Your gardener in Ledbury and the surrounding villages

I run XYZ Gardening from Donnington, a few minutes south of Ledbury — this is the home round in the most literal sense, and most working days start or end here. The gardens range from long, narrow plots behind The Homend and the Southend to cottage borders at the Church Lane end of town and newer lawns out towards the bypass.

The villages are the other half of the round.

Wellington Heath and Bosbury

The north side: Wellington Heath's lanes climb enough that gardens terrace and hedges meet the road at head height, while Bosbury sits flatter among the old hop-yards. I'm working this side most weeks.

Colwall, over the hill

Colwall faces the Malverns and gardens accordingly — thinner soil as the ground rises, sharper frosts than town. It stays on my Ledbury round, hill or not.

Eastnor and Ashperton

Eastnor sits in parkland country below the castle and the obelisk; Ashperton is the flatter northwest edge, where the round meets the Hereford road.

Much Marcle, Dymock and Kempley

South into the daffodil country: Much Marcle among its cider orchards, then Dymock and Kempley on the Gloucestershire edge — the far corner of the home round, and spring work I look forward to.

This is orchard country, and the year keeps orchard time: first cuts as March dries out, the growing push from May, apples and leaves everywhere by October, then winter for hedge reductions, old-tree pruning and the rescue jobs. Regular visits hold lawns, edges, borders and hedges; one-off clear-ups catch the gardens that have got away.

Three jobs come up more than any others around here: hedge cutting in Ledbury, lawn mowing, and clearing a garden that has got overgrown. What each of them costs is answered further down this page.

Ledbury sits in the middle of the other rounds, which is half the reason I work from here. Bromyard is north up the Frome valley, Great Malvern north-east over the hill, Upton-upon-Severn east on the Severn, Newent south into Gloucestershire and Ross-on-Wye south-west towards the Wye. Same work and the same prices on all of them.

Hedge cutting in Ledbury

I cut hedges across Ledbury and the villages around it, and I work from Donnington, a few minutes south of the town. Hedges are most of my winter and a good part of every other season, so this is not a job I fit around the mowing — it is a lot of what I do.

The hedges around here

Ledbury sits in old orchard and hop country, and the hedges show it. Out along the field edges towards Ashperton and Much Marcle it is mostly hawthorn and hazel, the working farm hedge, laid or cut hard and left to thicken. In the town itself — the long narrow gardens behind The Homend, the cottage plots up Church Lane — it is privet, beech and box, kept tight because there is not much room to give.

The newer gardens out towards the bypass tend to have conifer: leylandii and thuja put in twenty or thirty years ago as a quick screen and now well past the height anyone intended. Those are the ones people apologise for when they call. They are also the most satisfying to bring back down.

Up at Wellington Heath the lanes climb, and hedges there meet the road at head height because the ground falls away beneath them — a different job again, and one that wants doing from the right side.

What a cut involves

I cut with the shape in mind, not just the length. That means a hedge slightly wider at the base than the top so light reaches the bottom and it does not go bare and leggy underneath, flat tops where the hedge is a screen, and the sides taken back far enough that you are not calling me again in six weeks.

Clippings are bagged as I go and leave with me. Access, ladders and the far side of a boundary are all part of the job — I would rather sort it out than leave you half a hedge.

Timing, and the one thing that stops a cut

Formal hedges like privet and box are usually happiest cut twice in the growing season. Beech and hornbeam want one good cut in late summer to hold their shape through winter. Conifer wants care: cut into old brown wood and leylandii will not come back, so a reduction is planned rather than improvised. Hard reductions on deciduous hedges are winter work, when the hedge is dormant and you can see what you are doing.

The exception that overrides all of it is nesting birds, and the law about it has no dates in it: damaging a nest while it is in use is an offence whatever the month. Wood pigeons are still at it into October. I look before I start. If there is a nest, that section waits and I come back for it — I will tell you rather than quietly cut around it.

Garden clearance in Ledbury

If a garden in Ledbury has got away from you, this is the job that gets it back. I clear overgrown gardens across the town and the villages around it — brambles out, ivy off, borders found again, and the waste taken away the same day.

