Meet the Team
Julie Stokes, Susannah Robirosa,
Dan Wheals, Ric Staines
Susannah Robirosa worked in the media all her life before taking a career jump into the community garden. An Oxford English graduate, she spent many years working as a journalist in London and Melbourne, before settling in Suffolk with her husband and three children. Here she began to grow her own veg at the Gardener’s Cottage where they lived, and rekindled a love of gardening which had ceremoniously begun at her mother’s side in Yorkshire at 18 months old with the ingestion of an earthworm. After 12 years as a sub editor at the East Anglian Daily Times, she spotted the ad for the community garden job while browsing through the paper on a night shift! This was the perfect chance to put her new found skills learnt on an RHS diploma course in horticulture at Writtle College into practice, while fulfilling her dream of working in community development. She has not yet looked back . . .
I grew up in Ipswich and am so pleased to be able to do a job I'm passionate about in my home town. I was always in the garden as a kid but going to Otley college to Learn about horticultural therapy after my first degree in Psychology was the turning point. I realized that this was the area I would be involved with in the future. I then installed green roofs around the country for two years with Bauder before going to Brazil for six months to dance and drum and do a permaculture design certificate. On my return I went to Edinburgh to study Herbal Medicine, where I worked as a community gardener and learnt a lot about involving kids and local people. Now qualified and seeing patients (see www.herbaculture.co.uk) I share my time being a herbalist and a community gardener here in Ipswich. I love seeing people enjoy eating freshly picked herbs and smiling at the end of a day full of fresh air. Come join in the growing.
Ric Staines, H.N.D., Cert.Ed., has been a professional horticulturalist all his working life. This has included time at leading tree and shrub nurseries, his own holding and has spent a number of years passing on his skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to students of all ages. During this time he developed courses in Commercial Organic Production and Holistic Horticulture. Most recently he worked as a consultant helping the BBC set up local community based gardening groups. He is currently running his own consultancy business – Gardening Solutions. He has written a book on Market Gardening, a regular gardening column and since May 1990 has been a regular gardening expert on BBC Radio Suffolk. He has appeared on Gardeners World with Chris Beardshaw, regional TV, BBC Radio 4 and worked with Monty Don and Jo Swift. He is President of Wenhaston Gardening Club and regularly gives talks to gardening clubs and other organisations. His other interests, when he is not working on his own 2 acre garden, include sailing and driving his kit car.