Builders (2)
FEATURED TRADIE
Tom the Gardener
Major Tom Gardening
Lives in Annandale
If you've walked up Johnston Street, you know the Witches Houses. Tom has dropped a letter in their boxes more than once, because his dream job is looking after one of those gardens. "They're just stunning." He hasn't landed one yet. Give it time.
Tom has been in horticulture for eleven years. He grew up in Sydney, then bought a nursery up on Lake Macquarie and ran it for seven years – retail out the front, production out the back, everything from propagation to mature trees, courtyard gardens in pots to hundred-thousand-dollar full-yard builds. Then came the kind of year every small business owner dreads. The business went under, the dominoes fell, and Tom lost just about everything with it.
He moved back to Sydney at the start of last year, landed near Cohen Park, and took a couple of months to catch his breath. Then he started again from the ground up: Major Tom's Gardening, launched last August. It's just him, on purpose. No crew, no website – he'd rather do fewer gardens properly than blitz through as many as possible. He'll happily just mow your lawn, but where he earns his keep is the thinking: which plant actually suits your aspect, and why the one you had your heart set on will sulk in that corner.Ask about his favourite job and he doesn't hesitate. Second week of the new business, his third-ever customer wanted a Palm Springs cactus garden in thirty square metres, and had been quoted twenty grand plus for it.
Tom built it for about a third of that, still maintains it, and is quietly excited about its second growing season.His theory of gardening fits in a sentence: half of it is sun, half is water, and the rest is a skill anyone can learn. Nobody is born with a green thumb – a little knowledge goes a long way. (He's a fern man himself. Maidenhairs.)
These days you'll find him around Annandale, which he reckons is the nicest suburb in Sydney, with a soft spot for its historic gardens. If there's a bare patch you've been staring at all winter, he does a free on-site consult – mention the Troll when you call. His jobs live on Instagram.
Book Tom
Tom the Gardener
Major Tom Gardening
Lives in Annandale
If you've walked up Johnston Street, you know the Witches Houses. Tom has dropped a letter in their boxes more than once, because his dream job is looking after one of those gardens. "They're just stunning." He hasn't landed one yet. Give it time.
Tom has been in horticulture for eleven years. He grew up in Sydney, then bought a nursery up on Lake Macquarie and ran it for seven years – retail out the front, production out the back, everything from propagation to mature trees, courtyard gardens in pots to hundred-thousand-dollar full-yard builds. Then came the kind of year every small business owner dreads. The business went under, the dominoes fell, and Tom lost just about everything with it.
He moved back to Sydney at the start of last year, landed near Cohen Park, and took a couple of months to catch his breath. Then he started again from the ground up: Major Tom's Gardening, launched last August. It's just him, on purpose. No crew, no website – he'd rather do fewer gardens properly than blitz through as many as possible. He'll happily just mow your lawn, but where he earns his keep is the thinking: which plant actually suits your aspect, and why the one you had your heart set on will sulk in that corner.Ask about his favourite job and he doesn't hesitate. Second week of the new business, his third-ever customer wanted a Palm Springs cactus garden in thirty square metres, and had been quoted twenty grand plus for it.
Book Tom
Tom the Gardener
Major Tom Gardening
If you've walked up Johnston Street, you know the Witches Houses. Tom has dropped a letter in their boxes more than once, because his dream job is looking after one of those gardens. "They're just stunning." He hasn't landed one yet. Give it time.
Book Tom