General gardening and tidy up.

Just a gentle reminder not to chop down everything. Insects overwinter in stems and under leaves so an untidy garden is, you can tell yourself, good for our wildlife. I leave the grasses, they look lovely with the frost on them and always trim shrubs after flowering, not in the autumn. Rudbekias remain and anything with biggish stems.
I pay my gardener £25an hour for four hours a month and I thought that was a lot. She is knowledgeable though but finds my garden a challenge as it is quite large and full of stuff including bind weed!

I love my garden too much to entrust it to anyone, for now ;) One day, I will need help, but I cannot envisage employing anyone who does not have a really good knowledge of gardening and horticulture.

I must be lucky as my” jobbing “ gardener charges £17.50 / hour. He is not that knowledgable re plants but good at heavier things. I am in south where things are dear.

Iam64

If Iran the country, I’d ban leylandi in suburban gardens. I have ‘discussions’ every year with my neighbours about their hideous leylandi at the bottom of my garden. I end up paying but last year they decided to let it grow 😵‍💫

Totally agree. Also bamboo. My neighbour's bamboo took out part of my fence - the fencers cut it right back and dug up the roots on our side when the fence was replaced but we know it will reappear.

Someone in our road has just had a tree taken out of their smallish back garden. The roots were growing into their drains. They said they got carried away with the 'plant a tree in your garden' thing some years ago and didn't really pay attention to how big the tree would grow. Cost them a small fortune to have it removed not to mention 6 months of arguing with the Council.