About Me
Stephen Lewis
My first memory of gardening was as a small child when my father gave me a small plot of the family garden in which to grow some seeds, and watched with fascination as an eclectic mixture of flowers emerged. Whether any of them were from the seeds I’d sown or whether they were an assortment of dandelions and buttercups I have no recollection, but that doesn’t matter – after all a flower is a flower and a weed only exists in the mind of the gardener.
Pottering around in the garden as a teenager always occupied more of my mind than homework ever did, and it was an interest that my parents encouraged throughout my school years before I went to Askham Bryan College in Yorkshire to study horticulture. It was here that I developed my lifelong love of trees and was fortunate enough to spend 6 months working with London’s trees and 6 months training at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum in Hampshire.
I graduated from college with an HND in horticulture, and initially worked as a foreman for a landscape company in the South of England before becoming self employed in 1990. It has been a journey which has led me to experience the full spectrum of the landscape industry – from days of relentless manual labour on building sites through to working in the gardens of some of Britain’s wealthiest people. I have worked for Local Authorities, commercial development companies, as a sub contractor to one of Britain’s most respected landscape companies as well as private individuals in gardens large and small.
I currently work on my own, and carry full public liability insurance. I hire trusted specialised contractors as the need arises.