A Day with a Gardener

My day with our gardeners starts with a fervent weather check out of my living room window. Then I sit back down with my breakfast and remember that I'm in London. Whatever the weather looks like in the morning has absolutely no bearing on what it's going to be like in the afternoon. But it definitely looks sunny...

Today I'm going to be out with Peter and Stephen, one of the gardening teams at Fantastic Services.

Now, I have to admit that gardening is one of my favourite parts of the business. Though it also has to be said, I also have a slightly idealised vision of what we're going to be doing. In my head we're going to be driving up gravel paths to stately homes with acres of lawn and row upon row of landscaped rose bushes.

Obviously in London, most people's gardens aren't anything like that. In fact if you have an outside space at all, you're very lucky indeed!

This is certainly true of the first garden that Peter, Stephen, and I are going to be visiting today. We're in Acton in the team's neat van, driving down a road lined with nice little terraced houses. It's generally at odds with the image of the area I had in my mind, but it's not leading me to believe there's a garden within a hundred metres.

We reach the right house and we're invited inside by Katherine, a spry and cheerful grey-haired woman who's one of the team's regulars. She makes what I'm told is the latest in a series of ongoing jokes about checking the cleanliness of the team's shoes. (Apparently Stephen made a big deal out of how clean they'd be the first time they visited.)

She shows us through to her back garden. It's a tiny, tiny space overlooked by all of the houses around. There's barely enough room for the nice, white-painted wooden table on the paving. A very carefully arranged artistic layout of herbs and flowers fill raised borders and climb trellises all around. Different colours bloom everywhere. The aromas are wonderful, and a narrow shaft of sunlight gives us a hint of the day outside.

In short, it looks like the sort of garden where I wouldn't know where to start. I'm also wondering how Peter and Stephen are going to get any tools inside.

I ask Peter about this.

"It's one of the big challenges of gardening in London," he tells me. "That's why we've got such compact equipment. It's all top of the line stuff, but it fits through doorways and corridors, narrow gates and things."

In fact, they've already brought everything through. Today they're planting new flowers in a corner area that looks like it's the only space left.

"Keeping a garden like this healthy takes a lot more science than I used to think," Peter says as they get to work. "You don't get much light, and different corners get light at different times of the day - there's a lot of plants that wouldn't do well here. It's important to do your research and plan carefully."

Katherine brings us all a cup of tea while the team are working, and chats with them about how the different plants are coming along. It's clearly a joint project. I watch Peter and Stephen at work. It's like they're four hands attached to one person. Obviously they've been working together for a long time. Soon enough, everything's tamped down and we're waving goodbye.

Next up, we're off to Richmond. Peter and Stephen are chatting about this garden in the van before we arrive. Apparently it's a big job that's going to take the rest of the day, but it's also a favourite. Stephen waxes lyrical about it.

"It's about half an acre, lovely silver maple trees along the side, and the couple that owns the house likes the flowerbeds to be kept healthy but fairly wild, you know? It's a lot of fun to be working in. Plus, it lets us get the big toys out."

In typical British fashion, the gentle sunlight turns to grey skies promising rain almost as soon we step out of the van. I say something about this, and ask Peter if rain puts him off being a gardener. He scoffs.

"Not a chance. I used to work in an office - nine hours a day behind a desk. Stephen started with an apprenticeship right out of college, but I changed career to do this. I love it. You're out in the fresh air. You see the results of the work you've done flower right in front of you. And best of all - not a spreadsheet in sight."

There's no-one in the house when we arrive, but Peter's got a key to the side gate. We're inside the garden in moments, and Stephen's off down the long, sloping lawn with one of the team's petrol mowers, filling the air with that fresh cut grass smell that I love. Peter gets down to the weeding. I lend a hand at his direction.

"It's the variety that I really love though," he continues, nodding towards the bottom of the garden. "Jackie and Marcus - the couple that live here - are thinking about putting in a pond over there. We've got another guy in Greenwich who's been asking what we can do with topiary. There's always something different. And you get attached to the regulars' gardens as they grow. It's like having a dozen gardens of your own.

"Plus, of course," he adds conspiratorially. "I've got my three young kids at home at the moment."

He leans back on his heels for a moment and looks up at the sky. There's a little bit of sun peaking through.

"This? This is relaxing."

And that's almost the end of my day with the gardeners. We pack up, lock up, and head back to the local Fantastic HQ.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rune Sovndahl, co-founder and CEO of Fantastic Services, has built his domestic services business from scratch to a point where they serve 230,000 clients in London, the South East and the North West. With a ￡28m turnover, it is easily the largest home services provider in London, yet the company has been self-financed since the outset. As well as the UK, Fantastic Services is already established as a leader in Australia and the USA.