Gardener has wrecked the garden!

[Myfriendanxiety]

Sorted a gardener to come and cut back some very overgrown bushes and plants on our garden.

I was at work but DH was here when he came yesterday, he clearly didn’t pay much attention to the work being done though!

Well the garden looks a mess. I expected it to not look amazing as obviously the leaves have been cut away to trim things back leaving all the branches exposed, but somethings that had flowers on are now gone and it just looks a state.

We have also lost the privacy from next door who can now see straight into my living room if they are sat in their garden.

Please reassure me it will grow back in time!

Are you sure he’s an actual gardener? Have you seen references or recommendations?

I would be upset too. It looks like he has gone mad with an electric hedge cutter. Things will grow back eventually and things grow quickly at this time of year.

I agree he has butchered most of them. It doesn't look like he has puned but gone at it with a machete

The Buddleja, like others have said needs pruning hard in spring. I take mine down to 12" and many of them are up at 6ft already. Ive read the later you leave it the later they will flower (haven't tried it myself) but late usually mean the end of May.

What I dont understnad it looks like he has hacked away at it from front to back, not top to bottom

I wouldn't let him loose an anything else

Oh, dear. That was a lot of hacking. It's really not the right time of year, either.

This is not the work of a gardener.
Post your pics on the Gardening pages and we will help you get it looking better.
Its worth paying a proper fee to someone who knows their stuff and will look after your garden and not butcher the plants...

Yup, he's definitely not a 'gardener' in any real sense of the word looking at those photos! It's hard to know, but I suspect most of those will grow back (buddleia is indestructible; that fatsia looks well established and will cope) - BUT if you don't know anything about gardening you really need a gardener who does rather than an odd job man: so that things are pruned at the right time, in the right way, and to leave a good shape (that buddleia is an absolute mess: that can't look better than it did!) Or at least someone who is going to google before they prune rather than just do what you tell them! I would:

• use this guy ONLY for labour/tasks which don't require gardening skill: clearing; lawn mowing, maybe weeding at a push (will he really know weed from non-flowering plant?) and then only when someone is around to talk him through exactly what you want
• ask a real gardener or two to come for a consult - pay them, listen to their advice, choose one whose vision for the garden is closer to yours. Personally, I'd rather have a great gardener once every month over the summer and keep on top in between that an awful one every two weeks!

ps its not the right time of year to be cutting back shrubs due to birds nesting...

I saw a few reviews for him which were fine but obviously didn’t do enough research. Lesson learnt. He is clearly a man with a hedge trimmer rather than a gardener.

I will leave the Buddleja until Autumn and then cut it right back to 2ft and see what happens.

I’ve found someone else who is a proper gardener who clearly knows about plants and has given me some advise though messenger. She is going to come round at the weekend and have a proper look and give some advise. I can’t afford to pay her to do any gardening work, but am paying her for an hours advise and then will try and see how we go.

I’ve messaged the guy from yesterday and told him not to come back. The other job was just to clear this patch ready for a us to do weed membrane and gravel ourselves, but I don’t really want to give him another penny!

In fairness, sometimes, there is no way to "trim back" some shrubs and bushes. Once you cut off the outer leaves/branches, you're often left with bare branches that look ugly. When that happens, depending on the type of plant, you are often better cutting right back to promote new healthy growth.

Your butterfly bush is a case in point. The flowering branches take months to grow and are usually several feet high. If you don't cut it back to the trunk, it'll just get higher and more straggly. Forsythia is the same, the branches also can grew several feet per year and they only flower on new growth, so the old branches are pretty useless and do need cutting right back.

There are, of course, bushes/shrubs where you can daintily trim a few inches off each branch and it continues to look nice and produce new growth, but sometimes you really do have to take a hatchet to a shrub and take it right back, and yes, it will look ugly for the first season.

I sympathise. It's hard to find a genuinely good and knowledgeable gardener. I tried to go by recommendations, but still ended up with people who damaged the garden by not knowing when and where to cut.

Finally I found a professional through the Royal Horticultural Society. She had a waiting list, but didn't cost too much for a visit and some good advice.

I recommend reading up a bit on the plants you've got before letting anyone loose on them. We lost a lovely young tree through letting someone prune it at the wrong time, so it was weakened and caught an infection. If I'd looked it up in a gardening book or on a professional website, I would have known it was the wrong time of year.

I thought if someone worked as a gardener they would know what they're doing. But often these are enthusiastic amateurs. There's a lot to learn about plants.

@Kazzyhoward yes I appreciate this and it is our fault for letting the garden get too overgrown. It hasn’t been pruned at all in 5 years and so really did need cutting back.

I’m hoping the person coming at the weekend can tell me what we have in; which will grow and which are dead, and give some recommendations on anything we can plant in the gaps to help gain some privacy back.

Do you really want to gravel that area as it looks like just a bit of tidying it would be ok ?

Ask the expert gardener what to do and to plant and I think it may be easier than you think

If you want a qualified local gardener take a look on the Gardeners Guild website. They have to have a recognised qualification to be a member.

A gardener would never prune anything like that no matter how overgrown.

It really is the wrong time of year to be cutting trees and shrubs. Wait until autumn and pay someone who know what they are doing or do it yourself.

Oh dear! It will grow again. Try not to panic.

@Oldraver if it could look nice with a tidy up I’m happy to leave it! It was full of bushes which he dug out and it’s all just wild flowers that have grown there now.

Should say we dug the bushes out, about 6 months ago. Then never got round to lining and gravelling and this is what has grown back!

He isn't a gardener

Oh dear. You hired someone that obviously has no idea what they're doing. My cat could have done a better job. If the budget isn't there for a proper gardener, maybe go on youtube and find videos to do it yourself? That's what I do.

Save up a bit and have that lady do some work next year.

Want to say it's not the time to prune butterfly bush but they'll never die. I usually prune it to about 30cm from the ground in early spring, around March.

You need to give very specific instructions on how you want to prune things.

It does look really really awful what he's done!

Sorry it sounds like your dh should have been more clear on what you wanted. He's cut it back like you asked. If that's not what you want you need to say that.

If you haven't pruned or looked after the garden for five years then those shrubs must have been enourmous. The man has done a poor job, and at a bad time of year for wildlife, however, they were always going to look poor after being neglected for 5 years.

Unless you need that patch of garden gravelling for a specific reason, then I would think you could do something much nicer with it than that. It's probably worth doing a bit of reading for knowledge and inspiration, then have a go at transforming it yourself. It's not a large area and could look lovely. Also, if you have any neighbours with nice gardens, ask them for some advice about gardening. Keen gardeners are usually more than happy to share their experience.