Postponing the gardener

[CathsKidStan]

Morning all! I have a lady that looks after my garden. She comes for two hours every fortnight, for the last 5 months. For those of you with gardeners, do you have an agreement to stop for a couple of months during winter? The soil is waterlogged really and there's no growth to cut back. I don't want to cut her income but I can't think what she could do out there when the ground is like this. But then I'm not a gardener so open to suggestions.
Thanks.

Personally I would pay up and find other maintenance jobs if she is good. If she leaves it would be hard to find a replacement on e a fortnight fir only two hours. That's what my MIL says about her gardener, anyway.

Thank you Onefewernow

Cath, look through one of those "to do" lists for winter jobs. Honestly. You'll find loads to do if you look eg plant stuff, tie up climbing roses, maintain fences and gates, clear sheds, sharpen tools, clean and sort pots, make compost etc etc.

Ps I am a terrible editor, hence lots of typos

Oh and weed eg patios. Our neighbour sprayed against weeds in her patio in minus 12 conditions last winter. I thought she was wasting her time, as nothing was growing, so the weed killer couldn't take a hold. Turns out, it worked so she was right.

I did a deal with a gardener where I paid the same each month and they did less in the winter & more in the summer,

Hello, I have been doing a lot of reading and research recently as I would like to start a Gardening round/business at some point soon. I can confirm that a lot of Gardeners know that there is very little they can do when the weather is bad - especially with all the rain and flooding at the moment. They rack up the hours they can in spring/summer/autumn and then do what they can in winter - all be it not much. I openly expect that whatever customers I get, especially regulars, that I am unlikely to see them for a few months over the winter - and certainly not expect to get paid for the time you're not there. That's why I'll need to do something else to top up my income at this time of year. I am sure your gardener will understand.

The guy that comes over to do our garden tends to self-postpone and only come over once a month in the winter months, especially if the weather isn't great. Or he will phone me in advance to check if there is anything we need done.

We pay by the hour though, so in the summer he can do 3-4 hours every couple of weeks or a couple of hours a week, also longer hours when there is leaf-clearing, and then it evens out when things are quieter.

I am a gardener and cut down to monthly visits in the winter - I will check before hand if they still want me to come at all - there really isn't a lot that can be done

Thanks again for your replies. I will text her to see what her plan is this week and discuss what will benefit us both.

If you do cut down her hours over the winter (which is a reasonable thing to do) please give her plenty of notice. I was once told by a client in November that she didn't require my services further until April. Zero notice. It left me in a difficult position as it's tricky to find gardening work through the winter, and annoyingly only days before she told me this I'd turned down another job out of loyalty to my existing client. I did find more work but I had a longish gap before I found something, so a notice period would have helped. Needless to say I didn't go back to her in the spring.