Regulars.
30 April 2026
It’s a funny thing being a gardener. Sometimes people just want you round once, or twice perhaps, just to clear the way before they can get a grip on their garden. Others, however, become a part of your life, and you theirs. I have been gardening professionally for 5 years now, and some of my clients have become permanent fixtures in my weekly diary.
For example, my Mondays and Fridays both have weekly clients where I carry out tasks for 2 hour sessions. Monday mornings mean my client comes out to garden with me, we sometimes have coffee and cake, we talk about what’s happening in the garden week to week and plan for the coming months. We also talk about our lives: what films we’ve seen, books we’ve read. We analyse the latest eateries and shops in town to open, close, suddenly go downhill or make us fizz with new excitement.
On Friday mornings, I’m greeted by my 90 year old client with a cup of tea. We have a garden diary - she will have written notes for me throughout the previous week. It can be anything from ‘Move dahlias?’ or ‘Order seeds: zinnia, cosmos. Containers??’ - we go through the book. At the end of my session I write notes on what I have done. ‘Front garden: good soak. Planted in rhododendron. Sambuca potted up. Annuals planted on top of finished bulbs.’
I go to some clients every other Wednesday, every third Tuesday, once a month. We catch up on life, how the plants are faring, what school they’ve picked for their child, isn’t it a shame that good cafe has closed, what did you think of The Other Bennett Sister?
I used to sit at a desk all day surrounded by colleagues (in my marketing days) and, I must admit, missed this terribly when I made the leap to full-time, self-employed gardener. Much of the time is quiet solitude, which is lovely, but for a chatty Cathy like me, the burr of the Radio 4 schedule and sparrows twittering is sometimes interrupted in the most welcome way by my clients chatting to me. As I say, some clients like to come out with me when I work, and we talk together about what needs doing, amongst the other life-talk that comes with it.
It’s a lovely thing to celebrate births, see interior transformations, hear their tales and of course, listen when they are in grief, or going through a challenging time. I suppose it’s like when you go to the hairdresser and end up talking about family relationships, work woes, the political climate. All this can be discussed while I sow seeds, give the pots a good water, debate whether that peony needs moving.
On average I do 14 gardens a week, so it’s a lot of variety in conversations - something I never thought would be an added benefit of a career like this.