Taking care of Coastal gardens on the Mornington Peninsula for 40 years.
In 1844 Ann McGarrity left Tyrone County bound for Australia.
Unfortunately she was convicted by the ruling British Government at the time, as she had set fire to Joseph Leggins house.
She arrived in Australia in 1845 and must have been a model prisoner, as she was pardoned and married James Watson in 1848.
Later they moved to Victoria with their family, including their son James George Watson.
James George ended up on the Mornington Peninsula where he found other families who had come from County Tyrone, as his mother had.
The most prominent being the Cain family in Rye, who named their house Tyrone household and the local beach Tyrone foreshore.
James George married Margaret Webster and they had a son called James George.
In the old days in Blairgowrie there were only a handful of houses. One was the Watson house and another was George Alexander Hills cottage.
George Hill leased a lime kiln off the Cain family on the corner of Byron and St. Johns Wood roads. He also grew vegetables and had large Mulberry trees near his cottage.
Of course being that close to one another, James George, son of James George became acquainted with George Hills daughter Lucy and they married in 1908.
The Mulberry trees are still on the corner of Byron and St. Johns Wood roads and we have taken the Mulberry leaf as our logo.
James George and Lucy Hill had a son called James William Watson and that was my father.
I am Stephen James Watson.
My father James William Watson had many jobs and could turn his hand to many things, from truck driver to cook, which he did before the Second World War and the six years during the war.
After the war he and my mother Marcelle Wiklund managed a Hereford stud. My father also worked as a Stone Mason building Sea walls along the Peninsula. He then went on to run a gardening business until he died.
I started helping him when I was around 10 years old mowing lawns after school and that is where my love of gardens, plants and trees was hatched.
I left school after finishing Year 12 and promptly started a gardening business in 1979.
A few years later I formed my first company Steve Watson Enterprises and began landscaping full time.
In 1987 I was warned that a world economic crises was imminent, so I slowly moved out of landscaping and went into the more stable income of garden maintenance. Working mainly on the Portsea and Sorrento area, managing up to 120 properties.
During this time I brought up my four children and the maintenance business proved a reliable income for a large family.
By the early 2000’s my children were in their teenage years and I found the business had grown. The seven day a week demands of a maintenance business left little time to spend with my family.
So after many years in garden maintenance, I sold my business and started Three Trees Vegetation Management. This was solely a tree business, doing tree removal, pruning, dead wooding and a small amount of hedging. It also gave me the flexibility to spend more time with my children during their teenage years.
Three Trees was a very rewarding business and I learnt many new skills, from acquiring trade certificates to working with some great Arborists and people in the industry. The company did many large and small extremely complex jobs, from using cranes to remove trees to fine pruning and shaping.
After 17 years though, it was time for a new direction.
There are many companies who remove and trim trees, but very few who know how to fine prune, shape properly and trim hedges to a high standard.
That is where Tyrone Garden Company comes in.
Now with my 40th year working in horticulture just around the corner, I am bringing all of my experience to provide a service of high quality Hedge, Tree and Plant pruning, plus Consulting.
I am very proud of my heritage. Proudly called my company where my lineage comes from and use the Mulberry leaf as our logo from my great grandfather’s trees.
