Worst Gardening Job

There are a lot of jobs that are no fun, sometimes to the point that you are happy to pay soneone else to do them.

I helped a friend (for the first and last time) prune their fairly large Aurocaria tree, which was right down to the ground. They wanted to raise it a few feet to be able to weed around it.

Even wearing a jacket and hat, a Monkey Puzzle tree savages you every chance it gets.

I nominate this as one of the jobs you do NOT want to do yourself!

Reply to
Bill Spohn
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Removing a large barberry bush is on that list, too, unless it's way off by itself in a field and you can shoot it first, and then burn it. Otherwise, you need a few hundred band aids.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

wspohn wrote >>There are a lot of jobs that are no fun

Reply to
Ka30P

They should give you the job of manure taster instead!!!

Reply to
Cereus-validus

I suppose if I could actually find someone who knew what they were doing, a job I really would pay to have done is cutting my perennials' first flush back. I find that in this mild climate, perennials go big guns in early spring (March) and continue flowering till about now. If I could find a person who knew what they were doing enough to come in, prune these giants back, fertilize them and tend the weeds...wow, that would be delightful. However, I have not found anyone who knows what they are doing...so it either doesn't get done, making my yard truly a wildlife habitat (!) or I go out and hack away. I have not done it yet, but I'd better do it soon or it will be too far gone.

Victoria

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Reply to
escapee

I suspect that when people train at horticulture schools, the LAST thing they want to do is the kind of maintenance that people actually need. My office park's a great example of the painful results. It's got some beautiful plantings, with great potential, but if the maintenance is done right, it's purely by mistake.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

Here are some more (I;'ve done all of them) a) Removing a 20 year old Bougainvillea vine b) Pulling all the Agave pups and leaving just the main plant c) Removing poison ivy vines from pine trees d) Trimming the seed pods from date palms

Reply to
Ricky

my motto: show no mercy

cause dammit, they just get bigger that way.

Reply to
Lisa

snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnojunk (Bill Spohn) expounded:

Try cutting down/eliminating 30' high and around rosa multiflora mounds, some of which had climbed neighboring trees. Seven of them. Rotten bastards! I hate those roses.

Reply to
Ann

"Doug Kanter" expounded:

I didn't go to horticulture school, only because there wasn't a good one near me when I was younger, and now there isn't time. However, I do have 30 years in the garden, and plenty of study. I would spend every working day in the garden, maintaining peoples' perennial gardens, if I could have the chance again. I did it for two years, it was heavenly. Someday I hope to do it again full time. Hell, someday I hope to go to one of the horticulture schools that are now nearby.

What you're talking about, in an office park, is a 'garden' maintained by landscapers. I fixed landscaper mistakes. This isn't to disparge trained, professional landscapers, it's their crew that is the problem. Kids my son's age, who knows nothing about plants and gardens, but could easily get a job at a landscaping company mowing lawns, and anything else in their path..............

Reply to
Ann

People who study horticulture to the degree level are not doing so to be a maintenance gardener. There is no money in most parts of horticulture, especially on the retail end of things. Growers make a little money, but scant more than retail workers manning the booth. I suppose research could provide an income, but certainly not relative to that of a medical research position.

What we need are professional gardeners. There is such a huge market for that. I wish I had the stamina to do it, because I'd invest the money and make a business of it. I think it would take off like magic. Problem is, it gets to be 100 degrees here starting in May and keeps that way till October. Ouch.

Thus, my garden which is over planted to begin with, is now way out of control. The snakes, rats, mice, squirrels, armadillos, skinks, lizards, geckos and racoon or skunk (I never see it) love it back there!

Victoria

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Reply to
escapee

Have you ever seen a five foot tall coreopsis? How about a four foot horsemint? Lemongrass, 6 feet. Eastern gamma grass, OUT of control. Hack it all back, in a month, it's all back, but that's the problem, I need to go hack. Maybe I will invest in a machete. LOL

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Reply to
escapee

Been there, done that, and agree with you.

Another one I farmed out was removing a half acre of blackberries that had grown to around 8 feet tall (measurements in non-metric for the metric-challenged American contingent). That was well worth paying for - the young guys that did it looked like they'd gone 10 rounds inside a sack of irritated cats by the time they were done.

Reply to
Bill Spohn

Amen! Cheryl

Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

I can vouch for this, I had a huge overgrown one I recently got out of my hedgerow.... I took out 5 smaller ones which weren't quite as bad but those suckers bite! Colleen

Reply to
GrampysGurl

I think one problem is time vs money. An office park like mine needs one full day each week to maintain the gardens correctly, and they probably can't afford to pay for that. It would help if they didn't plant 38 million annuals which require (and never get) deadheading two weeks after planting, but they don't listen. :-) Last year, they were ready to rip out a huge patch of daylillies near the door to my building because they "need so much work". ??? I managed to get to the manager before the "landscaper" (butcher) did his thing. Daylillies need maintenance like a fish needs a bicycle.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

Reply to
madgardener

Reply to
madgardener

I have to say that the most tedious job I've encountered so far has been the two year methodical removal of the 30+ year old forsythia.........Now if only I could find that young person who removed poison ivy from pine trees, I'd be in garden heaven, considering I have several Jack pines that have poison ivy and poison oak on them despite my efforts to sever them from the roots............ madgardener needing to invest in gallons of RoundUp..............

Reply to
madgardener

convicts????

must be coreopsis gigantica,

Reply to
Vox Humana

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