Sammy Davis Jnr comes out smelling of roses with his new gardening career (From News Shopper)

Sammy Davis Jnr comes out smelling of roses with his new gardening career

9:31am Tuesday 21st August 2012 in Freetime latest news By Jim Palmer

AN ENTERTAINER has dropped show business for the grow business by retraining as a garden designer to reignite his passion.

George Long has sung, danced and acted in the West End and theatres around the country for two decades and is now hoping his passion for the outdoors can flower into a second career.

George, who was an uncanny Sammy Davis Jnr in The Rat Pack Live from Las Vegas at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley earlier this year, said: “I had reached to top of my career and I was doing the same sort of things.”

He added: “I think it is possible for anybody, if they are bored of what they are doing, to find something else that they want to do for the rest of their lives.

“There are so many courses out there for people to find something they are passionate about.”

The 41-year-old, who lives in Sydenham with his Great Dane Bjorn, decided to take up gardening professionally, after briefly considering psychotherapy.

He said: “I was trying to think of something to do that wasn’t a nine-to-five because, after 20 years working in theatre, it would have been a shock.”

George did an RHS horticulture course, then completed a design diploma earlier at the English School of Gardening, helped out by donations from friends and family and a bursary from the Dancer Career Fund.

He’s now busy building a name for himself in his new field, and had his Jubilee and Olympic-inspired Union Jacked showgarden design picked as only one of three to feature at Woburn Abbey Garden Show last weekend (Saturday August 18 and Sunday August 19).

The design was picked by the Duke and Duchess of Bedford and given a prime spot. It took George a week to set up.

He said: “My garden was given pole position, which I am really chuffed about.”