We caught up with gardener and grower Jonny Bruce, who features in our latest Classic Men’s Look, as he builds an organic nursery in the Cotswolds. The Financial Times recently described him as one of gardening’s newest blossoming talents.
Jonny Bruce is, first and foremost, a gardener. It’s a simple description, but an intentional one. Despite a career that spans consultancy, writing, and now the beginnings of his own nursery in the Cotswolds, everything he does returns to plants, and to the act of working with them, day in, day out.
His current focus is the establishment of an organic perennial nursery just outside Cirencester. It is still in its early stages, and for now he balances its demands with work across other gardens, including Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, which he has helped care for over the past eight years. Alongside this, he continues to write, with a forthcoming book for Tate, The Artist’s Garden, due later this year.
“I’ve always said I want to be a gardener who writes rather than a writer who gardens. It always has to be that way round.”
At the nursery, the work is shaped by the seasons and by the needs of the plants themselves. Days begin early, led by light rather than routine, and quickly become dictated by timing, observation and care.
“At this time of year the first thing I do is go straight to the seed frames, because every day there’s a new pot or tray that’s germinated. You’re trying to keep track of this rush of spring, because if you leave the seedlings too long in the seed trays, especially if they’ve been thickly sown, then you lose the quality. Timing is so important when you’re propagating plants yourself.”
How Jonny Grows
That attention to process sits at the heart of how he thinks about gardening, and what he is trying to build with the nursery.
“How we grow is absolutely fundamental. What we grow is obviously important as well, but the focus for me has been the fact that our industry has become so dominated by cheap imported plants… they’re grown in a protected environment which allows them to grow very quickly, which is obviously very economical, but it doesn’t mean, in my opinion, that the plants are inherently strong.”
For Jonny, the issue is not simply one of scale, but of intent. Plants are often grown to look appealing at the point of sale, rather than to thrive once they leave it.
“You can think of the garden centre shelf as almost like a life support. Once you take it away from that closeted environment and put it in your garden, particularly for an inexperienced gardener, then the chances of that plant struggling are quite high.”
The alternative is slower, more considered, and rooted in the health of the plant itself.
“In organic growing, the first line of defence is plant health. If you can grow your plants well and keep them healthy, then they’re much less susceptible to pest and disease.”
It is a way of working that sits in contrast to a system built around speed, uniformity and convenience. Plants are bred to flower quickly, to look full on a shelf, and even to fit the dimensions of shipping infrastructure.
“The most important thing is that the plant is in flower in its first year and that it grows to a certain height so that it fits efficiently onto a shipping trolley. Any other consideration is just disregarded… so in terms of longevity, disease resistance, the things that you might think of as being important, those are not the priorities.”
The result is a culture of replacement rather than care.
“You have plants that should be perennial and come back year after year, for twenty, thirty years, and people are quite happy that they only last one summer. It becomes almost a ritual to go back and replace them.”
Against this, Jonny’s work is deliberately slower, more tactile, and grounded in a different set of values. It is also, in his words, a form of craft.
“I feel like nurserymanship is essentially a form of craftsmanship. It requires a particular skill set that is learned by doing, and it can’t really be learned very easily out of a book.”
That sense of making, of working by hand, is central to what drew him to gardening in the first place.
“There’s so much joy in that. The physicality of handling the plant through its different life stages is deeply satisfying. I come from a family of artists, and I think there is that need in myself to do something creative. Gardening is like this meeting of science and art.”
A Garden Shaped by its Surroundings
At Prospect Cottage, those ideas take on a different expression. Set directly on the shingle at Dungeness, the garden resists almost every conventional expectation. The former home of artist, writer and activist Derek Jarman, the site has become one of Britain’s most distinctive and quietly influential gardens, shaped as much by its surroundings as by any formal design.
“One of the defining things about it is the fact that it doesn’t have a fence or a boundary. It’s literally a garden on the beach, so it doesn’t have grass. If anything we think of it as a gravel garden, and we spend more of our time digging out grass than encouraging it.”
Rather than imposing control, the garden exists in dialogue with its surroundings.
“I still think the principles of experimentation and the embracing of wildness are something that I always want to channel through my work… I find gardens exciting when there’s a sort of interface between traditional garden plants and things that lots of people might think of as weeds.”
On Quality and What You Wear
That openness extends beyond the garden itself, shaping how he thinks about the things he uses every day. Working outdoors, often in demanding conditions, creates a sharp awareness of quality.
“It’s one of the few things that I will spend decent money on, a good pair of boots. You really notice it when something isn’t of the same quality… it’s that classic thing of buy cheap, buy twice.”
For Jonny, the distinction is immediate.
“I’ve had plenty of cheap pairs of work boots… these things don’t hang around. They always end up splitting, and the sole separates from the rest of the shoe. It’s very easy to tell when you’ve got something that’s been properly made, and you can just sense that it’s going to last.”
On the day of the Tricker’s Classic Men’s Looks shoot for “The Gardener”, he wore the Stephen Low Chelsea Boot in burnished calf.
“A lot of my assumption with handmade leather shoes is that they’re going to be very uncomfortable… that whole thing of breaking in a shoe. But to be honest I found those very comfortable from the moment I put them on. They had a good tight fit.”
That sense of structure stood out. In his own work, boots are worn hard and often lose their shape over time.
“For me, I sometimes struggle with my work boots because of the way they’re worn… they stretch quite a lot.”
By contrast, the feeling here was immediate. Supportive, well-formed, and made to last.
“It’s very easy to tell when you’ve got something that’s been properly made, and you can just sense that it’s going to last.”
While perhaps not something he would choose for the most demanding work in the garden, the qualities were clear.
“I don’t know if they’re quite the shoe I would choose to garden in, just because they’re a bit nice! I would probably keep them for best. But just walking around in them, they felt very good.”
For those new to gardening, Jonny’s approach offers a simple shift in perspective. Rather than looking for quick results, it is about paying attention to how something has been grown, choosing quality over convenience, and allowing time for things to establish properly. In that sense, success in the garden is less about expertise, and more about patience.
Why It Matters
Ultimately, for Jonny, gardening offers something deeper than the practical. It is not just about growing plants, but about a way of living that sits slightly outside the pace and priorities of modern life.
“I think people essentially have a need to care for something,” he says. “A lot of the anxiety of the modern world comes from a sort of inwardness… there’s so much focus on the individual.”
When you work with plants, that focus shifts.
“When you work with plants or animals or children… there’s something really beneficial in tending and caring for another life, even if it’s a non-human life. That gives a lot of balance and perspective.”
It is a simple act, but one with a quiet weight to it. To step outside, to pay attention, to take responsibility for something beyond yourself.
“The benefits of horticulture and gardening on mental health are pretty indisputable… getting your hands in the soil, or just walking among trees, these are things that are essentially good for you.”
For Jonny, that connection runs alongside a creative instinct, shaped by a background in art, but grounded in something more physical, more immediate.
“I think there is that need in myself to do something creative… gardening is like this meeting of science and art in a way. There’s always more to learn, more to explore.”
It is perhaps that sense of endlessness that keeps him returning. Not a finished state, but a continual process. A way of working that resists finality.
“I just have to pinch myself every day that this is the life I get to have… it’s hard to be bored in it.”
You can follow Jonny’s work and the progress of the nursery at @j.bruce.garden, and read more about the nursery at www.thefieldnursery.com.
