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My name's Nathan Bleasing. I'm a horticulturist and I work for Program
Property Services, managing the gardens at a large university.
Initially I went to TAFE. I wrote down everything I liked about my old job
working outside, working in small teams,
seeing a positive result at the end of the day and I worked out
building gardens was the only thing to do, so I went to TAFE.
But then I've continued reading and learning.
You have different bosses, different people you work with.
Before we use any of our vehicles, we run through a pre-start check
just to make sure you don't take off with a flat tyre or no oil in your engine
yeah, maintenance and safety.
My duties vary. If somebody's away, I'll do their job.
For instance, this morning we were hedging a roadside.
Yesterday I was on a lawnmower.
The day before, I was picking up rubbish.
We've got a mulching job on. It's purely aesthetics.
There is mulch down there but we'd like to change the colour of it.
So we're just getting everyone, pull everyone into one area and knock that off.
I'll grab my other offsider here and we'll come back.
We want to get that dead tree out of there. It's a bit of a fire hazard.
I've been very lucky to move through.
The time I spent in a native nursery, I can recognise a lot of native species at the
two or four-leaf stage and that's fantastic knowledge when you're managing bush.
When you can recognise a weed or a native very early on,
it changes your whole control approach or your maintenance approach to it.
You'll probably find sprinkling it out's
going to save us from mixing it with the other colour and we'll get a better finish on it.
You recognise these elms, the juvenile ...?
I think as you work longer in a job and, being particularly horticulture,
you get a certain sense of pride in what you've done and in what you've
achieved and you can see it growing, so I like to keep people working.
If they are working in a specific area, I like to give them return visits.
It gives everyone really good job satisfaction when you can see your efforts growing.
A couple of other qualifications that are often asked for
if you are working in horticulture are forklift ticket
which enables you to safely drive a tractor or loader, pesticide licence.
A truck licence is handy, chainsaw ticket and pesticide licence.
So chainsaw skills - never do chainsawing by yourself.
Never use a blunt chainsaw.
Chaps and of course, gloves.
Hearing protection, of course. And a face shield.
No loose clothing hanging out.
Did the pocket notebooks come through?
Most of my job is being an advocate for my team, making
sure they've got all the right safety equipment,
making sure they're competent in the use of the machines,
as a safe operator, basic maintenance of their machines.
The guys need to recognise when something's wrong with it and how to maintain it.
Clover.
Well, oxalis. Yep, oxalis.
Yep, Cap Primosa has exploding mechanical seed head. Have you seen them?
Latin names for plants - it is - it makes things a
lot easier when you can be correct in the industry.
If I have someone come up and say, 'Oh, that tall, green shrub with yellow flowers'
thirty or forty different species of acacias here.
If people don't know the name of a plant, I get them to bring it
back in and we'll find out the name of it and we all learn together.
My ultimate working goal would be to be involved in
the rehabilitation of the Wheatbelt and saline lands.
I think there is a lot of land out there wasted and there are certain practices
and forestry and reforestation methods that can turn it back into productive land
reforestation of what they considered dead land and saline land .
If I could have something to do with turning it from desert
back to forest, I'll be a very happy man.