Interview: Wild Thomas Gardens

Q&A with Karen & Jake from Wild Thomas Gardens

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND OF WILD THOMAS GARDENS? After working in the film and television industry for 10 years as a camera assistant and then a stills photographer, Jake decided a change of careers was in order and started to work with a landscaping company. Over the last 5 years Jake has developed a healthy (?) obsession with plants, having loved the natural world from a young age. Karen is a painter and is a very natural designer and has a design and project management background. For the last few years, Jake had been wanting to create a gardening company that put more emphasis on healthy outdoor spaces and investing in local eco systems. In 2020 the time was right and we decided to combine our skills and start Wild Thomas Gardens.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START YOUR BUSINESS? The ethos for Wild Thomas Gardens was born from the idea that gardens can be beautiful, inspiring places that are not only beneficial to our wellbeing and mental health but are an incredibly important way to give back to the land we live on. We wanted to build a company that focused on the environmental aspects of gardening to create spaces for people and wildlife to co-exist. If gardens are thoughtfully designed, they are a fantastic way to be able to care and contribute to the health of our cities and to ensure the survival of species that are so important for our environments wellbeing. We feel the opportunity to create ‘wilder’ gardens will lead to happier people, happier wildlife, and if enough people start gardening with a looser hand, it will benefit the planet as well. Through Wild Thomas Gardens we have combined Jakes knowledge of plants – he is a an RHS qualified Horticulturist – and Karen’s organisational and design skills to create a gardening company that we would want to hire. A company that places emphasis on creating beautiful outdoor space that gives back.

WHICH PROJECT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF? All of them!

WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS FROM RECEIVING THE INITIAL PHONE CALL? We arrange a time to come and have a look at the site and take measurements. When we are there, we talk through your ideas and how you want to use your space. Once we have your wish list, we create a design around this and present you with a plan drawing and plant file which illustrates the plants that we want to use. We plant according to aspect, taste and style, and also time of year. It’s very important to work with the seasons and use plants that perform at different times of year so there is always something interesting happening!

WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT RUNNING WILD THOMAS GARDENS? Getting to work outdoors and creating beautiful, useful and beneficial spaces for people and wildlife to enjoy.