The Bursary is intended to promote training in horticulture careers and thus to increase the flow of suitably trained people into the industry.
The Peter Seabrook/BOA Bursary
The Bursary was set up in recognition of the long-standing contribution of Peter Seabrook in promoting horticulture education throughout the age range from primary school children to adults in further education.
The Peter Seabrook/BOA Bursary was initiated in 2013 to stimulate interest in and support for students and apprentices in horticulture education. Every year it is advertised to all colleges offering production horticulture courses and to members in commercial production that would like to get extra help for their trainees.
A grant of £1000 is given to the successful applicant to spend as they wish in connection with their training and studies.
Sometimes this has been helpful in arranging training courses, study materials and travel expenses.
Over the last few years the bursary winners have worked in production nurseries, landscape and education. Recently, a group of students were supported to make study tour of nurseries together.
BOA has engaged with the bursary students and has helped arrange commercial contacts with member businesses and overseas study tours. Students have contributed reports on their progress during training and technical articles which have been used in our website. We were also able to make a place for a student to address the annual conference with their personal experiences of a placement in the USA.
Bursary winner 2021
Latest activities Since receiving the Peter Seabrook Foundation/ BOA scholarship I have completed my Level 5 Commercial Horticulture studies, achieving an average grade above 70% for the academic year. I am now looking forward to beginning Level 6, with the opportunity to focus on a research project that will allow me to utilise practical and theoretical skills developed over Levels 4 and 5. An aspect of my Level 5 studies included an industry placement period; for this, I was given the opportunity to work as a nursery and retail assistant at Merriments Gardens in East Sussex. (Fig 2) Smoking narcissus…
Bursary winner 2020
This year’s bursary winner is the HNC & HND class in horticulture at Argyll College, Lochgilphead (14 students) under the tutelage of Amber Crowley who has made the application on their behalf.They intend to use the bursary to go on a field trip, now delayed to next spring, to visit commercial nurseries. Several of them are particularly interested in plant science and hope to go into the ornamentals research. Others have aims to produce crops either as propagators or suppliers to garden centres.From 2020 the College will offer a specialised Production Horticulture route for HNC and HND level and several…
Bursary winner 2017
Gabor Lukoviczki, who is studying at Myerscough College in Preston, Lancashire, received the £1,000 British Ornamentals Association (BOA) – Peter Seabrook Bursary. While studying Production horticulture level 2, Gabor is also working as a grower at Lovania Nurseries. Following his current course, he hopes to go on to complete level 3 and aims to become a grower manager in the future. Gabor says, “Thank you so much for the awarding me the £1,000 BOA – Peter Seabrook Bursary! My training is really important to me as it is helping me become a better grower and opening up opportunities for further development. I…