Garden Maintenance
Maintenance is the bedrock of all good gardening. Every part of a healthy garden benefits from regular timely care, and no garden or garden design will ever achieve its full potential without it.
See here for a link to an interview with John Sales, former Head of Gardens at the National Trust who explores the relationship between design and maintenance.
The trend for modern 'low maintenance' gardens is admirable in so far as it makes the required maintenance easier to fit into a busy life. 'Low maintenance' does not mean 'no maintenance' however. We specialise in garden maintenance and offer regular scheduled maintenance, occasional and one-off visits to suit your needs and budget.
Regular maintenance tasks:
Lawns need regular mowing. They also need fertilising and maybe weedkilling, scarifying and aerating as well if they are to flourish.
Shrubs may need regular or occasional pruning, sometimes renovation.
Herbaceous plants and borders need weeding, staking, splitting, and cutting back.
Creepers need tying in, cutting back, some need pruning.
Roses need pruning and often deadheading to look at their best.
Fruit trees and bushes need regular pruning to look and crop at their best.
Soils need attention too. Not just weeding, and mulches to conserve moisture, but fertility and pH control, soil structural improvement, and drainage improvements where necessary.
Pests and Diseases. We prefer not to spray for pests and diseases with chemicals and use biological controls wherever possible. There are cultural methods that can reduce or eliminate the need for such treatments, but from time to time it can be unavoidable.
Hard surfaces can also benefit from periodic attention: cleaning, moss removal, re-pointing, re-setting loose flagstones.
Ponds need regular clearing or dredging, watercourses unblocking, marginal planting reduced and rationalised, pond weed controlled, top up, overflow, and aeration mechanisms, sometimes reed beds or other filtration may be required to clarify dirty water before discharge into watercourses.
Of course not all gardens get equal levels of care and we are delighted to make one-off or occasional visits to keep your garden under control, or to perform specific tasks such as fruit tree pruning, remedial pruning, or even a chop back of your overgrown jungle!
See here for a link to an interview with John Sales, former Head of Gardens at the National Trust who explores the relationship between design and maintenance.
The trend for modern 'low maintenance' gardens is admirable in so far as it makes the required maintenance easier to fit into a busy life. 'Low maintenance' does not mean 'no maintenance' however. We specialise in garden maintenance and offer regular scheduled maintenance, occasional and one-off visits to suit your needs and budget.
Regular maintenance tasks:
Lawns need regular mowing. They also need fertilising and maybe weedkilling, scarifying and aerating as well if they are to flourish.
Shrubs may need regular or occasional pruning, sometimes renovation.
Herbaceous plants and borders need weeding, staking, splitting, and cutting back.
Creepers need tying in, cutting back, some need pruning.
Roses need pruning and often deadheading to look at their best.
Fruit trees and bushes need regular pruning to look and crop at their best.
Soils need attention too. Not just weeding, and mulches to conserve moisture, but fertility and pH control, soil structural improvement, and drainage improvements where necessary.
Pests and Diseases. We prefer not to spray for pests and diseases with chemicals and use biological controls wherever possible. There are cultural methods that can reduce or eliminate the need for such treatments, but from time to time it can be unavoidable.
Hard surfaces can also benefit from periodic attention: cleaning, moss removal, re-pointing, re-setting loose flagstones.
Ponds need regular clearing or dredging, watercourses unblocking, marginal planting reduced and rationalised, pond weed controlled, top up, overflow, and aeration mechanisms, sometimes reed beds or other filtration may be required to clarify dirty water before discharge into watercourses.
Of course not all gardens get equal levels of care and we are delighted to make one-off or occasional visits to keep your garden under control, or to perform specific tasks such as fruit tree pruning, remedial pruning, or even a chop back of your overgrown jungle!
