CAFRE trained landscaper gets golden experience at Chelsea Flower Show

CAFRE, Foundation Degree student in Horticulture, Reece McKay from Dromara, enthusiastically volunteered to help build The Gold Medal winning ‘Welcome to Yorkshire Garden’ at RHS Chelsea 2019.

Reece McKay, CAFRE (left) and Mark Gregory of Mark Gregory Landform Consultants during construction of the Gold medal winning ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ Garden.

Reece runs his own horticulture company, ‘Grandson Gardening and Landscaping’ which specialises in landscape/garden design and grounds maintenance.

After a lot of hard training at Greenmount, Reece has excelled in his field achieving a bronze Medal in the UK Landscaping Skills final in November

2018. Hoping to develop his landscaping skills further he joined the hugely talented designer Mark Gregory of Landform Consultants to help build his 2019 Chelsea Garden. Reece worked on the garden build for 10 days. It was exhausting but greatly rewarding. He was over the moon when it was announced that the garden had secured a Gold medal.

“This has been a fantastic experience for me. It’s been very hard work but a hugely worthwhile and invaluable experience to work with professionals at the top of their game. I have learned so much from Mark and his team but the Chelsea Gold Medal is a real bonus.”

Reese will shortly graduate from his horticulture course at CAFRE but his sights are now firmly set on even greater things than Chelsea Gold. He hopes to gain a place on the UK Landscape Gardening Team who will compete in Shanghai, China in 2021 at the world skills competition. WorldSkills gold might even trump Chelsea Gold!

Notes to editors: 

1. Greenmount Campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) is responsible for the delivery of Horticulture and Floristry programmes to both new entrants and those already working in the industry.
2. The Campus offers Horticulture courses at both Level 4, and level 5 on a full and part time basis.
3. An ex CAFRE student, Shea McFerran is now on the two person team for Landscaping and will be representing the UK at the WorldSkills final in the Landscape gardening Competition to be held in Kazan, Russia later this year.
4. This will be the fifth consecutive time a CAFRE student / ex-student will be part of the UK Landscape Gardening Team. Shea Graduated from CAFRE with a Level 3 Extended Diploma in Horticulture in June 2018. Further details are available on the CAFRE website.
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