What To Expect of Gardeners
Joan Stewart Smith
For $125 a month, what should one expect from a gardener in Southern California?
Maybe it's because I grew up on a small farm or like to garden myself, but I keep noticing things that aren't
done. I'm wondering if I'm expecting too much or don't understand that gardeners have very set duties for
their rates.
If you hire a gardener, is it unrealistic to expect the yard and flowerbeds to be totally weed-free? Shouldn't
they keep an eye out on bugs in the flowers? Shouldn't dying blossoms and leaves be pulled off old flower
plants and bushes?
If I were a professional gardener, I'd certainly be more thorough.
Async User
: For $125 a month, what should one expect from a gardener in Southern California?
:
I live in Penna so I don't know your wage scale but at eight hours
a day twenty days per month that's about one sixty less witholdings or no
more than a dollar an hour- I wouldn't take that job- thanks but no
thanks 8-) Fred
Tristan Hatton-Ellis
>
> For $125 a month, what should one expect from a gardener in Southern California?
>
> Maybe it's because I grew up on a small farm or like to garden myself, but I keep noticing things that aren't
> done. I'm wondering if I'm expecting too much or don't understand that gardeners have very set duties for
> their rates.
>
> If you hire a gardener, is it unrealistic to expect the yard and flowerbeds to be totally weed-free? Shouldn't
> they keep an eye out on bugs in the flowers? Shouldn't dying blossoms and leaves be pulled off old flower
> plants and bushes?
>
> If I were a professional gardener, I'd certainly be more thorough.
I have worked a couple of times as a gardener, once as part of the
maintenance section of a landscape gardening company, and once as the
gardener / washer up for a hotel which also had a professional
gardener come in one day a week. In neither case was my impression
particularly favourable. I think that many gardeners are little more
than laborours with a smattering of knowledge, who generally work on
the principle of 'if it grows, cut it back/spray it'. However, no
serious attempt was generally made to tackle perennial or persistent
weeds, and there didn't seem to be much knowledge of the plants (which
in the case of the landscape gardening company had often been
inappropriately planted anyway).
My grandma in Holland also employed a gardener when she got too old to
do it herself. He used to dig over the entire perennial border in
autumn, killing some of the plants (or maybe even digging them up and
selling them - who knows?). My general impression is that the standard
of professional gardening in this country is poor, though I have no
doubt that there are honourable exceptions.
Tristan