Just watch our garden venture grow

Jun 30 2009 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette

A GREEN-FINGERED duo has launched a new venture helping people across Teesside to keep on top of their gardens.

Emma Csoppu, a retired RAF sergeant from Catterick Garrison, has joined forces with Tom Richardson, from Northallerton, to create garden maintenance firm Two To Mow a Meadow.

They have already secured nine clients in Northallerton and the South Teesside area since starting the venture recently.

Mrs Csoppu - her name is pronounced Sherpa and comes from her husband Jamie’s father, who was forced to flee the Hungarian uprising of 1956 - served 18 years in the RAF around the world before settling in North Yorkshire with Jamie, a major in the Royal Engineers.

“My grandparents were keen gardeners, as was my father, so I picked up a love of gardening from an early age,” said 39-year-old Emma, who is also a keen allotment holder.

As well as her years of informal experience, Emma worked as a volunteer gardener at Anglesey Abbey - a National Trust property near Cambridge - where she learned how to look after formal display gardens and parkland.

Tom, 32, spent 11 years as a gardener at Judges Country House Hotel, near Yarm, before being made redundant last Christmas as the recession bit. Their business is equipped to carry out general garden maintenance from lawn mowing to flower and vegetable cultivation.