Royal Gardener Vacancy

The vacant post of "senior gardener" was advertised on the Royal Household website.

The job, which involved maintaining the royal lawns "to the highest standards" while having "a keen interest in conservation and organic practices", came with a salary of £15,750, plus accommodation.

But despite the prestige of the role and rising rates of unemployment, it appears that there were few takers.

A new job advert has now appeared on the royal website for an almost identical role - but this time offering a salary of £17,000 - an increase of 7.9 per cent.

The 39-hours-a-week job comes with accommodation in central London and involves heading a team of three or four gardeners, maintaining the palace lawns and tending to the shrub, herbaceous and rose borders.

The applicant must be willing to conduct wildlife surveys, and will have to carry out “leaf clearing operations on all surfaces, paying particular attention to the shrub beds by not using machinery, which will encourage the development of the wildlife.”

The gardener will also have to “carry out green waste recycling duties including transporting the Royal Mews skips to allotment sites".

The new gardener must hold a formal qualification in horticulture and have “substantial relevant horticultural experience” preferably including ornamental lawns or sports grounds.

To slightly ease his work, a “long grass policy” is in use over approximately 10 per cent of the Buckingham Palace garden area, allowing 320 types of wildflowers to grow.

In addition, an 800 metre stretch of ground around the edge of the lake is only cut on a rotational basis every four years.

Tree stumps are left to rot away naturally, with one dead tree at the bottom of the rose garden currently providing a habitat for a family of woodpeckers.

However, the workload is increased by the need to recycle waste such as grass cuttings, twigs, branches and 'arisings' - soiled straw from the stables in the Royal Mews.

Waste is also brought in from Kensington Palace, Marlborough House and St James's Palace where it is put through a shredder, turned into mulch and used on the flower beds.

Instead of weed killer, a weed burning machine is used which runs off the same liquid petroleum gas supply used for the Duke of Edinburgh's taxi.

 

Its not a great wage for London to be honest - OK, it comes with Central London accommodation which isn't cheap, but in my opinion you would have to be utterly mad to want to live there anyway.

 

Good evening Zigs I could get you an application form,I know that some of the quality's are someone with no sense of humour,who knows their place,who only speaks when they are spoken to,must be competent at cleaning Green wellies,to be on call 24/7,happy to clean out the stables and clean up after Corgi's,be prepared to wash up in the kitchen when there is a function on,obviously be discreet if there are any after dark royal visitors,be prepared to continue working in torrential rain,must be used to doffing their hat,its 39 hours a week spread over two days,the other 5 days are compulsory voluntary,5 am start lunch 30 minutes 9 pm finish ,lights out at 9.15 pm.One day off every calendar month in the winter ,discretionary in the summer months. to be able to wear a busby at a minutes notice,it is imperative that the successful candidate will have served as an administrator on garden forum with at least 30,000 postings.