People often ask me how I became a Gardener, I guess there is a long story and a shorter one. You see I took many different paths before reaching this destination and the experience gained from each, although not specifically of a gardening nature has all contributed to the creation and growth of EP Gardening Services.
So the short story is, firstly, I learned from my Mother who has always been a keen gardener and loves plants. When I left school my first job was picking daffodils in Boston and then I put adverts in shop windows offering help to people in their gardens. I didn't drive, and I had no tools, but I did have the determination to be independent and stand on my own two feet. I built up a gardening round using customers tools and soaked up as much knowledge from their experience as I could. I completed a City and Guilds in what was called Market Gardening, learning to grow vegetables and use a rotavator and other garden machinery, as well as maintaining my own allotment and selling the produce that I had grown.
All of this was put aside to further my talents in Judo, as I strove forward to win international competitions, competed and trained extensively with some of the best in the world and the British Squad.
I moved on to become a musician and went to college and university as a mature student, where I studied Music, Acting and Related Arts, going on to perform with many bands in a variety of genres, in venues all around the UK and Europe.
Naturally moving into professional theatre progressed, but this time from the perspective of stage management and set building, possibly this is where the skills in construction first formulated. Stages and stage sets need to be secure and safe environments for working performers. Building a stage is a lot like building a deck in a garden, it has to be safe as well as attractive and functional. The skill set is very transferable.
After many years of unsociable hours, my next career path was office based in which I managed a team of twenty Sales Executives and Account Managers in my role as Marketing Manager in the Business Telecommunications arena. After a successful 15 years and after way too many steak and kidney pies from the snack van that would visit daily, I needed a change once again.
I trained as a commercial UAV Pilot, you will know them as drones. I set up a production company and offered video and photography, roof inspections and later gained experience in 3D modelling, mapping and thermal imaging. This company still exists and I still offer the same services www.adventuredogproductions.com
I discovered, whilst making an aerial film for a friend, that he needed some help with his landscaping business and so I offered to help. Low and behold I was working back in the landscaping and gardening sector again. This time on a larger commercial scale, for instance planting three thousand plants a day at motorway service stations and the like.
COVID occurred and all of a sudden we had to avoid each other. There was only one option and that was to find work which I could do independently and away from other people. A few weeding jobs came my way at the bottom of some local gardens. I had gone full circle and ended up back where I started, EP Gardening Services was born.
There have been all sorts of little jobs in between over the last 50 years, for example: fence installation, concreting, painting and decorating, fish processing, trawler net making, promotions, telesales, labouring, factory work, bar work and the like. All things you might try out over the years as you forge your way through life.
Now I own, manage and operate EP Gardening Services and have a small team. We enjoy what we do very much. We have a great reputation and many happy customers, who continue to book us again and again. I am very proud of what we achieve and we have great pride in what we do.
I am also the Chairman and Director of Rotherfield & Mark Cross Bonfire Society in which we organise local community events and raise funds for local causes and charities as well as upholding the traditions of Sussex Bonfire www.rotherfieldbonfire.com
I am happily married and a dad to one dog, three cats and many tropical fish, so you see, although I am a landscape gardener and have a gardening business based in Rotherfield, I am not just a gardener, and long may it all continue, thanks for all your custom!
Ed Paterson / EP Gardening Services @ 2024
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