On 11 Mar, 12:54, Janet Tweedy wrote:
Even the RHS is now re-considering some of it's teachings to accommodate
global warming. In particular classing some plants as only half hardy in
the UK when many gardeners are not only growing and keeping said plants
but are getting crops from plants such as olives, grapefruit and
bananas!
The RHS course teaches the basics but then you have to go out and build
on that information by talking and mainly listening to the experienced
gardeners. They will refute some text book stuff and will agree with
other data

Yes. When I passed mine last year I was in the last year of this
particular curriculum which had run for 30 years unchanged! They
changed everything from last March (hence me and my class missing 4
months of tutorial ... which we had to figure out ourselves). It was
fair but it had to be done, and did it with bloody hard work. Now
there's the social, health, commercial aspect of gardening included in
the course. Schools are now also building allotments, getting involved
with community gardens etc. The whole approach is changing. Some
people do the RHS II after perhaps 20 years of gardening experience,
to pursue another course like landscaping, garden design,
environmental art and therapy. I've done them all except therapy - I'm
not a teacher and I would be rather attracted to people and their
madness and wouldn't want to change them.