans can become increasingly distanced, we are talking about artificial intelligence all the time now, but this is real intelligence, and I would rather have the real thing.
If you only study things at school that you have no use for in your life, then what is the point.
Art, music, natural history you do, it is ap art of your life, and there for the taking. If there is that understanding then you are better off, and the planet is better off
If people are leaving school without a connection, or a love, or an understanding, of the natural world, then it is in peril.
It’s only with connection with it, and showing what it can offer, and how we can cherish it, which isn’t onerous, it’s delightful, and we have a better planet, but it is so often overlooked.
My life is based on simple tenets, so a seed, enjoy it, and the planet will benefit from it.
There is a lot of woe is me, and beating of chests, with nothing positive. I would say go and protest, but make sure you are doing something useful for the planet. Make sure you as an individual are contributing and making the earth better. We all have an obligation to do our bit for our bit of earth.
