Do you trim your own bushes or get a man in?

[morningpaper]

I have lots and lots of tall hedging and trees and cannot keep it under control - although it is costing me £200 a year to keep it tidy.

Does anyone self-manage their own big bushes and trees? Any tips?

DH does our trees with his chainsaw and I am lucky that my mothers gardeners do my hedges but they are coming out this winter.

How does he DO the trees? On a big ladder? With a chainsaw?

Lol

is this a gardening question?

Oh. You could look at getting a henchman

we have a woman acksherly ...

i think the combination of tall step ladders and chainsaws is not a good one

also, i find the gardeners can do a much better job - if i do it then everything looks very lop sided and grows back all raggedy

This title made me lol

In answer to OP dh does the sides. He uses a scarrily high ladder and a hedgetrimmer saw thingy.

The high trees belong to next door and they pay a man to lop off the tops every few years.

I have a man permanently on call. He is called my husband

He has a huge step ladder thingy (think about 14 feet tall) and several wicked looking power tools and lately has become quite the tree surgeon, felling whole trees and taming a horrendous line of 24 leylandii trees we have down one side of the garden.

Oh and also at the thread title. I am sure it was not an innocent use of words now that I know it came from you MP.

I do it myself - if I let dp loose with the trimmer, we would have no trees or bushes left as he hates them! It's nto really that hard, I jsut use a hedge trimmer and a ladder. I also borrow the neighbour's extended sacateurs. They have handles abt 4ft long, and are great for lopping off higher branches.

I've never had a total disaster, and if it does sometimes go slightly wonky it soon grows back.

I do it myself but my bush isn't as prolific as yours, by the sound of it. It only needs hacking back twice a year

TTP you do understand this is a horticultural question dont you?

We borrow a platform

I am a lady gardener and hack my own unruly hedges.

There is a knack to do it properly and while £200 pa seems quite a lot, it is only £4 per week.

Can you get the professionals in then maintain it yourself afterwards?

Never seems to be time to maintain and I am only five foot which seems rather SHORT for hedges. Have two gardens (classic 50s council house), both 100 foot by 40, and surrounded by hedges / trees / evil leylandi.

We do have 2 ENORMOUS, stonking, great big trees (well over 60ft) in our front garden which we cannot manage on our own. Both have TPO's on them anyway so have to be fettled by a licensed person. They are in desperate need of a tree surgeon but given that it will cost us £750 to have them reduced at the crown and the dead wood removed we have to wait. We have been advised that the trees need to be maintained by a TS every 2 years so that amounts to almost twice your figure

I too am a lady gardener. I too hack my own unruly bushes and my box hedge but for the big fruit trees I have a nice man who comes in to do the necessary.

Will quickly get my out of the way...... and now for a serious answer:

We have giant hedges all around our garden which we have to maintain (privet(?) and holly...the holly is a bastard!)

DP sets up a temporary scaffold-type platform to stand on and uses a heavy duty petrol hedge-trimmer. Step ladders would not be safe enough.

Its a hard and time-consuming job but only needs to be done twice a year to keep them under control. They would obviously need doing more often though if we wanted them to be incredibly neat.

We have a man who comes every other year to do the hedges at the back. On every other year, my dh gives them a light trimming.

This year, he also thinned out the large tree at the front and took down a huge elderflower tree. He charged £350.00 for the thinning, the hedges and the tree.

• that seems a bit steep Littlefish.How many hours/days did it take him to do it?

You can spray a growth retardant on them Norbert and skip the second trim.

I have two come once a fortnight - £9.00

I do everything except chainsawing which landlord sends the boys in for.

I cut hedges myself, mowing, burning stuff afterwards - am currently clearing large woodland at end of garden - I love it, as long as my mum minds the baby! Have cut hedge today using ladder and secateurs. First time I've really enjoyed myself for ages

Although MP if you haven't time and have a lot of it, best to get someone in. IMO 200 isn't too bad depending on size of garden.