Gardening Contractors

Bitter experience has taught me to never take up any offer on the knock.

Also be aware that most people offering gardening services are not gardeners. They will hack (prune) everything back to bare wood at any time of year to make the garden look tidy for a week after the work is done! They don't know the difference between a weed and a wanted plant. Things you have taken decades to nurture will die back shortly afterwards!

Other people's bitter experience confirms that to me.

How long do you think the job will take? The going-rate in these (rural) parts seems to be about £120/day or £15-£18/hour

While that may well be the case generally, it's not always. My parents had a large leylandii in the corner of their garden, that was positioned very awkwardly, just fitting into a triangle made by the garage and two phone wires. Someone doing work nearby knocked at the door and offered to get rid of it for a third of the prices they'd been quoted by companies that they'd contacted. A couple of days later, they did a very good job of getting it all down and taken away and with no damage to anything around it.

On the other hand, when needing the front of my house re-pointed, we not only phoned companies, but drove around the area looking for work in progress before making our choice. They were booked up for 6 months ahead, but we could wait and they did an excellent job, whereas the next-door neighbours re-point looks decidedly dodgy.

My wife prunes that way, and she has an RHS certificate in horticulture.

Not guilty there, and she also knows their pseudo-Latin names.

That normally happens unexpectedly, rather than after pruning.

Hasn't that always been the case? I had one chap get stroppy with me because I wouldn't let him prune a willow out the front. It does really need some work, I've been meaning to do it for a couple of years, but I don't think being arsey about it will get him many jobs.

Is that not the same with most things. Sadly I suspect that the real quotes for quality non rushed work is nearer the high end of your range as labour will cost more as the cost of living increases. Best approach as always, is go and look at other work they have done. Brian

One gentleman walked the garden criticising every thing he saw, By the time he left my wife had steam coming out of her ears.

Good gardeners are like hens teeth.

Like anything I suppose, I recently had our roof done after years of mithering the guys who I wanted to do the job.

Anyone available to do a job at a reasonable price, you probably wouldn't want to use them and anyone decent and available will be so because they charge sky high prices.

Our next-door but one neighbour had some pruning done by contractors who knocked on the door. Everything was going fine until a branch landed on an overhead phone drop cable leading to our next door neighbour. The drop cable was impressively strong. So much so that it ripped off the fascia board high up on a gable it was attached to rather than sacrificing itself. Within a few seconds the contractors had vanished, never to be seen again. John