London gardening services
Many people offer gardening or garden maintenance services, but skilled gardeners, with the knowledge required to look after your plants properly and coax them into looking their best, are rare.
I offer a variety of services, including:
- Planting up window boxes and other containers with seasonal displays.
- Weeding, digging and preparing new beds.
- Pruning roses, shrubs and fruit bushes correctly and at the right time of year to ensure they stay healthy, shapely and a sensible size, whilst also maximising flowering/fruiting.
- Cutting, feeding and maintaining lawns.
- Trimming and maintaining hedges.
- Autumn or Spring tidy-ups.
- Visiting periodically to carry out regular maintenance.
- Turf laying and site preparation.
- Watering and tending your garden while you are on holiday.
How does it work?
Know what you want done?
If you know what task(s) you want doing, whether it be a single job or regular maintenance, simply contact me for a quote.
Not sure what needs doing?
If you have a garden that requires some maintenance, but you’re not sure exactly what needs to be done, or the best time of year to do it, you may want me to produce a garden maintenance and development plan for you first. That way, my services can be directed towards areas that will make the biggest difference.
I will survey your existing garden, determine the soil type and pH, identify the plants currently growing there and assess their condition.
I will then provide you with a written report detailing this information, along with recommendations as to what plants to keep, move or dispose of, ideas for improvements and a seasonal maintenance plan detailing what needs to be done in terms of maintaining and developing the gardens, and when these activities should be carried out.
We can then agree a schedule for me to come back and carry out any work you decide you’d like done.
Of course, if you then decide you’ll do the jobs yourself, that’s fine. If you’d like some guidance, my garden mentoring service could be for you.
If you’d like my help with a garden revamp (be it a flower bed, a part of the garden or a complete garden makeover), please see my garden design services.
My experience
- Since March 2018, I have worked as a freelance Botanist and Horticultural Advisor for the Royal Horticultural Society
- I have several years’ experience designing and building gardens and providing horticultural services and advice for private clients.
- I worked for fifteen years as a curator of the herbaria at Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum, which has given me a thorough knowledge of a wide variety of plants and their natural habitats (and therefore their growing requirements) and which fuelled my life-long passion for gardening and growing plants.
My qualifications
I have been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society Level 3 Diploma in the Principles and Practices of Horticulture. It is the highest of the three levels of diploma offered by the RHS and is comprised of:
- RHS Level 3 Certificate in the Principles of Plant Growth, Health and Applied Propagation
- Plant taxonomy, structure, and function
- The root environment, plant nutrition and growing systems
- The management of plant health
- Understanding applied plant propagation
- RHS Level 3 Certificate in the Principles of Garden Planning, Construction and Planting
- Understanding garden survey techniques and design principles
- Understanding the selection and use of landscaping elements in the garden
- Understanding the setting out and construction of landscaping elements in the garden
- Understanding a range of specialist elements in the establishment of garden and urban plantings
- RHS Level 3 Certificate in Practical Horticulture
- Collecting and testing soil samples and specifying adjustments for horticulture
- Collecting, preparing and propagating from seed
- Establishing and maintaining a range of plant types and forms
- Identification of a range of common garden plants, weeds, pests, diseases and disorders
- Management of green spaces, landscaped areas and ornamental gardens
I am based in southeast London, but cover the whole of London.
For more information, please contact me using the form below:
