Gardening gave me A NEW START
‘I SWAPPED HANDCUFFS FOR HORTICULTURE’
Susan Main, 47, works at RHS Harlow Carr, one of the society’s five major gardens in the UK. She lives in Darley, near Harrogate.
On the day I got my job as a horticulturist, my mum gave me a mug that read, ‘lawn enforcement officer’. It was a perfect present because for the past 13 years I’d been a police constable, starting my career in Bacup, Lancashire.
Joining the police was not something I’d planned. After studying biomedical science at university, I returned home with no real idea of what I wanted to do.
I applied to be a police special constable, and enjoyed working in a team. Eventually I made it my full-time job, specialising in working with vulnerable children.
It was a fulfilling job, but stress levels can be really high and the hours unsociable. For relaxation, I began to play with the tiny garden of my terraced house, filling
