PERSHORE College has hosted the annual conference of the Professional Gardeners' Guild.

About 70 members of the guild - including head gardeners, garden managers, assistant gardeners and botanists - spent three days at the college holding meetings, and visiting nearby gardens. Most of the members work at places such as National Trust properties, large estates, university college gardens and other gardens that are open to members of the public.

Dave Feaver, head of horticulture at Pershore College, said: "They usually go to a land-based college of some sort but this time the overall theme was career challenges and training so it was quite appropriate for it to be in a college environment."

The conference delegates toured the college, and during the three days heard talks from people including Jim Buttress, the main judge for Britain in Bloom, and speakers from English Heritage, the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society.

Mr Feaver said he ran a session about what horticultural colleges provide, and talked about what courses colleges run, and with Phil Rawsthorn, section manager for horticulture, they talked about work-based learning and how that fitted in.

Mr Feaver added: "Pershore horticulture lecturer Duncan Coombs did one of the last things on Sunday morning. He's been to China a few times and he did a session on plant hunting and plant collecting. I think the delegates all enjoyed themselves.

"From our point of view it was good to be able to talk to people - there were a number of people there fairly influential in the organisations so we are looking forward to working with them."