Mentoring builds confidence and benefits experienced gardeners too.
Become a mentee.
We recognise that putting yourself out there, on a website, and becoming self-employed can be scary, so we want to support you in any way we can.
We run a regular webinar called: How to Become a Self- Employed Gardener: The Basics. Contact us to find out when the next one will be.
If there are gardeners local to you, they may be open to you working voluntarily alongside them for a taster session and have some ongoing, local, moral support while you begin your new gardening career.
Please connect with them to see if they would be happy to hold your hand.
We also are available for 1 – 1 support and coaching sessions for full members. Get in touch with us for more information.
Become a mentor.
If you are an experienced gardener and are happy to support a new gardener find their feet please make a note of this on your ‘about me’ blurb in your profile. Plus, if you have a garden you have outgrown, you may want to pass it on to your mentee to free up your portfolio.
It is important to note that if you invoice a client to pay a mentee, rather than them working voluntarily, you are required, by law, to have employee liability insurance. For this reason, we recommend that you offer them, unpaid, on-the-job practical support for no more than a day, and thereafter, if you both work in the same garden, you work and charge as separate entities.
Furthermore, if you are working with a total newbie your client may be alert to the fact that you are doing more show and tell than actual graft so the voluntary efforts of your mentee will go some way to counter-balance this.
Do not allow or ask them to do any work that carries risk such as going up ladders or using heavy or motorised equipment. Weeding or light pruning is enough for you to assess their knowledge and abilities and for them to ask you questions.
Please contact us for more advice and support as a mentor or a mentee.
