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If you like being outdoors and getting your hands dirty, chances are that gardening is something that you do (or could) enjoy.

Whether you consider yourself a green thumb, or you’ve got a few plant babies that you’re currently taking care of, you know that gardening can be a lot of fun. With a healthy dose of patience, you get to see your hard work come to life!

Aside from being fun, a lot of people enjoy gardening for the fact that it can be very calming. You’re outside in the fresh air and sun, you’re being active and you’re getting a strong sense of fulfillment and accomplishment as you work.

You may even find that when you’ve had a rough day, gardening is a way to cool off. It forces you to focus your attention on the task at hand, helping you to pause from the things that might be causing your mind to rush around.

Gardening doesn’t necessarily have to involve getting outside either. If you don’t have a yard, maybe you’ve got a bunch of indoor plants that you tend to. Perhaps you’ve started growing herbs on your bench, or have a few bonsai trees that you’re keeping in shape.

Whatever your gardening hobby looks like, you’re planting the seeds (sorry, we had to) for a bunch of different skills that you can use in other areas of your life!

Gardening teaches you:

  • Responsibility – you want to keep your plants alive after all!
  • Reasoning and discovery – you’re learning about the science of plants, weather, the environment, nutrition and simple construction.
  • Patience – you know that it can take a while to see the results of your hard work!
  • Cooperation – if you’re gardening with someone else, you’ll find that working together helps you get more done.
  • Creativity – you’re finding new and exciting ways to grow things or shape and style plants.
  • Nutrition – if you’ve got a veggie patch, you’re learning about where fresh food comes from.
    To nurture – you’ll learn to care and protect your plants.

So if you can’t get enough of gardening, there’s a bunch of career opportunities out there that can make the most of your passion. Landscapers, groundskeepers and horticulturists are all jobs that easily spring to mind, but there’s a bunch of others as well that you may not have considered:

  • Florist
  • Plant shop owner
  • Private/commercial gardener
  • Botanist
  • Herbologist
  • Naturopath
  • Food scientist
  • Nature guide
  • Parks ranger/guide
  • Nursery staffer
  • Farmer
  • Arborist
  • Interiorscape specialist
  • Landscaper
  • Mowing contractor
  • Irrigation technician
  • Fertiliser engineer
  • Horticulturist
  • Author on horticulture, plants or gardening

But that’s just scratching the surface.

The skills you learn while gardening can prepare you for a massive range of careers outside of working with plants and soil. For example; patience, dedication and the ability to put a lot of care into your work lends itself to careers like:

  • Teaching or early childhood education
  • Nursing
  • Social work
  • Youth care work
  • Chemistry
  • Genetics
  • Biosecurity
  • Marketing
  • Art
  • Illustration
  • Photography
  • Videography
  • Research
  • Environmental engineer
  • Plumbing
  • Outdoor labouring – like fence-building or other carpentry related occupations.

So keep watering that seed of passion inside you, it’s growing into something great!

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