RHS School Gardeners of the Year 2023
Judging panel
Matt Willer
Founder of The Papillon Project and 2018 RHS School Gardening Champion of the Year
About Matt
I am the founder and operational lead of the charity ‘The Papillon Project’. My amazing team and I create inspirational school allotments, often using upcycled materials, for over 30 secondary schools and colleges throughout Norfolk. Ultimately, our charitable work is about helping young people to feel more confident about themselves and their futures too.
Q&As
Can you describe your connection to / love of gardening and growing?
My love of gardening and growing comes from my love and respect for nature itself. I am always being inspired by nature’s example and how we really must learn from it in everything that we do. This is why I feel happiest when I am working outside and learning from nature itself.
Why do you think gardening and growing is so important for young people?
I so very passionately believe that giving young people the opportunity to garden is key to how we can create a better future. Long term, young people are the ‘generations-in-waiting’ and so everything must be done to help rehearse and inspire them to lead more sustainable lives; learning to grow plants is fundamental to helping to create this future. In the short term, school can be a challenging place, but gardening, and the nurturing of plants, can greatly aid the mental wellbeing young people by providing ‘temporary escapism’ and calm from the hustle and bustle of the school day. Gardening can also help bring young people together and forge friendships and therefore aid social education. Growing things is extremely good for the soul to say the least and young people especially need this sort of positive energy in their lives.
When is your favourite time of year in the garden?
I have two favourite times of year to garden: the beginning of spring when nature is starting to awaken and also the autumn when nature, very sensibly, gives itself a break to rest and recharge; something I feel we as human beings need to do more often in our increasingly busy and fast-moving world.
What’s your favourite fruit or vegetable to grow?
To be honest, I love to see everything grow, but I especially enjoy growing fruit and vegetables with young people and sharing this experience with them.
Your top tip for young gardeners?
I have a few: be patient (nature doesn’t move as fast as our modern world does). I would also encourage young people to ask questions and be very open to new ideas from other people, and lastly, never be afraid of making mistakes.
What one thing do you wish you’d known as a young gardener?
That gardening is not just about growing lovely things, it’s also about growing friendships and it 100% helps with wellbeing and general happiness.
Do you have one piece of advice regarding protecting our planet / the environment?
It’s so easy these days to feel disappointed, frustrated, hopeless and anxious towards the future of the planet, especially with the slow progress that governments seem to make towards protecting the environment. Yes, we face some enormous challenges, but these challenges can be overcome, but only if we work collectively as a team, show respect for one another and communicate a clear and common goal to fix the planet. If we can work together to do extremely difficult things, such as put human beings on the moon, we can definitely work as collective to find sensible solutions to very big problems.
Matt's entry video for RHS School Gardeners of the Year 2018
