Do you hire landscape or gardening work

[tomf]

I am sure the answer is mostly going to be no, if you do that is fine as well. I know a number of people who do nothing in their yards. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be rich and have the weeding and hard work done for me, but not being rich I do it all. I go to Home and Garden shows where the contractors want to do it all for you at a price. I have a friend who is a landscape designer she draws up plans for your yard and then has someone do it. I also know people who have an interior designer come and pick the colors and drapes and even the furniture for you at a cost, and then have someone do the work. We live in a world where they can sell pants made to look dirty to show you are not afraid of hard work to rich people who never would work hard enough to get them dirty for $425. I am sorry for the rant; no I'm not sorry my pants get dirty from hard work.

[gumbo2176]

You're killing me here!! LOL I'm like you, I do all my own work from home maintenance, vehicle maintenance, yard work, and all points in between.

I have a much younger couple for neighbors that have hired a lawn service to cut their grass once a week. Their entire yard can't be any bigger than 500 sq. ft. and could easily be taken care of with a good weedeater, but no, they'd rather pay 2 guys to come out every week to cut it. It actually takes them more time to unload and load their equipment to do the job than to actually cut, trim and blow the stuff all in the street.

Oh, and you stumped me with "Paints" as I finally figured out you were talking about pants. Darn typos.

[tomf]

Opps need coffee, just woke up, typos and spell check can kill one; fixed it. I also do all the construction and remolding, I did hire someone to be a helper when I redid the roof and put on a metal roof. And all the maintance on the yard and farm gear, tractors; I do bring my car and truck in although.

[webmaster]

We hired a guy to mow our lawn for $35 each time last year. It's about two acres of lawn. The guy sold the business, sold his house and is traveling the states in a motorhome now with his wife. Quotes we were receiving were in the $50 range.

So we figured that at that price we'd be better off with a gas powered mower self-propelled mower because of the emissions but we couldn't find anything similar that fit our needs that's electric. So I picked one up via craigslist.

All gardening and landscaping is done by us, even small tree removal (got rid of a couple leaning apple trees that were beyond saving). So yeah, we did a fair amount of cutting back of weeds, ferns, poison ivy to reclaim the edges of our yard, raking of leaves and so on and on. There's something satisfying about manual work.

[ElizabethB]

OK! At one time I made a good living as a Landscape Contractor. There are people who have little or no knowledge or time to landscape their property. The same goes for maintenance. Landscape maintenance is what paid my bills during the off season. I did not do lawn service. The only tree work I did was grooming small ornamental trees.

For home owners with little or no horticultural knowledge it is much better to hire an honorable professional. I made lots of $$$$ re-doing well intentioned DIY landscape projects.

Since most of the forum members ARE knowledgeable it is difficult to understand WHY anyone would PAY for landscaping and/or maintenance.

It is better for the uneducated to pay for service rather than screw it up.

My REALY BIG problem is CREPE MURDER!

Driven by ignorance.

Sorry for the rant. I got off track.

[gumbo2176]

[quote="ElizabethBMy REALY BIG problem is CREPE MURDER!

Driven by ignorance.

Sorry for the rant. I got off track. [/quote]


By "Crepe Murder" I'm assuming you are referring to the habit of some folks taking a nice crepe myrtle tree and buzz cutting almost the entire top off it over the winter months so that it looks like a GI with a flattop haircut.

If so, I see this all the time around my area here in New Orleans. I don't understand why some folks treat them any differently than any other tree needing a bit of pruning.

[rainbowgardener]

Our next door neighbor before we moved had a forsythia bush that she pruned/ shaved into a perfect round ball every year. ....

My partner and I are 70 years old and we do all the work on our half acre property including repairing and refinishing the large old deck, cleaning out second story gutters, building walls (see the circle garden thread! ), digging and building raised beds, taking care of chickens and veggie gardens and flower beds and lawn mowing. The only thing we have hired so far, is that before we moved in we had the old wall to wall carpet over plywood floor redone with hardwood. That was very expensive, but sort of beyond our time (we needed it done before we moved furniture in, which was a very short time window from when we owned the house) and skill set....

But we are retired and have the time. A long time ago now, I was a single mom with a full time job. If I had had much garden space then, I would have hired some stuff done.

[tomf]

It is better for the uneducated to pay for service rather than screw it up.

I agree; I did say if you do it is fine for that reason, also some people are not able to do the work and some do not want to do it. I am more intrested that it does get done as there is nothing worse than a place gone to hell. Many of us like to do it, now as I said it would be nice to have someone do the weeding. I am thinking of hiring some local kids to help haul brush from the tree thinning I did last summer as there is still a bunch to clean up.
I worked for a yard maintenance company one summer to help pay for college.

