BY MARCO BELLANTI
In 1992, I left computer recruitment to become a gardener. I knew what the physical work would involve. What I came to understand more fully was how much an occupation could influence the way people treated you.
I had been heading a recruitment division and was asked to expand it by employing two more members of staff. I later discovered that both were earning more than I was. My director offered to increase my salary, but also wanted me to sign a very restrictive contract. By then, I had lost confidence in him.
I wanted to run my own business and have greater control over my working life. Gardening was a familiar choice. My Sicilian father had introduced me to it when I was five, and I loved nature. Following in his footsteps meant choosing work whose daily demands I already understood.
Before leaving recruitment, I spent endless days in the local library, gathering the names and addresses of residents on affluent private estates so that I could introduce my services. Independence required preparation. There would be no business without clients.
My father became my partner. His knowledge gave me a foundation, and his presence gave me moral support. Working outdoors in all weathers was different from office life, but neither the weather nor the physical effort fazed me.
Initially, my income fell significantly. I lived frugally and did not need to touch my savings. Within about a year, my gardening income exceeded my former recruitment salary. The business eventually grew to employ several members of staff.
Yet commercial success did not prevent some clients from looking down on me.
That was one of the more revealing aspects of the change. A client could value the garden and still make assumptions about the person maintaining it. I was running a business, managing relationships, pricing work and developing specialist knowledge. The word “gardener” seemed, for some people, to obscure all of that. I found myself having to tell clients that I lived elsewhere and had to use my parents’ address for the business correspondence to hide where I lived. Admittedly, due to my ambitious nature, I ended up living within the affluent areas that I was working in. It didn’t take too long before some clients discovered this and unfortunately some of the clients begrudged this and chose to look elsewhere. However, in doing so they sacrificed the quality of work that I was delivering to them. The thought that their gardener was living in the same private estate was just too much for them to accept. So if I look back, I would have changed this but hopefully if you read my book you will understand the reasons for this.
There is considerable judgement involved in doing the work well. I studied plants at home, learnt where they would grow best and spoke to other professionals. My father had taught me the basics; I wanted to develop those skills further. I did not attend formal courses, but I kept learning.
I also decided to quote for each job rather than charge by the hour. Occasionally, I miscalculated. Those mistakes were mine to absorb, and the better-paying jobs helped balance them. Being your own boss means accepting responsibility for decisions as well as enjoying the freedom to make them.
At first, I accepted whatever work came my way. Later, I could choose whom I worked for. That mattered to me. Leaving an employer had not removed the possibility of difficult relationships, but building the business gave me more say in them.
Throughout, I treated clients’ gardens as if they were my own. I wanted each client to feel that their garden had my full attention. I would not take shortcuts that compromised the standard of the work. My focus was to offer a far superior service than that of my competitor. My OCD perhaps contributed to this and on many occasions my father would reprimand me for trying to offer a perfect service but this was the only way I could operate. Either do the job well or not at all. Obviously there were occasions where my efforts were not appreciated or I was taken advantage of but this was the process by which I acquired the reputation that I did for being the most successful gardener in my area. Some of my competition despised me especially when they were driving home on days which they classed as a washout yet I and my team were still working in all weathers to ensure that our clients were always happy.
I missed nothing about recruitment. I enjoyed the fresh air, the work itself and the satisfaction of building something with my father. Looking back, I would make the same decision. But I need to make something completely clear; running your own business means that you will need to make sacrifices if you want success. You will rarely have the opportunity of putting your feet up when you get home from a hard day’s work. I was particularly hands on and although I had staff, I found myself having to do the work myself to set an example for everyone else. After work, I would have to visit potential clients to quote for their requirements, prepare quotations, keep records of accounts, tax, liability and payroll. I would sometimes not get to bed before 2.00 a.m. and have to get up again at 5.00 a.m. to start again. I had no one to help me with the clerical duties yet managed to run a successful business for many years. During this time I made several investment choices which have provided for me in my later life and allowed me to fully retire at the age of 58. I now have a property portfolio which occupies my time as well as grandchildren.
What has stayed with me, however, is the ease with which people attach social rank to an occupation. We depend on practical skills and enjoy their results, yet respect for the people providing them can be surprisingly conditional.
Those experiences helped lead me to write Not Just a Gardener. I wanted to record the pleasure and independence I found in the work, alongside the prejudice I encountered.
A job title tells you something about how a person earns a living. Understanding the person requires more attention than that.
Marco Bellanti’s memoir, Not Just a Gardener: A Memoir of Work, Class and Human Worth, is due out on 28 November 2026.
