Olivia Williams

2024 | Horticulture

In honour of Sir John Pagan

Sponsored by Mayfield Garden.

“I hope that the experience I gain through this scholarship will contribute longterm to horticulture’s future in Australia, helping in the areas of sustainability, education and innovation.”

Olivia’s scholarship relates to these UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs):

I believe the Global Footprints Scholarship will expose me to a wider variety of horticultural knowledge and methods, and give me greater confidence in my skills. Travel as a means to grow professionally is a massive goal of mine. I think there’s so much to gain when afforded the opportunity to see outside the “regular” of our own society.

During my apprenticeship, my employers’ circumstances meant I was mostly left unsupervised, with little or no direction. This meant that I was often out on a limb and was forced to look outside of my employment to learn from others externally. This has left me feeling a bit disconnected from horticultural networks, and somewhat unsure how to channel my specific interests.

I have so many areas that I feel passionate about, for example, horticultural education and/or supporting local endemic species, I can see myself being able to create my own niche. I’d love the opportunity to hone in on my areas of interest, and see how the initiatives have been in practice overseas could inspire my future in horticulture.

For me, this Scholarship will be a massive opportunity to network,  learn from the best, and witness the practical implementation of so many things I’ve researched, and have nerded out to my regular clients about for so long. I can’t wait to take the opportunity to really push myself outside of my comfort zone, and give my future endeavours a leading edge.

I hope that the experience I gain will contribute longterm to horticulture’s future in Australia, helping in the areas of sustainability, education and innovation. What I personally seek to gain from this opportunity is to see firsthand how projects overseas benefit communities. As Australia moves to greenscaping urban areas, I hope to be able to bring these ideas home and make a difference in my own community.

A Global Footprints Scholarship is your opportunity to do more of what you love. What have you done at work that you are proud of or passionate about?

As a retail hortie, I pride myself on being the professional front to customers’ burning plant questions, taking time to understand and teach them about their garden spaces. With the support of my current employer and the other members of the crew, I feel I’ve been encouraged to excel in this advisory role, and have already learnt such a great deal in my two years in industry.

The “Living Wall” is a work project I’m extremely proud to have co-produced and designed with my coworker, Matt. This is a green wall display with built-in irrigation. It was my job to select, source and order the plants. I wanted not only to market this as low maintenance and doable for the everyday Joe, but I also wanted it to highlight the importance of beneficial insects in our living spaces. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and building pollinator havens is something I became passionate about in a previous job, which was very IPM focused.

Using plants such as Tradescantia purpurea, Chlorophytums and Sedums for the “Living Wall”, it’s created its own microclimate and mini-ecosystem. I’ve recorded a host of pollinators, including native stingless bees, blue-banded and blue carpenter bees, as well as yellow-shouldered ladybugs galore all regularly visit the wall. It’s honestly really amazing! The amount of compliments we’ve had has inspired us to create seasonal displays. To expand on this, I’d like to use the grown-out plants to sell as living wall packages for our customers. It is an area I’m really excited to grow in and I hope I’m able to build upon displays like this that inspire my customers to understand the value of horticulture and sustainability in even the smallest of areas.

A Global Footprints Scholarship is for you if you are passionate about creating a sustainable future. Describe something you have done at work or are working on, that helps the environment. Why is it important to you?

Sustainability always excites me. As someone fresh to the game, I believe there are so many avenues to be explored. One way I’m aiming to contribute to sustainability in the industry is by educating clients about sustainable products, solutions and practices. In retail horticulture, put simply, we stock what sells. I’m hope that by creating a community environment, we can encourage locals to engage professionals in order to better understand their pivotal role in changing our industry for a more sustainable future.

These initiatives will look like the regular workshops held every Friday afternoon at my current workplace. We will work with the experience of our in-house staff, and hopefully attract guests from other local businesses to cover a range of topics. For example:

- Alternative/integrative pest management for vegetable gardens

- Turning natives on their head: the value and beauty of endemic species

- Selecting right plants for right places to suit your garden’s soil.

- Product effects. Workshops on fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides and making the best decision for your circumstance.

I think knowledge is power to a customer. If individuals understand the environmental impact our actions have, they can make a first-hand contribution to sustainability in horticulture. Through many conversations with clients, I’ve learned that perceived convenience tends to override issues of sustainability. I hope workshops will empower people to make more conscious choices, gain new skills, and feel less overwhelmed approaching for help with future projects.

Everyday across the globe, people make breakthroughs for a more sustainable future. What have you seen or heard about that you find inspiring, and why? 

My go-to for horticultural inspiration has been Dan Fuller’s ‘Plant’s Grow Here’ podcast. This was how I originally heard of the Global Footprints scholarship, and how my colleagues encouraged me to apply. It was during an episode of ‘Plants Grow Here’ that I heard of an initiative in Singapore called Capitaspring, which absolutely blew my mind!

CapitaSpring is a vertically connected ornamental/produce garden in a commercial skyscraper. Its output as both a food forest and an urban green area is super fascinating. In the interview with the head gardener they discussed the challenges of running a food forest at this height and setting, and how the garden is constantly evolving through various challenges and goals. The head gardener talks of IPM management strategies, tours and programs to the public, which focus around education on how the space came to life and the role it plays in being both a food source and futurised “green space”.

The CapitaSpring development is so very inspiring to me as I think we are at a point in this world where we realise just how much we have taken from the environment, and how our methods to date have done more harm then good. A space such as this, highlights on an international platform what the future of horticulture in cities needs to be; areas of diversity, multi- use spaces, and offers an urban place where people can find connection to nature despite location.

As someone who is super passionate about the plant world, this is a future I’d love to see integrated into our modern world. Imagine if we could tailor ideas like this to include native endemic species, which serve as ornamental, edible and spaces of cultural connection. I think here in Australia we could use this to engage the everyday person to show interest in and join the effort to preserve and contribute to their own area’s of ecological importance.

Imagine a world like this and how much better we’d all be for it. Initiatives like this, I believe, are the future of horticulture and I’d love to see more like them.

As a BBM Scholar you can choose to go anywhere in the world. Where do you hope to travel with your scholarship and why?

I’m quite open minded about where specifically I’d use this scholarship to travel. My main focuses is to push myself to expand my interests, and this could happen in places such as North America, Singapore or even Europe.

Each of these regaions are facing real life crises.  They have have high density populations who see and feel the impacts of urbanisation a lot more so than countries that can “get away” with not holding re-greening as a top priority.

I believe that the most interesting scholars, professionals and initiatives I’ve heard of with regards to horticultural contribution and taking effective action has been in these countries. I particularly like the idea of North America, as it has a significant cultural element among its indigenous peoples. I’d love to see if and how traditional landowners in conjunction with horticultural initiatives are going about revitalising landscapes/important species, and where they are successful, so we might be able to do the same on home soil for our important ecosystems.

By the same token, I would love to learn more about the challenges and technology being developed in places like Europe and Singapore, and how those in the industry are adapting practices to suit modern environmental challenges for the same exact purpose. From any one of these places I’d hope to take key learnings on how other countries are succeeding in making change to our industry’s future, and how going forward I can use these tools and skills in my horticultural career to enhance Australia’s current projection.

Australia is a huge country and I think the last five years of environmental hardship has shown us that we are of detriment to ourselves in not placing priority on sustainable living and re-building environment. I hope in my career to challenge my clients and those around me to take action however we can, and I think Bthis Scholarship could open up doors and provide me with a network of support to do just that.

“Olivia has clear goals aligned with the scholarship’s objectives.”
- Matt Tyrrell, Global Footprints Assessor