Nigel Judd is a familiar face to growers throughout the UK, bringing his own inimitable style to the development and sale of plants and seeds. Having developed his own distinct niche in the trade, he admits that it is a career that came about by accident. Working in horticulture was not something that Thompson & Morgan’s professional grower manager set out to do. It just felt right at the time.

“I suppose I just fell into it,” Judd recalls. “When I was a teenager I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. There was a family interest in gardening, and my family were keen gardeners and worked on farms. I had a general interest in gardening and as a teenager and used to go and do people’s gardens for a bit of cash. So when I left school I did some horticultural training and then got a job working with disabled people on a horticultural project.”

Judd never had a specific vision of where his career would lead him. “I did think that I would probably spend most of my time in growing, but have since moved into sales,” he muses. His first job with the disabled was a yearlong project in the Wisbech area. Towards the end of that year, he set out knocking on doors to see what opportunities would present themselves. One of those doors was Floranova, who were immediately interested. The result was a move to the firm, where he stayed for five years working in their trial grounds.

More trials work followed when he moved to Moles Seeds in Essex for a further seven years before joining Thompson & Morgan in 2001. His career then quickly took a different path.

“I came here to work in the commercial division wholesaling seeds to growers,” he explains. “My job was to oversee the trials here and develop new ranges, and a culture of information about the plants. After a couple of years, we began moving into the production of young plants, supplying a range of bedding and perennials to commercial growers. We are now developing that and growing sales.”

Judd is now responsible for the professional grower within the wholesale department. When asked what he likes most about his job, he pauses before answering. “That is a difficult one to answer. It is everything really. I like the direct contact with customers and actually still having a responsibility for staff preparing the materials for the breeders.” He adds that he does miss not getting his hands dirty in the soil sometimes - but not so much when it is pouring down with rain.

Reflecting on his years in the business he believes that the numbers of growers have gone down in that time. While this year has been a good one so far, there have been several bad ones in the not too distant past. “Some growers have gone out of business, others have amalgamated. But there are still a lot of smaller growers out there - it is the ones in the middle who have struggled a bit,” Judd opines.

“In terms of what is selling I have noticed things have changed. There are less seed and bedding plants being sown but people are going for smaller quantities of a wider range of plants. There are a lot more perennials being grown and sold. Seed sales of perennials are better than they have been for years,” he continues.

Another interesting change, he points out, has been the way growers, and especially smaller ones, are buying more young plants, and in particular difficult to grow plants. “This is because they do not need the hassle,” he maintains. “If someone can ship it to them as a young plant for growing on at the right price then they are interested. For example we do a lot of hellebores. It can take six months to germinate seeds and produce a plant which has to be grown on for another six to 18 months. The seed germination is erratic and you never know how many plants are going to emerge at the end of it. Growers do not want to take the risk. Buying young plants makes it easy for them.”

In terms of how he sees the industry developing, Judd anticipates more varieties and more containerised plants. “Plant breeders are becoming more inventive rather than just providing extra colours. The trend is for more added value such as different types of foliage. Also breeders are increasingly reviving older plants which have been out of circulation for a while.”

Although consumers are increasingly aware of the implications of climate change, with hotter summers and wetter winters, Judd believes that as yet it has not fully permeated into the commercial growing sector. He suspects that this will happen eventually but there is not much evidence of it yet. But grafts are more popular than before as they are a bit more drought tolerant, he points out.

Away from the office, Judd still does a bit of gardening at home but with two teenage children he does not get a lot of free time to develop more of his own interests. “I have got no regrets about the way my life has developed. I am fortunate in that I have been able to see the industry from both sides - trialling and growing as well as what happens behind the scenes in research and sales.”

It has led to some memorable moments, as he recalls. “Since being at Thompson & Morgan, I have had the opportunity to travel a bit. A colleague and I had to go out to Japan to try and sell to Japanese wholesalers. There was a real language barrier. Trying to explain seed sowing via an interpreter to a group of 150 Japanese businessmen was not easy but the trip itself was very enjoyable. I liked Japan. It is always nice to get out and travel a bit.”

Such visits are now rare - in his current job he is predominantly UK based and spends most of his time visiting growers around Britain.