ATC1983

Have a customer whose front garden hedge has been almost flattened by the weight of the snow, so am going out with a view to fixing it up. It's only about 5ft high, but one end of it, for less than a metre, has been totally weighed down by the recent snow, causing the left side to veer off from the right side, and them both to be almost touching the ground. My idea is to stake it twice, about a foot apart, and use tie backs to pull up the arterial branches to try to rebunch the hedge and get it tight and straight again - but am wondering are there any tricks to this or types of stake I should use? Just worried I'll stake it, only for the stake to go down with the hedging. I know it's a bit basic but am still learning the ropes on this type of stuff while out on my own so all advice helps to get the job done.

I have some cheap equipment, by ryobi, and my hedgetrimmer is such. About 5 months after I bought it it started showing degradation during use ie randonly turning off unless the trigger is pulled or the choke is open, and more recently the blades have kept jamming, which might be down to a bit of rust. But today the entire trimmer wouldn't start and the starter cord wouldn't pull at all. My question is is there any quick way to get this latter aspect fixed? I bought the product off amazon and should still have a warranty on it but am not sure how to go about returning it. Basically the product seems crap and I know I should have spent about £250 and got a basic husqavarna trimmer but I didn't have the cash. I dont remember getting a separate warranty with this so will just have to hope amazon takes it back. My other problem is I bought the expand it power head from ryobi, for use with a trimmer set, or strimmer, and bought pole attachments to give me height. Recently I have noticed the connector of either the strimmer or the trimmer attachment is not fully joining with the rotary bar on the inside, meaning there is no movement on the strimmer or trimmer once these are attached. Is there any quick fix solution to this - or again have I been conned by a poor product? Thanks all

Hi Have a job to lay down a membrane and some bark for a lady. However she has asked me to put down and plant some "low maintenance" plants and flowers as well with this. It is quite a small area, surrounding a bush in her garden. Personally I think it's a poor idea as the bark will end up getting dragged away with the debris from the plant. However, if I were to do this, what type of plant, at this time of year, would I plant there, and what would be its selling point? I've checked b/q this time of year and all they have is house plants - ie nothing that would survive winter conditions. Where would I source plants and flowers for this type of job?

Had to double take when I read you charge 70 for a hedge cut per hour, where have I been going wrong.... Well it's over a year since I started this thread, really looking to see what others at this job were earning. At the time of writing I had only a chainsaw to my name which I could hardly use. Two weeks ago I finished my largest, most important project, of felling two palms, reducing a 25ft tree, and clearing out a large bush and 7 trees, including my first grinding, in a doctor's surgery, which I took £489 on (minus 30 to the father, and £54 for grinder hire). As others have always chided me, I'm still too cheap.... Overall I took just less than £2,900 in one season. But I didn't do much advertising, and only took on the paid variety towards the end, this isn't too bad. I earnt this whilst doing a ft job in the public sector during my evenings and weekends. I have spent around £3,400 in equipment and petrol for my car. Recently, I bought a 2nd hand van which I've since covered in graphics. My intention is to get fully ready for next season and to really make a go of this. I believe I need to earn £7,000 min to survive at this job. I hope to goodness I can do it. Principally because - ironically - I'm in trouble in my main job for answering business calls during working hours, so needless to say there's a real incentive now to get away from all that bureaucracy and be my own boss and gunslinger. My only question now, or request for guidance, is how to progress from being a small, part-timer, into a serious day-in day-out landscaper? This is my dream now. Essentially I'm hedging my bets on doing this for 6 months, and going into chimney sweeping for the rest of the year. I know people who make good livings at the latter, so I'd like to combine the two, and keep some diversity to what I do each year. Here's hoping it works out.

Went to an auction today and bought: 1 piano: £90 Victorian picture of King Killy - tenner and Qualcast 14 or 17 - £18. Think it's missing the starter cord - it's got a little wheel on the right hand side which turns, and I'm assuming the cord goes around this? 5hp Tiller - £25. Got it started earlier, retails at £195, so a real bargain to do basic rotavation. A good day and feeling happy with myself. If anyone knows anything about the qualcasts (heard a guy saying they were for bowling greens, tennis courts - which is the reason why I bought) and how to get them going I'd be most grateful.

