‘I turned a hobby into a business – now I want to go nationwide'

Telegraph

3 days ago

Former NHS worker Becky Sibley started her gardening company after she was made redundant, and wanted to work flexibly. She wondered if she could turn her lifelong passion for gardening into a business.
Sibley's gardening company Wild Thyme Designs was named the winner of the Small Business category in the Adobe Express Your Innovation competition, in partnership with Telegraph Media Group, judged by Julie Lilley, chief executive of the Federation of Small Businesses. The competition offers investment and mentoring to celebrate Britain's most creative businesses.
Becky Sibley, 48, was a customer care manager for the NHS, then worked for the National Trust ensuring quality assurance of their holiday cottages before being made redundant in 2016. After two years as a stay-at-home mum she said to herself: 'I want a few hours out of the house doing something different.'
Her lifelong love for her craft and compassion for community-building was a clear standout in the competition sponsored by Adobe Express, the free create-anything app enabling entrepreneurs to create eye-catching promotional videos, flyers and social media campaigns in seconds.
Sibley has been a gardener her whole life, after being introduced to it by her mum as a child. 'I grew up with her in the garden every Saturday,' she explains. Meeting Lilley today in the garden of one of her clients, she says that the seed for Wild Thyme Designs was planted after she took a job that advertised a role for a few hours a week and things snowballed from there. 'I thought, brilliant, four hours is perfect,' she says as she points out foxgloves, pineapple broom and acanthus in a garden that she has been working on for four years. 'Now I've got my own business, and I can't believe I've won this competition.
'It took two years of weeding – getting rocks and roots out of this garden before we could plant,' she continues. 'A lot of what you see here is original; the people who had the house before my client were gardeners. My job is blending the old and the new.'
Sibley now employs up to eight people, depending on the season, and is currently recruiting. 'Everybody brings something different to the team. I love career-changers and we can take on passionate people who might not be considered by big firms – that is the beauty of a small business. I create a sort of matching service: the client, the person who's doing their garden and the garden itself.'
Sibley, who has 250 clients, offers everything from garden design, two-day garden makeovers and regular garden maintenance. Initially she took whatever work she could get, but now has a mix of high-end clients, including celebrities and manor houses, as well as people with smaller budgets, and finds much of her business through word of mouth. She also focuses on helping the elderly.
'That is a very important part of our business,' she says. 'We help people who can't look after their gardens any more and who need support. We are recommended by Age UK and can provide a support framework for families who live further away. I arrived at one house to find an elderly gentleman up a ladder the other day and I gently let his family know.'
Sibley says that her NHS background means that she will flag health risks, such as loose tiles and will remove snow and ice from paths, and that her routine visits 'create friendships'. She also cares for her own mother, now 83, after her father passed away from dementia in 2016 when she was pregnant. Sibley's mum 'is still gardening to this day'.
'I want to make wonderful gardens affordable and for people to have the experience I did when I was growing up – we need to get children into gardens,' says Sibley.
In the winter months, when some clients drop off, Sibley focuses on estate management for bigger clients as there are always jobs to attend to. Now that she has a mix of customers whose gardens need regular maintenance and others that require bi-weekly, monthly or annual visits, Sibley says that she has 'worked out' how to balance the company's revenue through the year.
'I know what I want to achieve. I have had a vision pretty much from day one,' says Sibley, who attributes her self belief to her father. 'Dad always said, 'You know yourself, and you know what you want, so you will get there',' she explains.
Sibley put herself through Royal Horticultural Society qualifications in 2020 and 2022, and is currently studying a diploma in garden design. She has won several awards, including two BBC Gardeners' World awards.
'If you run a small business there isn't back-up behind you,' she says. 'You can't have a day off. I haven't had a holiday for eight years. I have to make this work. Now I spend a lot of my time doing the HR, the finances, and I am trying to find a way of balancing that with the stuff I love: being in the gardens.'
Sibley says that she entered the competition because she hopes to take her business to the next level. She adds that she hopes she can stand out, as there are a lot of 'hack it and bodge it' gardeners who just trim everything back without truly understanding the plants.
When judging, Lilley says that Wild Thyme Designs stood out: 'I was looking for the possibility of businesses to grow, to scale up and I could see how Wild Thyme Designs has done that. I could see what you wanted to achieve with your offer and I think there is a real gap in the market – no one's doing it, I don't think. You are a bit like Charlie Dimmock – you just go in and blitz the place!'
Lilley adds that the business could expand and be franchised across the country, and that she hopes to offer Sibley mentoring, advice and connections, and to support as she focuses on what matters as she grows the business. Adobe Express, the free, create-anything app, will be valuable in helping her create the assets needed for franchising her business to others.
'They've got the qualifications, and people quite often can't afford a fully qualified landscape gardener,' says Lilley. 'Gardeners are often one- or two-man bands or handymen who just shove in a bit of soil and put in a few plants. If she pitches herself properly as an RHS-qualified horticulturist, there's not really much out there that's like that. Becky's got the skill and the ambition to roll it out – and that's why I think it could work.'
'I have a vision for this business,' Sibley says. 'There's a real genuine need for this in the UK. There's a shortage of gardeners and the demand is growing so I'm very glad to have some help to take it to the next level.'