[imafan26]

I do most of my own yard work, but some things are beyond my skill set. I did hire a landscaper to put in a sprinkler system. I do maintain and repair it. I may break down again and have someone fix my leaking valves. I am not good at that.

I don't mind doing the digging, planting and maintenance but as I am getting older it is harder for me to move a lot of heavy stuff. I need to get someone to help me prune my trees and I don't own a chain saw to cut down things that are larger. I thought about getting one, but I am afraid of those things. I have a mini cultivator and a mower that I haven't used for years. I use weed whacker instead of the mower. The mower was hard to have to move over concrete pavers to get from one part of the yard to the other and it had a tendency to slide down my sloping front yard.

I have so much weeds that I can't do it all myself so I am considering hiring a yard cleaner to do part of it. I have gotten some of it under control but the weed seeds keep sprouting and coming back so it is a battle to keep it up.

I am behind in the house too, so I really need to clone myself.

[Allyn]

If I were to hire someone, it would be to clean the inside of my house and cook so I had more time to spend outside. (I tell my husband that we need a housewife.) Between me, my husband and my father-in-law, we have just about all the building construction skills and mechanical skills covered. My car needs work right now and the only reason we're not doing it is because the job needs a lift and special tools. It's going to kill me to pay someone to do the work.

[imafan26]

I'm with you Allyn. I would much rather be out in the yard, but since I have to work, I don't have a lot of time to do the yard anymore and on my days off I have to clean the house, and run all the errands I did not get to. I have a bunch of projects on my to do list that never seem to get done. After work, I am too tired to do anything else.

[gumbo2176]

We hired a guy to mow our lawn for $35 each time last year. It's about two acres of lawn. The guy sold the business, sold his house and is traveling the states in a motorhome now with his wife. Quotes we were receiving were in the $50 range.

So we figured that at that price we'd be better off with a gas powered mower self-propelled mower because of the emissions but we couldn't find anything similar that fit our needs that's electric. So I picked one up via craigslist.

All gardening and landscaping is done by us, even small tree removal (got rid of a couple leaning apple trees that were beyond saving). So yeah, we did a fair amount of cutting back of weeds, ferns, poison ivy to reclaim the edges of our yard, raking of leaves and so on and on. There's something satisfying about manual work.

That's a good deal. The guys in my area that have landscaping businesses will charge that for a residential lawn to cut, trim and use a blower to push all the clippings into the street----------I hate those things as nobody picks up their lawn clippings now, just blow it into the street and it eventually creeps back to the curb, then into the drainage system.


Today I headed over to my sister-in-laws house to trim her azalea bushes in the front of her house that have been allowed to grow unchecked for a couple years. I also cut down a small tree that had died and then pressure washed her front and back decks to spruce things up a bit. Like you, there is something very satisfying about getting sweaty and making things look tidy in the process. This gal was married to my wife's younger brother who, unfortunately, died 4 years ago of lung cancer from years of being a heavy smoker.

[tomf]

You are a good brother Gumbo.

[tomf]

Allyn I used to work on my cars but they are half computer now and I do not have time. I do work on the tractors and much of the power equipment. I find I have to be a little bit of everything out here.

[gumbo2176]

You are a good brother Gumbo.

Why thank-you. She's a bit of a hard luck story. After losing her husband, she was diagnosed with an eye issue that is slowing robbing her of her sight. She can still drive, but only during the day and on residential and some state roads. She is not allowed to drive on the interstate or at night.

She also lives 35 miles away from almost all family members, so heading over there to help is a 70 mile round trip and with working on things or simply helping her get to the supermarket to pick up her pet supplies and groceries means it's a good 3-4 hours out of the day.

Her brother lives less than 10 minutes from my house and other family members are even closer than that, so we've been trying to get her to sell her present home and move closer to family so it is easier to help her when she needs it. She's considering it, but is reluctant to do so because she loves the home she's presently in. So it's just wait and see what happens.

[Allyn]

Allyn I used to work on my cars but they are half computer now and I do not have time. I do work on the tractors and much of the power equipment. I find I have to be a little bit of everything out here.

Yeah, they're mostly computers now, but I'm okay with that part. It's the expensive tools that keep me from doing more of my own work anymore. Back in the day, all you needed was a decent socket set and screwdrivers, a good timing light, and a good torque wrench and you could handle pretty much anything. Nowadays, everything needs a special tool and it's all crammed tight in the engine compartment and you have to pick it up to do just about anything. I like working on lawn mowers, boat motors, and tractors; it's all basic mechanicals.