Bit of a basic question - but I've never laid stones before. A lady whose ferns I pruned back today is looking stones put in around maybe a 6 metre long, two foot border at the side of her garden. I think around 1 tonne of stones will cover this adequately. She already has soil in this bit, underneath which is plastic sheeting, so I won't need to relay this. My question is should I take out the soil - maybe only 10cm deep at most - before laying the stones? She has a few shrubs she wants kept growing at intervals inside this border - so I know obviously not to lift the soil here - but should I take it out elsewhere? I know that weeds will sprout as soon as I lay the stones, if I lay them on the soil, but considering she has plant life in here is it best to leave the soil in then put stones on top of it? Thanks

Hi I'm new to climbing, and wish to get (supervised) practice in before I undertake formal training and exams. What equipment do I need to get started, and what type of money am I looking at to buy the lot - of everything which is necessary? Thanks

Ok, have looked it up. I'll probably do it with extension ladders instead, and tie them to the tree.

What is mewp?

And I can hire a boom for £200 odds - about the same. Only question which remains is what to do with the debris - I don't have a chipper, but would be looking to clear most of it away myself, as I want the vast amount of firewood it will produce.

Don't have EL insurance to contract a subbie climber.

Hi I want to take down a 70ft tree out someone's back garden. Now I can't climb, and don't have the ticket to climb, so I can't get hold of a top handle saw either. I'm wondering whether anyone has experiece in bringing in a boom lift to a size to enable circumvention of having to climb a tree, and what type of costs you incurred for this, or whether there are other powered machinery that could get one up sufficiently high to take it down?

Don't mock, think I destroyed two people's cable connection today with my strimmer. Was doing a building front of three flats in a terraced house, and one of the wires got tangled around my strimmer. I've put the wire back against the wall and said nothing - the property is for rent so it shouldn't be too bad, as a new tenant will probably end up getting the cable engineers out again, but it's a real lesson to be more careful and how easy it is to wreck stuff. In saying that I'm using my mower now for most work where I had used the strimmer and qualcast before so it's much quicker.

I see what you mean now re doing it for a fiver. The lawn I did was soaking and overgrown. But this was the first job I'd tried to use the petrol mower on - I'd been using a mechanical one, still good, but slow - so inevitably it kept jamming, then I reset the wheels, and dumped the collector, and it worked great, just eating too much petroleum. Then I lost my cash. Gutted.

It's b/s 500 series - not sure of the exact model - had a look at it earlier and couldn't see any adjustment lever. This was really drinking the fuel up, and it speeds forward if we use the self-propelled lever, so am assuming it's overcharged. Just reading about adjusting the governor screw - needless to say am not keen on this as it may invalidate my warranty.

Hi Need advice again - Have just used the big mower for the first time commercially today and have got it working great save for the fact that it's drinking petrol like there's no tomorrow. It's going through about £3 worth every half hour and needing refilling. Just wanted to know if this is the normal rate, and if it's possible to make it so the engine speed declines? I think this setting is quite high on the machine as when I use the automated bar it shoots off ultra quick. On another note lost the £40 I earnt from my only job today so am inconsolate:sad:

Nice work......

What are fascias and soffits?

Hi Recently did a small back garden, and the nice lady I did it for said she was looking at spending a grand getting her guttering sorted - this seemed a huge figure for a small semi house. Has anyone done this - and is it easy or something that could be ballsed up easily? And is it hard to learn, and would one be charging around the same labour rates as gardening?

My other issue I was wondering about was, if I rotavate a lawn, how do I pick the best lawn seed - I want something that grows tight and compact and is easy to mow - some of the tesco seed I've thrown down just get's very wavy at any height - presumably there are better grasses out there which can be grown?

No - not so unfortunate - guy never came back about the job, so it's still on standby. Might rent one myself over the weekend and do my dad's back yard - two patches could be done, one of them fairly uneven, but now overgrown after reseeding - but impossible to get a mower over owing to its uneven tilt. But might do them both to get practice in. I know I can get a big one from my husky dealer for around £450 but not sure of the specs and what it's best suited for.

And I think finally - is a rotavator sufficient or would a turf cutter be required - bearing in mind I'll be commencing rotavation after weedkilling two weeks earlier?

Only question now is how to get into corners and stuff and around a small stone path he has - will the rotavator reach into difficult areas?

Thanks for offer - will end up just passing cost onto client - it's looking around £45 a day, so I'm assuming it will take about 10 hours of work, rotavating, raking flatenning, then reseeding. I think I will go down the route of attempting to kill everything chemically - I think 3 bottles of round up should do this - about 9L - but will take out a lot of weeds by hand first of all with the fiskers just to kill a off a lot of them and ensure I get them. I'll probably do this at night sometime - then return next day for chemicals, leave 2 weeks, then rotavate the life out of it and spend a day at this. Is it good to be reseeded straight away? And will the chemicals not affect the new seed growth?

Ok - but after I apply the roundup - will the grass and weeds be lifted up or pulled out by hand before rotavation or after rotavation?