Thomas Willey

My name is Thomas and I’m a planting and exterior stylist. I’m a passionate horticulturist and plantsman with a keen belief in organic principles. 

I have have had an interest in gardening from a young age. When I was 10 my parents bought me a greenhouse for Christmas and I believe this was a pivotal moment in sparking my love of gardening that continues to this day.  

I enjoy most elements of my job but planting a garden then seeing it grow and flourish is one element of my job that I love as it’s very satisfying to see the plants flourish and how the colours and textures combine. 

In my spare time I enjoy listening to country music and attending concerts. I’m also a classic car fan especially of Rovers. My daily driver is a 1981 Rover Sd1 that I’ve rebuilt and restored with my dad. Driving a car you’ve invested lots of time into is very humbling. I like classic cars as they have so much style and bags of character as well as being simple mechanically. 

If money was no object I would buy a characterful property with a large piece of land where I could build a beautiful self sufficient garden as well as having a large garage/ workshop full of rovers, where I could spend hours tinkering.

Alongside using my parents garden as my project space, outside of work I enjoy travelling, looking after various family dogs, keeping fit, and following sports such as Formula 1 and football. If I wasn’t in the horticulture industry I would be interested in becoming an aerial firefighter. The skill and precision of flying whilst fighting fires combined with the aspect of helping people would be a very rewarding job. 

Bradley Cooper is definitely the actor I would get to play me in a biopic. When I’m asked what three things I would take with me if I were stranded on a desert island, I say a seaplane, plenty of fuel, and a GPS. If money was no object, the very first thing I’d do is book an around the world trip. It would be incredible to have the opportunity to see the entire world. Fun fact: the largest population of camels in the wild is actually in Australia.