What "overgrown" usually means

Nobody calls about a slightly untidy garden. The calls come when a garden has had a year or two without anyone on top of it, and by then it is fairly predictable: grass long enough to lie flat in the wet, brambles arching out of the back border and rooting where the tips touch, ivy into the fence panels and up the shed, nettles wherever the ground is rich, and a path that is still there under everything but has not been walked on in a while.

Around Ledbury there are two versions of this that come up again and again. One is the cottage garden that belonged to someone who gardened it properly for thirty years and then could not any more — good bones, decent soil, and everything smothered. The other is the rented place or the recently sold one where nobody has had the time. They clear differently. The first wants care, because there are usually good plants under there worth keeping. The second mostly wants shifting.

How I work through it

Big stuff first, so I can see the ground: brambles and the woody growth cut back and hauled out. Then the grass, usually in two passes, because taking waist-high grass down to lawn height in one go leaves a yellow mat that takes weeks to recover.

Borders after that. This is the part worth going slowly on — I would rather ask about a shrub than take it out and find it mattered. Ivy comes off fences and walls last, because it holds a surprising amount of the mess in place and pulling it early just drops everything on ground I am about to clear.

Everything is loaded as I go rather than piled up for the end, so the garden looks better throughout and not only when I leave.

Lawn mowing in Ledbury

I mow lawns across Ledbury and the villages, fortnightly or every four weeks through the season, and as one-off cuts when that is all a garden needs. Cut and edges every time, clippings bagged.

Lawns around Ledbury

The soil changes noticeably across the round, and lawns behave accordingly. In town, the long narrow gardens off The Homend and the Southend sit on decent ground and hold moisture well — those lawns grow hard from May and want a fortnightly cut to stay level. Out towards Colwall the ground rises towards the Malverns and gets thinner and sharper-draining, so the same lawn browns off earlier in a dry summer and comes back later in spring.

Down south around Much Marcle and Dymock it is orchard country, and a lot of the lawns there are old orchard grass that was never a fine lawn and does not need treating like one. Those cut beautifully at a slightly higher blade and look wrong scalped.

The newer estates out by the bypass mostly have turf laid over builder's ground, which compacts and struggles in its first few years. Those want cutting high and not too short.

What a visit covers

The cut, the edges, and the clippings dealt with. I cut to suit the lawn and the season rather than to a fixed setting — higher in high summer so the grass shades its own roots and does not scorch, lower in spring and autumn when growth is steady and the weather is doing the work for you.

If there is a dry spell I will say so rather than cut a stressed lawn for the sake of the visit. Mowing grass that is already struggling makes it worse, and taking money for that is not something I am willing to do.

If you're looking for a gardener in Ledbury, call 07443 797 834 — I'm never more than a few minutes away.

Do you cut hedges around Ledbury?

Yes — hedge work is a good part of the round here, from a summer tidy to a hard winter reduction on something that has got away. Timing matters more than most people expect, and there is a law about nesting birds worth knowing before you book one: when to cut a hedge.

I'm in Colwall — does the hill make a difference?

No — Colwall is a regular part of the round, hill or not. Same prices as Ledbury itself.

Can you take on an orchard garden — old apple trees, windfall and all?

Yes. Pruning happens in the dormant months, windfall and leaf clearing in autumn, and the mowing works around the trees the rest of the year. Orchard corners are half the gardens around Ledbury.

Looking for a gardener in Wellington Heath, or out towards Kempley?

Same round, same prices — Wellington Heath, the daffodil-country villages and everywhere between are covered from Ledbury.

How much does hedge cutting cost in Ledbury?

Hedge cutting is £30 an hour, and the clippings are bagged and leave with me. What a hedge costs in total depends on its length, its height and how long it has been left, so I would rather look at it than guess.

How much is it to have my lawn mowed in Ledbury?

A one-off cut with the edges done is from £25. Clippings are bagged for your green bin, unless you would rather keep them for the compost heap.

How much does it cost to clear an overgrown garden in Ledbury?

It is £110 for a half day and £200 for a full one, and the waste leaves with me. A garden left a season or two is usually a half day. If it has been years, here is what that job actually involves.