Are you talking about a garden writer being a philosopher-writer using gardening as a vehicle for insight and literary expression? Or a pragmatic garden writer who is explaining gardening?

Garden writing as a genre of literature? Or a form of pragmatic communication about gardening?

If a poet is not getting paid, he is still an artiste, and may say that he is "apprenticing" under the mentorship of such-and-such poet. He can perform his work at a coffee house "open mic" night or poetry slam, and be viewed as a poet.

A garden writer who isn't getting paid is an unpaid garden writer. ;) If he is being mentored by another in writing style, or has styled his writing after the works of other garden writers whose styles he admires, then I guess he could say that he's an "apprentice" garden writer. But that's kind of abstract.

I don't know what I am talking about Cady, I thought it was curious the way he expressed this view without any explanation and I wondered if anyone related to it. I guess it would be the difference between someone who was first a gardener and then a writer and someone who was a writer who writes about gardening.

INK - I certainly think that where people come from dictates their perspective. The lady/guy who writes on rotation a piece for the local paper courtesy the Garden Club is probably an ameteur. The rest of us, paid or not, are perhaps apprentices until we gain mastership of the trade. I know of very few who start by writing for major magazines/houses without any writing background - we all use clips (paid or otherwise) to hawk our talent. There is doubtless a level when you do not need these, and you are sufficiently well known that people call you to write stuff, and you have sufficient work to make the living you desire. At that point perhaps you can call your apprentiship finished! Until then, we are apprentices or just paying our dues to the trade.

But, "apprenctice" and "apprenticeship" imply that you are working under someone else's tuteledge, as his or her assistant or something similar. Writing on one's own, without a senior overseeing your work, doesn't qualify as apprenticeship, in my opinion.

One apprentices to someone else. An apprentice gardener works under the master gardener and starts at the bottom, by cleaning tools, fetching items, lugging water and equipment, that sort of thing. Depending on the era and circumstances, he likely won't be paid but may get room and board in exchange for his labor. In return, he learns the trade or discipline from the bottom, up and experiences every step.
As his skill level increases, he will be given more complex duties, until the day comes when his master cuts him loose because the next step is for him to practice on his own, as a professional.

An amateur is someone who engages in a pursuit or discipline for his own pleasure or interest, and doesn't practice it on a professional level.

Although the traditional apprentice or journeyman in a trade is generally support by a senior, I see that as how a writer progresses. We start small with the local press, whose editor helps us get articles into the shape they want; we move onto the larger things and editors who take our piece apart and 'improve' in ways we didn't know existed - so we learn from them too. So though the traditional apprentiship is unter the wing of one master - we have several masters.

Interesting thoughts that open up others. The parallel seems to be between someone (an amateur) who loves the words, or has a passion for the subject, but cannot use the words to express the passion and someone who has learned 'the trade'. If this is so, it begs the question: which of these can be learned; the passion or the craft?

Just hand me a pen and some paper and let me tell you what I think. Albeit, I may not be as loqacious or as eloquent as you, I am still a writer, and if I write about gardens, I suppose that makes me a garden writer and if I ever get published, that makes me a published writer, but if I just do it for my own pleasure, I am no less a garden writer, just an unpaid one. When monies are exchanged, then I become a professional garden writer. I would assume, an apprentice is someone who has an editor. Having made that assumption, I guess he/she hasn't learned the language or the botany, or works for someone who does not trust him/her, and that someone might be less competent as a writer than the apprentice. Nonetheless, he/she has smoozed someone into giving them a job as an editor. Man, do we get tangled up in words here.