Garden

[juanitalinda]

I was told that I have a garden, not a landscape. 

A landscape has  water features, gazebos, decks ... I have a yard with flowers, shrubs, lawn, and trees.

Okay .....  That explains why the last three bids for pruning my trees and moving some plants were absolutely outrageous.  They were 'landscapers' and not gardeners.  

A few weeks ago a 'yard work guy' straightened me out.  He told me that if I wanted plant work, I wanted a gardener.   Yard work is pavers, retaining walls and fencers. 

But, I haven't had much luck with that either.  Most of them want to do lawn maintenance, weedeating (not weeding), edging and leaf blowing.  In other words, bi-weekly contracts.  

While I mull this problem over, it's getting pretty late in the season for pruning and transplanting plants.  It's time to suck it up .... take some Aleve .... schedule a massage ... and do it myself.  

When did yard work become as specialized as medicine?  

[Zhills]

So glad I am now informed.

Apparently, the "yard men" in my area don't know either!  They seem to believe that if you can run a lawn mower, you are a "yard man."

Never seen anyone advertise to be a gardener!

[haddon9]

"Yard work" can certainly be very specialized.  My DS majored in landscape architecture in college.  It was a five year intensive program.

Right now he's working for a small company that is mostly doing residential work.  They do all kinds of things creating livable outdoor spaces.  From design work to hardscaping to ponds & gardens, etc.

At his last job the company did mostly public spaces.  He worked on a children's garden at CHOP (Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania), outdoor pop up beer gardens, and along the waterfront,Spruce Street Harbor Park at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia.

[LizzieInSRQ]

My lawn guy's business has Landscaping as part of  his company name. He runs about 5 crews.. Im not sure on that

I  get a no frill mowing, edging, hedge trimming every two weeks Oct thru May i think and every week May -Oct. For $100 a month.

I have very old grass, weedy grass, lots of sandy patches and back yard is mostly ground cover and sand and dirt in winter. Property is 9725 sqare feet with a couple trees in back yard. It is not the worst in my older neighborhood but it is not ever watered by a sprinkler, fertalized or seeded. 

Anything else i want, is extra and they would do it. I get a quote and decide. Stuff is just  not in my budget these days after my job change in 2021. 

I had a 60ft tree cut down to 15ft, remove all the limbs that covered my back yard after the hurricane and cut up and took up half my yard in the front (they did not remove , city did that). It was over $7K (shocked me) but they did it and many many people could not find folks to help them at that time, so i get the premium price. It had to be done.

Like someone else here recently said "i will collect bottles and cans if i have to to raise money " to pay for gardener/lawn service. Im NEVER going to want to do myself.

I hope you find someone who has decent prices to do what you need. I think my guy can be expensive for ala cart stuff but so reasonable and very consistent monthly. So its a trade off.

[Lilysmom1]

@juanitalinda , it is very hard to find someone to do garden work here in Nova Scotia too.  Kids don't seem to want to do these types of jobs anymore either.  I thank God for DH.  He does all the heavy lifting here including tree removal.  I have kept in touch with the crew that cleared our lot.  We called on that guy when Dorian hit us hard.  Masterful with a chain saw.  LM

[Lilysmom1]

@haddon9 , I would love to see your DS's work! And have him here for a couple of weeks... he🏒🏒, a couple of months😃.  LM

[millieshops]

@juanitalinda   I'm another one who hadn't realized the difference in the names, but I do know 2 women who set up their own weeding business as retirement jobs.  I never hired either - even when I first retired over 20 years ago, they both were in such demand that they hired assistants and charged $45 or more an hour even then.  They are now fully retired and do just their own massive gardens.

[Skyegirl21]

Garden work is quite specialized and there is a lot of knowledge that goes into doing a good job (although I would hardly compare it to medicine)-

Anyway, landscapers in my area basically just care for the lawn, and anything related to gardens is extra, and not cheap, and maybe not even work they will do!  Very hard to find help for gardening!  We gardeners know that although gardening isn't Rocket science, it's hard work, and  tough on the body (as I sit here with elbow tendinitis and a sore back)-  

But nothing stops me, I still love seeing my flowers all over! 

[juanitalinda]

To give you a perspective on outrageous, I called a company that advertised themselves as 'tree service & landscape' and 'tree service and garden care' to prune back overgrown shrubs.  After looking at them, he felt most should be pruned to the ground and allowed to grow back again.  The bid?  $2950. 

My son came over with his chain saw and did it in 45 minutes.  I spent 3 hours loading the utility trailer. 

[haddon9]

@Lilysmom1   My son recently did a rendering of a children's playground for a garden nursery in the area.  It's the owners holding up the image and the name of the photographer under it.  But this is an example of what he does.

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/newtown-pa/botantical-playground-kids-coming-hortulus-farm-bucks