Pirl,
I learned the hard way that they send things before our ground is ready and only sometimes listen to your choice of dates. So now, I am ready!

Jo Ann,
I would never walk away from anyone working in my yard and wouldn't hesitate to tell them not to do that.
I've heard too many horror stories from fellow gardeners.

Sally, This was the first time for me and landscaper workers. It was teeming down rain.I walked the gardens with them and showed them what not to cut.
In the shade garden I showed them the OP's and said not these, also some small shrubs which they left alone. The cut the OP winter crownes in another garden plus ALL heucheras were levelled.
I had no idea they couldn't recognise perennials of any sort plus sheer them off in other gardens. It never occurred to me they needed to be led around all the gardens and told every single thing.
I realized later they were laborers and probably were used to cleaning offices and other formal landscapes that only contained daylilies and those sort of filler plants.
Believe me I am more careful now . The woman who is doing my garden this spring is a scientist and plant lover,she brings her own help but they dont get into the gardens.
I got over the angst and shock the next spring when ,as Pirl said , "don't worry everything will come up again " she was right.

Jo Ann,
That is exactly what other people said. Their flowers were mowed down too.
You were lucky to find her!
My neighbor hires a group. He is a hired hand himself, but his boss lets him hire his own crew. He hand picks good workers and they do a good job. I think he has a wise boss.

Sally, you sound like you have an ideal situation. It really is hard to find trusted garden helpers here.

Most of the "landscaping" companies are "mow and go". They don't know individual plants and would cut down anything that appeared to be dead (though they're dormant) and the workers really can't be blamed since they do what they're told to do, nothing more. Those with tree peonies better mark them with flags as a signal to leave it alone.

Pirl, Bwaaahhhh Mow and Go is right on the money.
I had a great guy who came and weeded. I thought $15 per hour was stiff but he worked steadily and was done in no time .
I used to pay my grandson $20. and it took him 4 to 5 hours but it was worth it.
He has a real life now and is in pursuit of women so I cant get him to do a thing.

We also had a guy at $15. an hour but he just pretended to understand English. When I wanted the asparagus garden weeded (just tiny weeds!) I spotted the spade he took out! He was ready to dig up all the asparagus plants! We ditched him in favor of a local guy who was born and raised out here. He charges $35. an hour but he's good (very good) at trimming azaleas, minor tree work, moving roses, etc. but I get out of breath with his speed.

My grandsons are 9 and 2 - not useful for gardening but lots of fun.

Mulch is my best friend. I've used more in the last five years than all my previous gardening years.

Pirl, I hear -ya.
My grandson will be 28 this June



I was hoping to pay my new gal and helpers around 25 but would go to 30. It should take three people 3 to 4 hours.
Hope I'm not dreaming.
This woman used to work with my daughter in science ,the company was sold and she took early retirement. She loves plants and took over the management of a lawn service. I don't think she has done this type of work before,just "mow and go"
but she has a garden of her own so how bad could it be.

Oh I hear you all about mow and go.....terrifying. I'm planning on a garden center landscape crew - there are a couple in our area. Previously I've used older high school kids and supervised them intently. One poor young man was so proud of his weeding - he showed me how he'd left the 'pretty blue flowers' (wild violet) and pulled EVERYTHING else....shudder. It does take a gardener to weed. And I'm faster than most non-gardeners but my stamina is lousy and it gets away from me quickly. I started pruning a little last week and barely made a dent before the weather turned to freezing.

I'm technically 60 days out from our last freeze date - sure would like to have everything cleaned and ready to go by then....

Catherine, I hear 'ya. It would be a great deal if I can get things cleaned before the tulips emerge.

HUNK! No surprise that he's more interested in females than pruning or digging weeds!

My best advice would be to make notes in advance, garden by garden, so you won't have those rude surprises.

Robert is just a 2.5 year old hunk. He's has lots of time before girls become interesting!

He is sweet.
I have been negotiating all afternoon with the garden helper.
She is familier with gardens and has one of her own, says she wants my guidance when she comes to work.
She also cares for her mothers garden so she sounds like a good deal.
The job of cleaning and weeding is new for her so we bantered back and forth. about pay.
I paid my grandson $20. Per hour and it took him 5 hours. I will pay the new helper $300. to her and her nephew.
It will probably take her longer due to the overgrowth of weeds.

JoAnn, I'm excited to see your new walk in spring/summer when the garden fills in again. Looks great!

Arlene, your spruce removal was a big job! It will be fun and interesting observing the changes in the garden this year. We've removed 10 or 11 mature spruce trees from this yard. Several were planted way too close together and too close to the house, creating a prickly cave we had to walk through to enter- those came out first! Some that were healthy when I first moved here started reaching such a size they were shading each other and we started seeing a lot of browning of the bottom branches. There are still 6 or 7 that look okay. They make a nice dark green backdrop for the garden but I've learned not to bring the garden right up to the base of the spruce- they start eating garden space pretty fast.

There were also several old forsythia bushes here that had been long neglected and had layered themselves, forming large thickets. I've tried to tame them but they've never bloomed all that profusely, so we've cut most of them out this winter. That has made the back yard much bigger and opens the door for a garden expansion. I need more garden space like a hole in the head, but I'm doing it anyway. I'd been looking at several irises in muted, autumnal tones (that don't look good at all with the rest of my garden beds) and now have a great space do design a garden in those colors. While I don't care for those muted colors with other floral colors, I do love how they play off of bronze and amber foliage plants.

Neal,
We had forsythia here too and ended up digging and pulling them out with cable and jeep.
These were is daughters garden but the whole place opened up for taller plants ,like lilies.
before


after



I was thinking the same thing as I read about your muted iris. I value muted colors for the same reason, they arent stand-outs but serve a purpose.

That made a huge difference JoAnn! Too much garden space for such a short season of color- I think that was a smart move

I still have the stumps to deal with because we have just cut them out thus far.

Neal, Our stumps were in a good place for removal by Jeep.

The shrubs were over 25 years old.

I sure wish pulling them out with a vehicle was an option here. They're in the corners of the back yard by the fence. And they've been here a long time. No way to know how long, but this house has existed for over 150 years so there's no telling.

Pirl,
Flags are a good idea.
Mulch is my friend too :o)

Jo Ann,
I used to work for my Grandma for $5.00 per hour. I felt so guilty taking her $15.00 check even tho I worked hard and got everything done. She had yellow clay in her garden. Try pulling weeds out of that!
HANDSOME boy!
Your new helper sounds like a gem and the pay sounds fair for both.
Such a huge difference in the forsythia bed. We had to use chains and the truck to pull out common lilacs that weren't too tall. I started to dig the first one out never realizing that was impossible!

Catherine,
Sometimes you want to cry but have to laugh. Violets ARE good for one butterfly that eats them exclusively :o)

Pirl,
Another HANDSOME boy!

Neal,
That's why I don't plant forsythia or many of the shrubs. I love them, but their bloom time is short and they look ratty fast.
I look forward to pictures of your new bed and new iris.
My neighbor uses stumps for her garden statues. It looks nice and she just plants around the stump. They could be disguised by annuals or low plants till they rot. (Yes, that will take years.)

I have a couple of spruce stumps that we left about 4' tall. I'd like to attach a large coir lined planter to the top (or some other natural looking container). I think it could look like a big topiary/standard, or at least that's what I'd like to see.

That's what I did for two stumps, Neal. Looks like we both had the same idea! The worker in green blocks the other stump but I'll try and get a photo today.