From the Backstage to the Border: Meet Ollie Croome

Not many landscapers start their career managing a music venue in Brighton. Ollie Croome did.

Before he joined the Greengrass team, Ollie spent years working backstage, keeping the show running from the other side of the stage. Good work, decent pay, nothing wrong with it. But something was missing. A stint in Australia doing heavy stonework with a French guy he barely knew changed the direction of things. Working outdoors, using his hands, watching something take shape from bare ground upwards. He came back to England with a different idea of what he wanted to do.

That was over six years ago. Today he is one of Greengrass’s most experienced soft landscaping specialists, and he has not looked back once.

The jump might sound unlikely, but Ollie is quick to explain that landscaping is not the job most people imagine it to be. It is not just physical graft, though there is plenty of that. It is knowledge, observation and genuine skill, built up over years of working with plants in real conditions.

“There’s a lot going on in a garden. Certain clients have lots of different plants and flowers and shrubs that all need a certain amount of knowledge and care. You might have to think: how did this go last season? Is there something I’ve read, something I’ve researched? There are lots of choices you can delve into to keep yourself interested.”

That depth is what separates a good landscaping team from a great one. Anyone can cut grass. Knowing why a particular shrub is struggling, remembering what a border looked like three seasons ago, understanding how a planting scheme will develop over time: that takes experience, and it takes someone who genuinely cares about the result.

Ollie came into the role without formal horticultural qualifications. What he brought instead was curiosity, a strong work ethic and the willingness to learn the craft properly. Six years on, that investment has paid off, both for him and for the clients who rely on the team.

Those clients are varied, and so is the work. Some days it is a residential garden, working alone or in a small team, the kind of careful detailed work where you get to know a plot intimately over months and years. Other days it is something bigger: large-scale clearance or landscaping projects where the Greengrass team can run to eight people on site at once, everyone assigned to a different role, the whole operation moving with the kind of quiet coordination that only comes from trusting the people around you.

Regular clients will often ask for the same team members to come back. That is not an accident. It is what happens when people do good work and treat clients’ gardens as if they were their own.

And the team itself? Ollie puts it simply.

“We’re like a family, really. We sort of pull each other along. If someone’s having a bad day, we try and look after each other.”

For a business built on quality, reliability and nearly two decades of service across Essex and Suffolk, that is exactly the kind of culture that makes the difference. Not just on the big projects, but on every job, every day, whatever the weather.

Ollie’s story is one version of it. There are others like it across the team. People who came to landscaping from unexpected places, stayed because they found something they are good at and proud of, and kept coming back because of the people they work alongside.

That is Greengrass.

Tel. 01206 392813 / 01473 846164

info@greengrassltd.com