GARDENER James Ball has seen his business bloom after a SWEF Enterprise Fund grant from Dorset Community Foundation helped him buy the equipment he needed to expand.
James, 29, of Bridport, trained as a horticulturist on an apprenticeship with the YMCA and then worked for the National Trust in Sussex. When he and his wife Vicky moved to Dorset he worked part-time at a special needs college teaching gardening.
“It wasn’t really enough to cover everything so I started a business doing garden jobs for people and found I was really enjoying it,” he said. “ After Ellie, our daughter, arrived I wasn’t able to continue my job with the special needs college so I went full-time into gardening.”
But as the business started to develop he found there were some jobs he couldn’t take on because he didn’t have the right tools. “I needed to expand but I wasn’t able to do that because of my financial situation,” he said.
A Dorset Council business advisor told him about the SWEF Enterprise Fund, which helps young people aged 18 to 30 overcome financial challenges and other disadvantages to develop their business. It offers grants of up to £2,000 for businesses that have been established for under two years and up to £500 for start-ups.
After filling out an application form he was invited to an online interview and subsequently learned he’d been awarded £1,300. “I was so pleased to hear I’d got it,” he said. “It really helped to have that vote of confidence from other people to say ‘it sounds like you’ve got a good thing going here and we’ll help you out’ and it really did.
“The grant has completely changed everything and I was able to fully equip myself with good tools, and equipment and I’ve been able to get some advertising on the side of my van. I’ve been able to get better clothes and shoes so I’m able to work in all weathers.
“Jobs pour in now and there’s more work all the time, even during the winter months. The business has grown exponentially since the grant came in.”
The grant has completely changed everything and I was able to fully equip myself with good tools, and equipment and I’ve been able to get some advertising on the side of my van
As his reputation has grown, so has the area he covers and he can now be found tending gardens in from Bridport to Weymouth and Dorchester. “My name gets out there naturally, just from driving around and clients just call me because they’ve seen my name on the van, which I never would have been able to afford on my own,” he said.
“Because of the grant I can do so many more jobs for so many more people. I’ve been able to buy long reach equipment so I can now cut hedges and prune tall trees without having to climb dangerously to do it. I also do some contracting for housing agencies and work in the edible gardens at St Mary’s and Bridport Primary School, where I teach as well as maintain the garden.”
To continue his expansion he is considering taking on an apprentice of his own, as well as studying gardening design so he can offer it as a service.
James, who is also looking forward to the birth of his second child, said: “Looking at the future, I’d say it’s quite bright. The company is able to pay for itself and I’m hoping to grow it a bit more and start helping other people as well.
“If I hadn’t have been given the grant when I did I probably would have had to have gone into full-time employment. Getting that grant last winter meant I could start the spring fresh and the amount of people that I’ve had coming to me in the past few months is double what I was getting last year. So it’s vastly changed my outlook.”
He said the business has also helped him grow. “I was always terrified of working for myself because my self-organisation skills left a lot to be desired but since doing this business I’m a lot more organised and I’m juggling everything just fine.
“I think going into that SWEWF interview was like Dragons Den, when people go in there nervous and come out feeling like a million bucks – I think a similar thing happened with me.”
Find out more about the work Dorset Community Foundation SWEF Enterprise Fund grants here.
