Joseph Madonsela became a gardener by default. As a schoolboy, looking for extra ways of making cash, he started tending gardens to earn his keep. This has now become a full-time job for which, by gardening standards, he earns a reasonable salary. However, he wants to move into hotel management one day and is saving up money to try and get there. For now though, the nature aspect lures him to his current position, where he is content to stay until he can move on. He told us about his position as a gardener.

Basics

A gardener tends to gardens, and is a very labour-intensive position in South Africa. The average salary is based on a daily amount, from R50 a day in rural areas to R135 in certain main centres. In all, a big city gardener could earn around R3 000 a month.

Job description

A gardener is someone who tends to and cares for plants, grass, shrubs and trees in gardens. From ensuring a well-kept lawn to removing dead and decaying leaves and branches to planting new plants and deciding where to improve the current garden. It involves digging, raking and turning the soil over, cutting lawn and tidying up a specific area.

Pros and cons

"The pros are, that if, like me, you enjoy spending time in a garden, you get experience. You learn a lot more about plants and trees and where they grow best and which plants to put in which areas of the garden. The con is simple – if it rains then you can`t work and that can be very frustrating."

Required studies or experience

While there is no formal training necessary to become a gardener,

it always helps to have some form of training that can help career advancements at a later stage. Other than that, the more knowledge you can get about the plants that you will be working with, the better your job will go. "You may also need some training on some of the tools used, such as lawnmowers and weed eaters, as they are not always the same from property to property. If you are starting from scratch you need some training"

Personality type

"You need to be a people`s person to do this job and you need to be hardworking and punctual. You also need to be reliable and be able to understand instructions properly."

An average day

"I start at 07:30 in the morning, with a lunch of a half an hour and by 15:00 I am done. It depends on the home that you are working at, but I would normally start by removing all the landmines left by the dogs, then cut the lawn and then start working from one side of the garden to the other, trimming and pruning, and cleaning at the same time. Sometimes I have some plants to plant and on other occasions we either remove or replant some plants."

The best thing about the job

"The best thing is that you are doing something you love and I love plants. I work with nature every day and I work in different environments and with different people. You also get tremendous job satisfaction from watching something you have tended to, flourish over a season."

The worst thing about the job

"The worst thing is having to remove the landmines left by pets! That is one part of the job that I truly despise."

Brenden Nel